What Is Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration involves moving digital assets, including data, applications, and services, from on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based servers. This process allows organizations to leverage cloud computing benefits such as scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency.
Cloud migration can also refer to switching between different cloud providers or moving workloads within cloud environments to optimize performance and resources. It transforms IT operations by utilizing cloud platforms that offer diverse service models—infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS).
The transition to the cloud can be complex, depending on the existing architecture, application compatibility, and business objectives. Organizations may need to redesign applications for the cloud or choose faster rehosting methods. This migration is often part of digital transformation strategies and requires careful planning to minimize disruption.
This is part of a series of articles about Cloud Migration-FM
Common Cloud Migration Challenges
Migrating to the cloud offers numerous benefits, but organizations often encounter several challenges during the process:
- Infrastructure compatibility: Legacy systems and applications may not be readily compatible with cloud environments, requiring modifications or complete redesigns to function effectively.
- Data security and compliance: Transferring sensitive data to the cloud introduces security risks and may require adherence to industry-specific regulations, demanding robust security measures and compliance strategies.
- Cost management: While cloud services can reduce capital expenditures, they may lead to unexpected operational costs if not properly managed, especially with complex pricing models and potential for resource over-provisioning.
- Downtime and business continuity: The migration process can cause service interruptions, affecting business operations and customer experience if not carefully planned and executed.
- Skill gaps: Organizations may lack the necessary in-house expertise to manage cloud environments, requiring investment in training or hiring skilled professionals.
- Data transfer and latency: Moving large volumes of data to the cloud can be time-consuming and may introduce latency issues, impacting application performance.
- Vendor lock-in: Dependence on a single cloud provider can limit flexibility and make future migrations challenging, emphasizing the need for strategies to avoid vendor lock-in.
Best Practices for Successful Cloud Migration
Here are some of the best practices that organizations can adopt to help overcome the challenges associated with migrating systems and data to the cloud.
1. Start with a Clear Strategy
Creating a migration strategy involves defining goals, understanding business needs, and mapping out a plan for the transition. A well-articulated strategy guides decision-making, aligns team efforts, and ensures all actions contribute to achieving desired outcomes. By identifying potential risks and setting realistic timelines, organizations can manage complexities.
When developing a strategy, engaging cross-functional teams to gather diverse insights on organizational needs is important. This collaboration helps ensure the strategy addresses technical and business considerations, improving migration readiness.
2. Adopt a Phased Migration Approach
A phased migration approach, such as migrating workloads in stages rather than all at once, helps reduce risk and allows teams to address issues as they arise without impacting the entire infrastructure. Starting with non-critical applications or low-complexity workloads enables teams to test migration strategies, validate performance, and troubleshoot before moving essential or complex systems.
This approach allows organizations to refine processes and gain confidence in the cloud environment incrementally, helping minimize disruptions to business operations and ensuring a smoother transition.
3. Use Automation
Automation tools simplify cloud migration, reducing the possibility of manual errors and expediting the transition. These tools can support application deployment, configuration, and testing, ensuring consistent performance and efficiency migration processes. Automation enables faster resource provisioning, load balancing, and scaling.
Incorporating automation into migration helps standardize processes, minimize human intervention, and save time. This approach enables organizations to allocate resources strategically, focusing on tasks that require human expertise while automating routine activities.
Learn more in our detailed guide to cloud migration tools
4. Establish Post-Migration Performance Monitoring and Optimization
Once applications and data are migrated, continuous monitoring is essential to maintain performance and optimize the cloud environment over time. Establishing a monitoring framework helps identify potential bottlenecks, manage latency, and ensure that workloads perform as expected. Tools for performance tracking, alerting, and analytics can provide real-time insights into system health and efficiency.
Optimization efforts—such as adjusting configurations, scaling resources based on demand, and periodically reviewing architecture—help ensure the environment remains cost-effective and high-performing. Regular audits also keep security and compliance measures up to date.
5. Plan for Downtime and Disaster Recovery
Organizations must identify potential impact areas and establish contingency plans, including fallback procedures and backup systems, to maintain business continuity. A well-designed disaster recovery plan minimizes loss and enables quick restoration of services, improving resilience against unanticipated disruptions.
Establishing key recovery metrics like recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) helps guide informed disaster recovery strategies. Regularly testing these plans ensures they remain responsive to changes in the environment.
6. Use AI and Machine Learning in Migration Processes
AI and machine learning are increasingly used to simplify cloud migration by automating complex tasks and optimizing processes. Through intelligent analysis, these technologies identify patterns and predict potential issues, allowing action to prevent disruptions. AI-driven tools help ensure application compatibility and provide insights to refine migration strategies.
Machine learning algorithms can also automate resource management, scaling applications in real time to match demand and optimize cost-efficiency. This application of AI accelerates migration efforts and ensures systematic performance improvements over time.
7. Prioritize Application Assessment and Dependency Mapping
Before migration, organizations should prioritize a thorough assessment of their applications and identify interdependencies across systems. By evaluating each application’s requirements, compatibility, and current performance, teams can determine the optimal migration path—whether it’s lift-and-shift, re-platforming, or refactoring.
Additionally, understanding application dependencies ensures that essential connections are preserved during migration, reducing the risk of downtime or performance degradation. Creating a dependency map helps identify which applications or services must migrate together and which can move independently.
8. Train and Upskill Teams for Cloud Proficiency
Investing in team training and upskilling ensures that staff have the necessary skills to manage and maintain cloud environments. Cloud migration often introduces new tools, processes, and security measures that require specialized knowledge. Providing hands-on training and certifications in cloud technologies and platforms helps IT teams adapt to the new environment.
Ongoing training programs should include best practices for cloud security, data management, and cost optimization to support long-term operational success. Equipping teams with relevant skills reduces dependency on third-party consultants and builds in-house expertise.
Related content: Read our guide to application migration
9. Implement Robust Security and Compliance Measures
Migrating to the cloud requires rethinking security protocols to protect data and comply with regulations. Organizations should incorporate security measures such as identity and access management (IAM), encryption, and regular vulnerability assessments. It’s essential to implement multi-factor authentication and establish a zero-trust architecture to secure sensitive data.
Staying compliant with industry standards (like GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2) ensures that the organization meets legal requirements and avoids penalties. Continuous monitoring and logging help detect anomalies and respond to threats quickly, strengthening the overall security posture during and after migration.
10. Optimize for Cost Management and Resource Allocation
Cloud migration introduces new cost structures, so it’s crucial to monitor and manage expenses carefully. Implementing cost tracking and alerting tools helps teams stay within budget and avoid unexpected charges. Rightsizing resources—ensuring they match demand without excess capacity—can prevent over-provisioning and reduce unnecessary costs.
Consider using reserved instances or savings plans for predictable workloads and spot instances for variable tasks to maximize cost efficiency. Regularly reviewing resource usage and adjusting allocations according to workload changes further supports effective cost management in the cloud.
Cloud Migration Made Easy with Faddom
Faddom simplifies cloud migration by offering real-time application dependency mapping, which is crucial for migrating workloads efficiently. With Faddom, you can automatically discover all on-premises applications and their dependencies, providing full visibility before migration. The agentless solution doesn’t require credentials to scan your environment, and it’s highly cost-effective, starting at just $10K per year. Faddom maps your entire infrastructure in real-time, continuously updating maps 24/7. One person can map a whole data center in under an hour.
Learn more about how Faddom can streamline your data center migration, or get started with a free trial today by filling out the form to the right!
