Top ten cloud migration roadblocks, challenges and solutions

Cloud migration is the process of moving information from an on-premises data centre to a cloud computing service. Today, cloud computing is a fast-growing technology adoption in every business. This demand has increased due to the need for cost containment and operational efficiency in every industry. Moving to the cloud for many of us means a massive migration of data and applications. This can be an exciting time that also presents a number of challenges.

Cloud migration challenges vary based on the type of cloud. Challenges with cloud migration may include cost, privacy, securely transferring the information, regulatory compliance, or concerns about lack of control over where the data will ultimately land. These issues can be dealt with by studying the business requirements, having a clear understanding of what applications are critical, and mapping them to services/capabilities offered in the cloud.

Listed in this blog, are the top ten challenges faced while migrating to cloud and solutions which companies can easily opt.

• Lack of skilled people

   lack of skilled people is one of the most common challenges faced by IT leaders today. The difficulty lies in finding employees with appropriate skills for both on-premises infrastructure as well as public cloud environments. There are not enough IT professionals who have experience in managing cloud environments and maintaining them. In fact, many organizations do not even know how to hire or train these people. As a result, they often end up spending more money on new hires than they would have spent on outsourcing their IT services to an experienced provider.

  Solution:

  In order to overcome this problem, companies must focus on training their existing staff so they can learn how to manage cloud platforms properly and effectively. If needed, companies may outsource tasks until their own staff are ready to take up. 

• Cost concerns

  An important aspect of any business is operational cost reduction, which should be your primary goal when considering any cloud migration solution. While it’s true that cloud computing will reduce the overall operating cost of running your business, it may increase your operational cost if you don’t plan well. You need to consider the cost of migrating data to a new infrastructure, as well as training your team on how to use the new tools. If you choose an affordable solution without considering how it will impact other parts of your business, then you’ll end up paying more money than expected.

  Solution:

  This can be offset by choosing an enterprise-grade cloud provider with built-in scalability and reliability. You must also educate yourself about different infrastructures and their impact on your overall business before planning the migration. The costs involved should be expected up front, so you can budget accordingly and avoid potential issues later on. Use the help of an expert, if you may, to analyse the cost to company. 

• Security issues

  Security is a top concern for most businesses, but even more so in the cloud as it comes to moving data off premise and storing it with hyperscalers such as  Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), etc. Data breaches have become commonplace in recent years and companies have been forced to rework their security strategies to deal with this increased threat. There have been recent improvements in security features available within AWS or other public clouds like Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), due to which these concerns have reduced significantly over time.

  Solution:

  You can deploy security tools such as firewalls or encryption software on top of existing infrastructure services so that your sensitive data remains safe.

• Compliance Concerns:

  The biggest challenge for IT heads is to keep track of all the regulatory requirements from different jurisdictions and make sure that the company complies with them. The most common compliance issues arise in the case of data privacy, data sovereignty and data residency laws.

  Solution:

  Compliance issues can be resolved by implementing proper controls and procedures into your existing processes. For example, if you want to migrate your infrastructure or application to AWS or Azure, then you need to ensure that all your systems are compliant with GDPR standards before migrating them over there.

• Lack of migration strategy:

  When it comes to moving your applications and data into the cloud, it’s important to have a well-defined plan. Many companies proceed without having a proper vision about their infrastructure due to which they run into problems down the road when it comes to upgrading or fixing bugs in those programs.

  Solution:

  Technical heads need to plan and visualise many aspects of migration before going for it. Such as, to be sure that any third-party software that runs on their servers is supported by the new platform; knowing what applications they want to move, how much data will be involved and what type of system each application uses- such as whether they’re based on Windows or Linux, etc.

• Application Performance:

  Applications that are dependent on local processing or storage will have problems running smoothly in the cloud. Some applications may also have compatibility issues with other applications in the same environment. This can make it difficult for users to complete their tasks effectively.

  Solution:

  To address this issue, you need to find ways to improve application performance in your environment before you begin migrating them to the cloud. In this way, you can ensure that your users can continue using their apps without any disruption when they move to the cloud.

• Data Loss Risks:

  Every organization has sensitive data they want to protect at all costs. If that data is moved into the cloud and stored on a third party’s servers, it creates an additional point of failure for sensitive information.

  Solution:

  There are many ways to avoid data loss while migrating to cloud or while on the cloud. You can store your data in multiple locations, buy an additional storage device for storing backups yourself, use cloud-based disaster recovery solutions, etc. Cloud Backup Solutions (CBR) offer excellent protection against data loss risks because they use cloud storage as a backup repository for your critical data. This way, you always have access to your files even if something goes wrong with your primary storage device or network connection.

• Downtime and Availability Risks:

  A downtime means loss of revenue for businesses and loss of productivity for employees. So, if you’re planning on migrating your organization’s applications and data to the cloud, there is always a risk of downtime and non-availability of applications during the migration process.
  Solution: You can avoid the same by planning ahead. Make sure that you have sufficient resources available so that no critical applications or services go down during the migration process. If there’s any chance of downtime during the migration, do not schedule it during peak hours or weekends when most users will be accessing those services/applications.

• Storage Management Issues: 

  The biggest challenge in cloud migration is storage management. You may want to store the backup on-premises or in the cloud, but if you do this, you will need storage capacity that is big enough to hold all your backups. This can be challenging if you have many different types of data that are stored in various formats – especially if some of it is mission-critical and must be available at all times.
  Solution: Cloud providers offer different types of storage options such as object storage, block storage and file storage. You need to understand the pros and cons of each type and select the right type of storage based on your requirements so that you can migrate all your data seamlessly without any loss or corruption.

• Time consuming and labour-intensive task:

  As with any project, cloud migration will take time and effort. The challenge lies in finding ways to streamline the process so that it doesn’t take too much time away from your day-to-day responsibilities.
  Solution: One way to do this is by creating a plan for the entire project. This includes determining what needs to be migrated first, what can wait until later and what can be done in parallel with other aspects of your IT strategy.

Conclusion

It should now be clear that cloud migration is a big change for any organization. With the growing trend of cloud services, there is no doubt that migration to cloud platform is inevitable. There are many challenges in the cloud migration as listed above. To ensure a smooth transition from on-premises implementation to the cloud deployment and remove all challenges, one needs to hire a reliable services provider whose expertise lies in the same.Trusted by world-class customers, MSRcosmos is a leading cloud migration services partner. Our highly differentiated cloud migration experts help you extract the full power of cloud with their thorough expertise and stress-free approach.Migrating major infrastructure alone is difficult; therefore, having an experienced partner like MSRcosmos can help you conquer your cloud migration challenges.