What is cloud migration?

To start with, let’s check what cloud migration is.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the impending recession accelerated the process of cloud migration for many companies, mainly due to the global shift to the online world and cloud businesses. People working remotely needed instant access to their employers’ assets, and cloud migration granted it, made it safe, and obvious.

Why moving your business’s data to the cloud is essential?

Today, cloud migration is seen as an indispensable element of every digital transformation. Companies decide to turn to cloud businesses as it has massive impact on their operations, customer service and efficiency.

The most important benefits of cloud migration include:

• cost effectiveness – cloud migration allows to cut down (or even eliminate) costs of maintenance of an on-premises data centre,
• reliability – cloud service providers guarantee reliability of their cloud solutions, eliminating any risks related to a workstation failure, 
• mobility – data saved in cloud means increased mobility and allows access from various devices, including smartphones and tablets,
• sustainability – statistics say using cloud solutions reduces energy consumption and carbon emissions by at least 30% compared to the use of on-site servers,
• improved productivity – cloud migration decreases the amount of in-house work related to the maintenance of infrastructure, allowing IT teams to focus on other important work,
• improved security – information stored in cloud is encrypted which protects it from cybercriminals and any unauthorised access,
• improved scalability and flexibility – cloud migration allows companies to optimise and adjust their resources to their current needs and situation.

Which companies have moved to the cloud?

A recent research states that in the next year as many as 48% of companies plan to migrate at least half of their applications to the cloud, while 20% want to do the full cloud migration.

Which of the big players have already implemented their cloud migration strategy?

Some of the companies that have already moved to the cloud include:

• Netflix – the movie streaming service, which uses cloud for cost-effectives scaling of its infrastructure,
• social media platform Instagram which decided to do cloud migration as it gave them better scalability,
• Apple which turned to cloud migration for better management of their Siri application,
• Etsy – an ecommerce giant that uses cloud migration to improve their data analysis.
• Capital One – financial services company that decided to use public cloud rather than a private one,
• Delta Medical – a pharma company which migrated to the cloud to streamline its business processes.

How many companies are migrating to the cloud?

Statistics say that as many as 94% of enterprises use some kind of cloud services. As of 2022, the global cloud computing industry market was worth $480.04 billion. According to a research by Gartner, by 2025 95% of data will be hosted in the cloud and over 95% of businesses will be using cloud computing.

Given the trend, global cloud migration services market is also on the rise, as shown on the diagram below. 

Tips for maintaining successful long-term cloud computing implementation plans

While cloud migration is a necessity and it can greatly improve your efficiency while lowering your IT costs, it is important to implement it wisely, as the cloud migration can also create problems if it’s not designed and managed in the right way.

Here are some tips for maintaining successful long-term cloud migration strategy:

1. Analyse your situation and set a goal for your cloud migration

Successful cloud migration process starts with a thorough analysis of your current system, needs and problems you want to address. That’s done, think of the goal you want to achieve and the deadline for your cloud migration project. Then prepare your cloud migration plan.

2. Check and test various solutions

Knowing your goal and needs, check which solutions and cloud providers would be best for your cloud strategy. See what others think of them, execute a proof of concept and experiment, also considering the security level different solutions provide.

3. Choose a respectable cloud migration partner

When choosing your future cloud migration partner that will take you through your cloud journey, take into consideration:

1. the company’s reputation, 
2. reviews they got from their other clients,
3. their experience in implementing cloud migration.

4. Decide on the right method of cloud migration deployment

When implementing your cloud migration strategy, it is important to choose the right method of your migration deployment, depending on the work packages you have.

5. Monitor and optimise 

Monitoring and optimising your system are one of the most crucial things you need to keep doing after your cloud migration process finishes. You can do it in-house, or you can choose an external partner that will take care of it, making sure your solution is always updated and works to its full potential.

6. Train your staff

When undertaking your digital transformation and doing cloud migration process, never forget about informing and educating your team on what’s exactly going on and what’s their part in the whole process.

When choosing your cloud migration partner…

When planning your cloud migration process and thinking about various cloud migration strategies, the most important thing is to ask questions and have a reliable source to answer them. We will be happy to help and discuss your cloud migration risks, common migration challenges and what cloud solutions will be best for your business.