There are multiple aspects to consider when planning a cloud migration. Let’s take a look at three of the most important: data, applications, and management/operations.

Considerations for Migrating Data to the Cloud

Your approach to data in the cloud will depend on the purpose for migrating that data to the cloud. There are different prices for different tiers of storage with different performance characteristics, and keeping cloud costs in check requires selecting the appropriate tier. Archival data that doesn’t require frequent, rapid access should use the lowest-cost tier.

Other data that needs to be accessed more rapidly should be on better performing, more expensive storage tiers. Costs can be reduced by deduplicating data to reduce the amount of storage required. Stored data should be proactively monitored and managed to delete data or move it to lower cost storage as it ages.

Considerations for Migrating Applications to the Cloud

Few applications are truly isolated from other workflows and business processes, so  it’s important to understand any dependencies before transitioning to cloud. As with data, understanding the purpose of the cloud migration will allow you to select the most appropriate, cost-effective instance. Consider placing instances in a different region if the costs will be lower and performance requirements can be met. Don’t forget to address backup and recovery requirements.

Considerations for Migrating Management and Operations to the Cloud

Effective management requires visibility, but cloud can get in the way. If you have multiple cloud providers, each has its own tool for system management and presents data differently; consolidating into a single view can require third-party tools or custom development. Even with a single cloud provider, visibility is limited to whatever data the cloud provider shares. Generally there’s no data regarding the underlying hardware, other virtual machines on the shared box, or other sources of network traffic, all of which can make investigating performance problems or optimizing performance difficult.

In addition, because different clouds have different ways of addressing the same function, automation and ensuring consistent configurations across platforms is difficult. A final management consideration, security, needs special attention, as clouds by definition are shared environments not fully under your own control. Governance processes need to be rethought to provide effective control over cloud platforms, where self-service can make it harder to restrict usage of data.

Get help addressing these and other cloud challenges from the team at Prescient Solutions. Our certified experts help businesses in the Chicago and Schaumburg area tackle all the challenges that come before, during, and after migration to the cloud. Contact us to learn more about the many issues to consider as you plan a cloud migration.