TierPoint | Cloud Migration without the Pitfalls

What do I need to know about cloud migration?

Whether you are considering outsourcing the hosting of an application or moving an entire data center to multiple clouds, cloud migration is crucial to your success. Regardless of the scope or complexity of your environment, a successful migration is hard to accomplish without a strategy, a comprehensive plan, and the expertise to execute.

Even the most knowledgeable IT pros don’t always have specific experience with, much less expertise in migration. Some common questions include:

Where do I start? How long is it going to take? How much will it cost? How much will I save by moving to the cloud?
How do I know which workloads should go to which cloud? How do I know which cloud to choose?
What technologies should I consider for my cloud strategy?
How can I secure and protect my data during the migration?
How do I avoid downtime as we migrate to a cloud or multicloud environment?

Avoiding hidden gotchas and pitfalls in your cloud migration

The old adage “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted” can be painfully true in the cloud.

There’s [still] a lot of industry buzz about the benefits of moving to the cloud—cost savings, scalability, collaboration efficiency, flexibility, performance improvements, and more. The unfortunate effect of generic buzz about “the cloud” is that it overlooks the more important questions specific to your organization, including “what are we hoping to accomplish”, “what’s a realistic timeline”, and “which cloud is best for my workloads”. Whether making the decision to move workloads to the cloud has been a lengthy process or a C-suite directive, the importance of properly preparing for the move cannot be understated.

If you and your team don’t already have experience with moving to the cloud, your cloud environment may not deliver the benefits that your organization expects. To achieve the expected benefits, you’ll need to think and plan strategically and consider which workloads to move, understand their dependencies, and ensure you have the people with the expertise required to be successful.

The specter of a failed migration

There are a variety of reasons cloud migrations fail – just Google it, if you haven’t already. Over budget deployments or under-performing applications are other types of cloud migration failures, as is overlooking cloud adoption as part of your core business strategy.

One in three companies moved workloads off of a public cloud in the past 12-months, according to 451 Research. And in the next two years, organizations are planning to move 50 percent of their public cloud applications to either a private cloud or non-cloud environment, according to IDC.

Thinking holistically before jumping into cloud migration can help you not only choose the right cloud environment, but also get it right the first time.

Cloud migration is harder than it may appear on the surface:

Application dependencies have outsized effects.
Migration discovery is essential.
Lift-and-shift can put legacy applications in a cloud but may not deliver the performance your users expect.
Redesigning an application for the cloud is ideal but can be costly.
Core business strategy also needs to adjust.
Failure to update IT processes or train your IT team can contribute to failed migration.

By taking a holistic look at your environment and goals, you can put your budget where it matters most. You can learn about what works and what doesn’t. You can engage a partner with cloud migration expertise – a partner that will take the time to understand why you want to migrate to the cloud and your goals.

You can get cost estimates, make the best tradeoffs, and decide what support your organization will need for continuing success.

Develop a cloud strategy that positions you for success

Take a step toward cloud migration today with a cloud strategy workshop

The Cloud Strategy Workshop is a complimentary workshop with TierPoint cloud experts--designed to provide guidance to organizations that are in the process of determining or reviewing their cloud strategy.

Our team will spend roughly a half-day with you over three interactive sessions (phone and in-person). Facilitated by one of our Solution Architects, the workshop combines up-to-date industry and analyst insights, best practices, and a discussion of your business goals and IT operational model as it applies to your journey to the cloud.

Organizations with large IT environments and/or complex requirements who are planning cloud migrations or new cloud deployments will find the workshop especially useful.

The end result is a deliverable that synthesizes the discussion into guidance specific to your IT environment and strategy, and provides the information you need to take the best next step.

Fill out the form below to learn more about the agenda or reserve your complimentary session.

What do I need to know about cloud migration?

Helpful Resources

Avoiding hidden gotchas and pitfalls in your cloud migration

The specter of a failed migration

How to do cloud migration right the first time

Develop a cloud strategy that positions you for success

How can we help?

Additional Resources