Is Your Cloud Migration Strategy Helping or Hurting Your Business?

Migrating applications and data to the cloud increasingly means dealing with multiple cloud providers and platforms. This is not an easy feat and most organizations struggle with choosing the right cloud for the right workloads. Many businesses now turn to consulting services providers to assist with cloud migration strategy and execution. We look at why cloud migrations are getting so complex and how consulting services providers help facilitate the process.

Cloud strategies and platforms are growing increasingly complex

A 2019 survey found that 84% of enterprises have a multicloud strategy, and 69% use at least one public and one private cloud. However, multicloud computing is a complex undertaking.

Migrating multiple applications, and their data to disparate cloud environments requires in-depth expertise and familiarity with the range of cloud providers and options. It involves wrestling with complex questions: Are my shrinking budget and IT staff ready for complex cloud migration? Do we have the time to conduct a proper migration ourselves? What type of cloud environment is best—public or private, software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service or infrastructure services? What are the performance and storage requirements for the different applications? There are also considerations for data privacy and cybersecurity, connection costs, scalability, application compatibility, and customization requirements.

In addition, cloud technologies and their potential use cases are evolving rapidly. An innovative idea can become a mainstream business model within a year or two. That makes cloud migration strategy, execution and maintenance much more challenging. Cloud environments are constantly changing. IT staff may be asked to incorporate a transformative new technology into an already-planned migration or be ready to extend a completed migration for a new use case.

Without an in-house experienced staff (and the time to dedicate your staff to a cloud migration), an organization risks an unsuccessful migration. A 2017 study by Dimensional Research found that almost half of all cloud migrations take longer, and cost more than expected. More than six in ten companies surveyed said their cloud migration projects were harder than expected, and nearly three in four were taking more than a year to complete, with 43% taking longer than two years.

Some turn to the professionals for cloud migration strategy

The culprit is most often a lack of knowledge and experience, which is why more organizations are seeking help from consulting services providers that offer cloud migration services. Companies are increasingly taking advantage of professional cloud services: The cloud migration services market is projected to reach $9.6 billion in 2023— a healthy 22% annual growth rate.

Consulting services providers are equipped with tools such as standardized processes and templates for dealing with common issues and are familiar with many different cloud providers and platforms. All that accumulated knowledge can ensure a faster, more successful migration.

Providers offer services like:

Cloud readiness assessments

Assessing your organization’s current and future needs is vital to understanding what applications and data can be migrated to the cloud. The cloud readiness assessment looks at your existing IT infrastructure, security and compliance requirements, new and existing workloads, your team’s ability to manage a cloud, and IT budgets and costs. This step is key to a successful cloud migration.

Hosting strategy and the cloud migration

As complex IT environments are shifted to the cloud, integration and interoperability become critical, as well as more complex. Cloud platforms and services can be evaluated on multiple factors, from location and cost to network connections, platforms, and disaster recovery capabilities. This evaluation will require in-depth knowledge of integration and cloud technologies as well as experience with the specific applications and cloud platforms. A consulting services provider will help you select the right cloud platform for your business’s workloads, based on their knowledge and your cloud assessment results. They will also implement the migration project based on your migration plan.

Also read: How to Migrate to the Cloud without the Headaches

Long-term support & additional managed services

A consulting services provider can also provide ongoing support beyond a cloud migration. Providers will support the environment with monitoring and management of performance. Providers can also offer additional services beyond the actual cloud migration to address your environment’s needs, like cybersecurity monitoring, disaster recovery and business continuity planning and testing, managed application management, and help desk services.

How does your cloud migration strategy look?

Consulting services providers have people on staff with diverse experience, and they have the resources to keep in front of new innovations. TierPoint IT Consulting Services supports all types of cloud migrations, including from on-premise to the cloud, from one cloud to another, and to multiple clouds, public or private.

From assessment to design and from implementation to long-term support and management, TierPoint can help make a cloud migration faster, easier, and less costly. Contact us today to learn more.