Businesses today can have different motivations to begin a cloud migration process. For the majority of companies since the start of the pandemic, the main driver was the restrictive working environment that would only be open to remote operations from home. In that instance, on-premise infrastructure had to switch production fully or partially to the cloud to allow remote access to workstations. Another key prerequisite for cloud migration was the big shift in spending companies knew that they had to make by choosing a managed service provider over purchasing and maintaining their own IT infrastructure.

How did customer perception change?

 

It is no secret that cloud migration was dreaded by many companies and their chairmen pre-pandemic due to the stigma of compromised cloud security and the difficulty of the whole migration process. In 2021 the situation is vastly different. Over 81% of enterprises today are using one or more cloud-based applications and over 90% of all corporations have adopted a multi-cloud strategy. This surge in interest helped to earn the trust of clients in the cloud migration process and it proved that moving to the cloud is a winning strategy overall.

Which are clients choosing cloud migration?

 

Making the first steps to move to the cloud will differ based on the specific needs of the client. A lot of companies have existing on-premises infrastructure which they use to deploy some of their software applications or to store databases. It is also not uncommon to see cloud migration taking place for enterprises that have legacy infrastructure, meaning that it is outdated and they want to move to a more advanced solution. The third most common case scenario is SMBs that have no or little experience with cloud-hosted services and they choose to embrace the process wholeheartedly.

How do you prepare for cloud migration?

 

Once you establish that cloud migration is the only way forward for your company, the next step would be auditing your existing IT infrastructure. This should list how all devices, networking equipment, and servers are set up within the company and how information is distributed across. Sometimes cloud providers would charge for performing the audit, but others like we-IT would cover the cost from the start. Cloud migration is a great way to overview your current infrastructure, obsolete equipment and set some new operational goals. A great strategy requires a thorough review and clear documentation of what needs to be moved to the cloud or stay on-premises. This initial stage of your strategy would obviously take a lot less time if you were only just starting with using cloud-based services and your company was relying mainly on traditional desktops.

Finding a reliable cloud provider

 

This second step in the cloud migration strategy can precede step one if you manage to find a reliable provider that can help you in the prep stages (and not charge you extortionate sums). Oftentimes though, clients prefer to audit their infrastructure internally and then look for a suitable quote from different providers. It’s important in that case to be very specific as to what your individual needs are as a business and what options can vendors provide to you to meet your requests. Some companies prefer to stick to a private cloud, while others that host their on-premise infrastructure would rather go for a hybrid cloud solution. When looking for the right provider, clients should be considerate of their own needs and search for trusted parties that can provide a comprehensive service.

Finally migrating to the cloud

 

After you completed the initial steps in cloud migration, the move could commence. Our best advice is to find a provider that can handle the whole migration for you, rather than split the work between internal IT teams and the cloud specialists teams. This way, migration can be consolidated in a single place, by the same group of knowledgeable experts, who will keep your data centralized and closely monitored at all times. This would also reduce the workload of your in-house teams and speed up the cloud migration process overall.

we-IT can provision the entire configuration for every client and respond to their individual needs as per. How and where your data is deployed is entirely up to the customer, based on what cloud platform they choose to use and for what purposes.

We can help you in every stage of your cloud migration and answer all of your difficult questions in no time!