If you consider moving to the cloud, there are several main questions your business needs to think about before migration takes place. Otherwise, you may risk problems during transitioning to the cloud that could cause unwanted downtime and revenue loss.
What is your reason to move to the cloud?
Before moving to the cloud, your business should take enough time to understand how cloud services work and the benefits they provide to them as a customer. Outsourcing a solution does not always guarantee immediate profit gains and big capital returns in the very beginning. Depending on the individual use case, and whether the company is moving data from their on-premise infrastructureto the cloud or adopting a cloud-first strategy as part of a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) business model, the considerations will be vastly different. If there is a common denominator between these business customers, this is probably the goal of cost-efficiency by using cloud solutions, through moving corporate data partially or fully to the cloud. Even if you aim for higher profit margins and this is your ultimate goal from this transition, we’d still advise you to consider your intent carefully and make sure it aligns with what your cloud solution has to offer to your business.
What do you expect from the cloud?
After becoming aware of the benefits of the cloud, it’s important to be in tune with the practical uses of the solutions you narrow your search to. There are hundreds and thousands of cloud providers, offering a wide range of services and rates. If you know very well where you stand with your existing infrastructure, you can look for providers that can facilitate the moving step more seamlessly by meeting the individual needs of your business front and center. Once again, every customer is different and so are their requirements when migrating to the cloud. You could be perfectly satisfied with a virtual desktop solution in a multi-tenant (public) cloud or your industry’s compliance standards may not potentially allow that move. Do you expect to transition your entire architecture or utilize a hybrid cloud solution as a supplement to your operations? By answering those, you can find a cloud vendor that can provide your business with the right solution for your business and save you the headache of potential issues along these lines.
Does moving to the cloud align with your technical teams?
Moving to the cloud is often the easy part, while adaptation to the new arrangement is sometimes the bigger challenge! If your company relies on in-house IT teams to support the hardware infrastructure and perform their housekeeping duties by following a standardized operational model, it could be difficult for them to adjust to the reformation in the start. Cloud solutions like DaaS (Desktop-as-a-Service) by we-IT require no technical maintenance as all servicing and configurations are performed by the third-party company. Oftentimes, businesses crave a solution that would free up more time from their internal teams but they miss the business strategy following migration, which could optimize the workloads of their staff and develop the core competencies of the company, with attention to competitive business and profitability.
What applications are you moving to the cloud?
This is another key aspect of cloud migration that is crucial to the success of the whole transition process. It is simpler when the company has little on no data and applications on-premises but it gets more complicated if there is a lot of re-hosting to be done. Depending on the individual needs of the business and the cloud services they are looking to leverage in their existing model, moving applications will span over a different length of time. The good news is that regardless of the use case, cloud migration nowadays does not last longer than a week and operations typically proceed as normal in no time.
What will be your cloud usage?
A lot of customers enjoy the flexibility of cloud technology and the profitability prospects it brings to them by enabling the company to focus fully on its core business. However, they often lack a spend management plan before moving to the cloud which would them a fairly accurate estimate of the cloud assets they will be using on a monthly, or yearly basis. If you want to make the most of the cloud and generate satisfactory returns, your business needs to have a clear vision of the usage patterns in the company and the responsibilities of the staff relying on the cloud. This will help the business with its annual review, general performance, and allocation of resources for the future if the company wants to make the most of its cloud migration move!
