Although businesses are moving their data and applications to public cloud environments, some are struggling to get their cloud migration plans off the ground. Whether it’s due to a lack of planning, testing, or foresight, many businesses face a number of common cloud migration challenges when beginning a project.
This morning, I had a call with a company discussing their cloud migration journey. While our conversation primarily focused on their deployment, I realized that many of the challenges they faced were similar to those I’ve heard from other organizations.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of six common cloud migration mistakes that many companies encounter.
1️⃣ Lack of planning – Without a clear strategy for which workloads should be migrated and how they will function in the cloud, organizations risk significant costs, delays, and project setbacks.
2️⃣ Lifting and shifting everything at once – Many businesses assume that a full lift-and-shift approach will minimize disruption. However, moving too much too quickly—without proper testing—can lead to major operational challenges.
3️⃣ Failure to pre-test – Without testing in advance, organizations may not fully understand how applications and servers will behave in the cloud. If issues arise post-migration, rolling back can be complex and time-consuming.
4️⃣ Overlooking the end-user experience – Some legacy applications may not perform well in a cloud environment. Engaging end-users early and documenting performance differences can help determine whether migration is the right move.
5️⃣ Poor user adoption – Not everyone trusts or embraces cloud technology right away. Getting end-users involved from the start and ensuring they feel heard can make a significant difference in adoption and long-term success.
6️⃣ Going it alone – Even for small environments, cloud migrations often require expertise in networking, cloud computing, and virtualization. Having the right team in place can help avoid unexpected challenges and ensure a smoother transition.
Overcoming cloud migration challenges
If you move too much too soon, fail to test the cloud environment, or overlook the user experience, even a well-thought-out plan runs the risk of overspending and under-delivering. This will result in a poor user adoption that can significantly affect your business’ revenue and reputation.
To mitigate these risks, it’s important to work with a third-party provider to get a full, unbiased picture of the state of your current data, platform and processes, and how these can translate into a cloud environment. This support, whether it’s during your initial proof-of-concept phase or throughout your migration process, allows you to easily overcome the cloud migration challenges that your competitors are stumbling on.
Key takeaways
- A lack of planning will lead to significant costs, delays and disruptions to your project.
- A lift and shift migration can cause downtime due to legacy applications being too large, out of date, or unable to run outside their current infrastructure.
- In-depth testing should be carried out to ensure that the application works structurally and operationally.
- By overlooking what your team actually want and need from a system, you’re minimizing the chances of a successful user adoption.
- Every IT team has gaps in their knowledge. Working with cloud migration experts can allow you to minimize the chance of potential risks and maximize success.
What are your thoughts? Have you encountered other key challenges in cloud migrations?
