Using Cloud Migration Best Practices for Your Network

When used properly, cloud services can offer businesses many benefits. They often include reduced costs and fewer pieces of hardware to manage. However, moving to the cloud has its challenges, which is why you should identify any challenges your business might face during your data’s migration to the cloud. You should then use the best practices listed below to combat these challenges.

Cloud Migration Challenges

The cloud migration process is a big step, so it can be tough to move all your software and applications to the cloud without running into some obstacles. The challenges you might face include:

• Disruption and downtime: Often, businesses can experience downtime if they’re not careful as they undergo cloud adoption and migration. You should make sure you use solutions that will give your users and customers access to their accounts and their data as your migrate your data to a cloud environment.
• Security and compliance: Perform your due diligence and research the regulations you need to comply with when you move to the cloud. Also, when you select a cloud service provider, pay attention to the security services they offer, and determine how you can use them for your business. If you don’t, your data could be left exposed to breaches and cyberattacks.
• Wasted cloud budget: Some studies have found that business end up wasting up to 30% of their cloud budgets. Make sure you’re purchasing and investing in cloud services and applications your business will use so you don’t end up with services you won’t use.
• Personnel skills gaps: Many times, when a business migrates to the cloud, its team members don’t understand how to migrate. Partnering with a managed service provider can help your business access the skills you need to migrate to cloud computing services successfully. You can also set up training sessions to make sure all your departments have an awareness of cloud service operations before you move to the cloud.

Cloud Migration Best Practices

Select a Migration Strategy

Choosing a cloud migration strategy is extremely important, since it will determine what kind of cloud infrastructure and applications your business will use. Gartner calls these strategies “the 5 R’s,” and they include:

• Rehost: This strategy is for businesses that want to move their data to the cloud quickly. It’s also known as a “lift and shift” strategy. During this process, you’re moving your data to the cloud without restructuring its architecture or applications.
• Replatform: The network’s core architecture also stays the same in this strategy. In a replatform, application management can be simplified, which can reduce management costs.
• Repurchase: In this strategy, businesses switch from one product to another to take advantage of the new product’s capabilities and features.
• Refactoring: This strategy is complicated, since it involves restructuring an application environment’s architecture when it does not fit the business’s needs.
• Retire: When business members realize certain cloud applications won’t be used, those applications can be retired before the cloud environment is complete.

Optimize Your Cloud Provider’s Network

Most cloud services operate through the network, but some can give their customers faster internet connections. Others can provide connections that link directly from the customers’ networks to the provider’s services and bypass the internet entirely. Contact your provider and see if you can use this type of connection for your network so it runs efficiently and doesn’t face any interruptions or downtime.

Use Automation Where Possible

If you have many repeated patterns in your network and your applications, you should automate them to minimize disruption within your network. When you automate your applications in a cloud environment, you can lower the costs and risks of cloud migration. Automating those applications also speeds up the cloud migration process.

Cloud Migration Services for Your Business

At Pure IT, we offer Office 365 migration services, and we are specialists in Office 365 SharePoint migration. We can help you migrate your mailbox and use OneDrive for business and SharePoint migration tools. If you are interested in our cloud migration services or if you have any questions about them, contact us today.