A lot of talk about the Cloud – 3 important things to consider before migrating to Cloud

Today, systems and servers are migrated to the cloud at a steadily increasing pace. Gartner forecasts that the worldwide public cloud services market will grow at a pace of more than 20 percentage points over the next three years.

The most well-known public cloud platforms include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. One obvious driver for this growth is the benefit offered by the cloud architecture to the business: scalability, availability, data security and automation.

Almost any system can be moved to the cloud. However, the cloud migration strategy depends on a series of factors – especially in the case of an existing information system that has not been designed to be compatible with public cloud services. Then, in most cases, software development is needed, or at least an understanding of the big picture: what is worth developing and moving, and what, in general, is sensible and possible? 

Although the migration means a temporary increase of resources, the benefits and possibilities offered by the cloud service are worthy of investment. 

What should be considered in a cloud migration project?

1. From the point of view of software development, a migration project largely depends on how the existing system has been built and how large background modifications are necessary before the actual migration. To move an existing system to the cloud as such is perhaps not sensible at all, but the migration project gives a good opportunity to also examine the system in view of software development. While modifying the system to run in a cloud platform, would it be reasonable to review it completely and optimize applications more from the perspective of the cloud platform?
2. It is good to consider the desired result, the type of cloud platform to which the system will be moved, as well as the requirements set by the existing architecture.  Very often, instead of a cloud migration, we can speak of a so-called cloud transformation. In addition to the actual migration, a cloud transformation focuses on developing and optimizing the system towards a more cloud-native approach, allowing more versatile and effective utilization of the features and services of the chosen cloud platform. This means that instead of just copying the old, new things are created and developed in view of the new approach. 
3. In addition to technical limitations, migration to the cloud may be affected by cost and schedule pressures, regulatory matters, customer promises given to system end users, etc. A realistic schedule and a step-by-step approach are essential for a successful migration project to prevent potential service interruptions and avoid challenges already in advance. The system should be first converted to a cloud-native form before starting the actual transformation or migration project. This helps avoid incompatibility problems that could be faced during the actual migration.

The most significant benefits of a cloud migration are achieved with careful planning and continuous development

One of the most well-known benefits of public cloud services is their scalability. Instead of having to purchase physical servers for increasing data center efficiency and capacity, in a cloud platform, additional capacity can be purchased with a touch of a button. In practice, additional cloud capacity is immediately available and the customer only pays for what they need. Furthermore, latest updates are available at a click of a button or can be selected as automatic downloads.

A cloud migration does not necessarily bring immediate cost savings; however, remarkable benefits are achieved in the long term thanks to the scalability. Costs also depend, among other things, on investments made in the development and optimization of the system. The benefits enabled by a cloud service will have a wider influence on the business: the saving achieved cannot be calculated simply based on the monthly rate.

Moving to the cloud adds efficiency to internal operations of the maintenance team as versatile management and maintenance tools enable more flexible operations and faster development. Several tasks that were previously performed manually, such as monthly updates and “overhauls”, can be automated, which will directly reduce the amount of manual work. The maintenance team only need to inform the customers of maintenance and service interruptions; everything else takes place automatically. A cloud service can notably add controllability and predictability to operating a platform and speed up development once the services are fully built and provided with automatic functions. On the other hand, modern systems and platforms with easy-to-use features and inspiring new technologies can also increase the meaningfulness of work. When competing for the best IT experts, availability of modern systems is absolutely not a disadvantage. 

If necessary, an expert partner supports the internal maintenance team in optimizing the system and putting new operating models into practice. Did you become interested in the possibilities offered by a public cloud service? Read Visma’s success story to discover more of a successful migration project!

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