Aligning Cloud Migration Strategy with Business Objectives

An enterprise can reap a number of benefits by migrating its apps and data to the cloud. For instance, an enterprise can opt for cloud computing to avoid building and maintaining on-premise infrastructure. At the same time, cloud computing also helps businesses to improve flexibility, agility, performance, and security. While preparing a cloud migrating strategy, the enterprises have to align it with precise business objectives to take advantage of cloud-based services fully.

Reskilling People and Upgrading Processes

As noted earlier, no enterprise can leverage cloud computing without overcoming constraints related to deeply skilled resources. The organizations must reskill and upskill existing employees to enable them to access data stored in and apps running in the cloud. At the same time, they also need to upgrade existing processes as part of cloud adoption and migration. Many enterprises set up test centers to simplify cloud migration by upgrading their business processes gradually.

Updating or Changing Specific Software Applications

The legacy enterprise applications use a variety of third-party software components. While moving an existing application to the cloud, the third-party components also need to be installed. But there are a number of third-party software components which are obsolete or not cloud-ready. Some vendors even require an enterprise to subscribe to updated versions of the software component. Hence, availability and compatibility of third-party software applications in a major challenge in cloud application migration.

Overcoming Operating System Incompatibility

Many enterprises do not update their operating systems at regular intervals. A large percentage of legacy enterprise applications still run on older versions of major operating systems. The leading cloud platforms support the latest versions of widely used operating systems. But many cloud platforms do no support older versions of these operating systems. Hence, the enterprise applications cannot be moved to the cloud directly before running on the latest version of the operating system.

Resolving Recurring Database Issues

Major cloud platforms support both relational and non-relational databases. The enterprises even have an option to cloud-ready editions of widely used SQL databases. But the enterprise applications will stop functioning in the cloud if the version or type of database changes. The changes in the type or version of the database further require elaborate and continuous software testing. The software testing process helps developers to resolve recurring database issue while extending the cloud migration process.

Keeping Legacy Systems and Cloud Apps Interoperable

Many enterprises nowadays develop, test, and deploy applications in the cloud. But a large percentage of legacy enterprise applications are not cloud ready. No enterprise can carry out business operation smoothly without integrating the legacy enterprise solutions and cloud-based applications seamlessly. The enterprises have to set up a hybrid cloud environment to avail the software and services consistently.

Redesigning the On-Premise Infrastructure

When an enterprise opts for cloud computing, it needs to redesign its existing infrastructure. The redesigning of on-premise infrastructure requires additional time and resources. Also, an enterprise has to complete architecture redesigning before migrating its applications and data to the cloud. Hence, enterprises have to explore a way to speed up cloud migration while making changes to specific aspects of the existing IT infrastructure.

Estimating Cloud Computing and Migration Cost

Many enterprises opt for cloud computing to pay-per-pricing model. But enterprises often find it difficult to estimate the cost of cloud-based services accurately. They normally focus on the cost per each service unit, while ignoring the monthly or yearly cost. The enterprises have to measure the consumption of in-house resources and services to determine the cloud-based resource requirements. They can even estimate the cost of cloud computing based on the on-premise resource consumption.

On the whole, each enterprise has to address a number of challenges while migrating its application and data to the cloud. The enterprises can easily avoid major cloud migration challenges by deploying skilled cloud engineers and advanced tools. They can even consider availing managed cloud services to move their apps and data to the cloud in an efficient and timely way.