10 Critical Questions About Migration to the Cloud

The shift to cloud-based technology services is a global trend you cannot deny. Over 94% of enterprises already use cloud services in their operations in some way, and even more are about to abandon their legacy software and employ a cloud solution.

There are multiple reasons behind such a move; the bottom line is that migrating to the cloud will most likely benefit your operation. The question then shifts to how do you handle the transfer to the cloud. To make this process easier for you, we’ve compiled a checklist of questions used during the migration of applications to the cloud.

1. What are Your Objectives with the Cloud Migration?

The first on the list of top questions to ask about cloud migration is: what do you expect your company to gain from it? Moving your operations to the cloud impacts your budgeting, flexibility, availability, security, and multiple other factors. You need to determine which are the most important to you to focus on them later on. Cloud migration depends entirely on your goals. If you’re not sure about what you’re trying to achieve, ask for professional advice.

Determining your objectives and ranking them in order of importance will help you distribute the resources you’ve allocated for the transition. It will also help you to choose the strategic and tactical approach to the process.

2. Do You Have the Resources Available to Support the Move?

The next item on the list of critical questions about migration to the cloud is what capabilities you actually possess to support the moving process. This includes time, money, experienced employees, technology expertise, and more.

Overall, you need to perform a cloud readiness assessment of your company. And it needs to be thorough — if you overlook anything, it might impact the move and result in unforeseen challenges. If you determine that the cost is too high for your business, it might be better to drop it.

3. Should You Tackle It Internally or Outsource It?

If your IT team does not have a skillset or appropriate technology expertise to support the move, it might be better to outsource the migrating effort. While hiring an internal team gives you more control over the process, outsourcing the effort frees up time to focus on your core values.

Nowadays, more and more companies choose the mix of both approaches. They expand their internal teams with other specialists. This approach has multiple benefits, like experience-sharing and more effective resource and workload distribution. This makes system maintenance easier to manage internally later on.

How to choose a qualified modernization vendor? Find the answers here. 9 Questions to Validate Your Legacy Modernization Vendor Before Starting the Cloud Migration Process

4. How Flexible is the CSP?

A cloud service provider (CSP) is your main partner during the move from your outdated system. That’s why one of the most critical cloud migration questions to ask is who they are. Can you trust them with your database, and will they ensure a quality service at all times?

An important aspect you need to consider while choosing the CSP is how flexible they are. Will they allow you to add any controls of your own? Can you order additional services at any time? If you know what you need from the provider, you should not compromise and ask for anything less. If you want to pick a trustworthy provider, and you don’t want to forget anything important, use our checklist as a guideline.

5. Do You Have a Migration Strategy?

Next on the list of cloud migration questions is whether you have a detailed strategy on how to perform it. Having the right plan can make or break the process, so you need to be prepared well before you start.

Numerous migration strategies can be employed, but there are three main approaches you can use for software modernization:

• Rehosting — moving an existing application to the cloud as it is. This way, users don’t have to learn features of a new application, and you will get the benefits of cloud infrastructure;
• Replatforming — moving an existing application to the cloud while changing the underlying technology. This way, you can ensure improved performance and take full advantage of the new platform;
• Repurchasing — replacing a legacy application with a modern cloud-based solution.

6. Can You Do It Without Affecting Daily Operations?

This is one of the questions on cloud migration that concerns a lot of owners. Ideally, you would want to minimize the impact of migration on your operations. However, it is almost impossible to avoid any cutover — a period when the old system is no longer in use and the new one is not yet operational.

You can make the cutover time not as impactful on your operations by detailed planning of each step and having a skilled team by your side. Start preparing long before the cutover starts to have time on your side.

The matter of business continuity was vital for one of our clients who took on the migration path. His legacy Webforms system was clunky but it held all of the core processes. Our latest case study explains how to migrate to Azure without business disruptions in simple Azure migration steps.

7. Who Will Manage Security?

If data security is of utmost importance to your business, this is one of the most important questions to ask during data migration to the cloud. You need to trust the person behind it, and if it’s entirely in the hands of your CSP, it’s not an ideal situation.

You also need to choose the right tools to monitor, validate, and ensure data security. This will help you to manage any hiccups that might occur during the transition.

8. Did You Validate the Legacy Vendor?

Before you start to actually work with somebody, you need to make sure you can trust them. Ask the right questions to determine the strength and weaknesses of each of the legacy vendor options to pick the best one for your business. Check whether they conduct the risk assessment, execute the migration of databases, provide a rollback plan, and are flexible during the change management.

9. What is the Cost and Timeline for Cloud Migration?

The answer to this question depends a lot on your specific situation. However, it is essential to get a detailed and accurate answer since it will help you create the strategy and manage it on a better scale. You can get some help from a business analyst to get a more accurate answer.

10. Can the Apps be Further Optimized, and are They Scalable?

After you’ve answered all the questions during the migration of applications to the cloud, you need to consider the questions on the operation after the moving. As your company needs to be constantly evolving, you need to ask whether the applications you use can be optimized even more. Another important question is whether they will be able to accommodate your business if it keeps growing.

Consider ModLogix as Your Trusted Cloud Migration Partner

Now that you’re informed on what questions during cloud migration need answering, you can start your software modernization right away. However, if you don’t know how to answer some of them, we’re ready to help you. ModLogix has assisted multiple businesses with their transition to the cloud at every step of the way, so you can be sure we’re familiar with your situation as well.

If you need some additional help from great specialists, you can contact us at ModLogix to ensure that the transition process is handled well and that your upgrade is successful.