Don’t fall prey to these cloud migration misconceptions

Category

Blogs

Author

Wissen Team

Date

April 28, 2023

As businesses across the world look to transform themselves digitally, migrating to the cloud is one of the first steps under consideration. Cloud not only offers anytime, anywhere access to on-demand resources, but it also sets the foundation of enterprise agility and flexibility – empowering organizations to meet business and customer needs with increased precision. 

However, the many misconceptions around cloud migration tend to delay or altogether prevent the adoption of the cloud. These misconceptions can slow enterprises down, impede innovation, and instill high levels of fear – making it rather confusing and unclear for those set out on the cloud journey. 

Here’s looking at some cloud migration misconceptions no organization should fall prey to: 

Misconception 1: Cloud is cheap

The belief that the cloud is cheap is one of the main reasons for its widespread adoption. Although there is no denying the fact that the cloud eliminates CapEx, helping organizations do away with massive upfront infrastructure investments. While it results in only predictable OpEx, cloud overspending is a widespread challenge. 

Given how easy cloud vendors have made it to migrate data or spin up new workloads in the cloud, such elasticity requires organizations to be wary about how best to limit costs and enable substantial savings. Careful understanding of cloud consumption models, regular monitoring of cloud workloads, and constant switching off or elimination of underused or zombie assets is vital to optimize operational costs and achieve long-term gains. 

Misconception 2: Cloud isn’t suited for highly regulated industries 

Another common misconception when it comes to cloud migration is that the cloud is not suited for heavily regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and government. Organizations in these industries should know that modern cloud providers take security and data privacy extremely seriously. Today, they are subject to several regulatory bodies and compliance requirements and have to constantly keep pace with evolving regulations or go out of business. 

While migrating to the cloud, financial, healthcare, and government sectors need to be wary about the security and regulatory requirements – depending on what location they are operating from. They then need to opt for a cloud type or provider that provides the needed security framework and control and helps them comply with those requirements. 

Misconception 3: Cloud is only for large enterprises

When it comes to digital transformation, small and mid-sized businesses often overlook the cloud because they assume it to only be suited for larger organizations, with teams operating from geographically dispersed locations. However, this is far from the truth. Cloud offers just as many benefits to SMEs as it does to large enterprises. 

For small and mid-sized organizations with limited infrastructure, staff, and budgets, cloud solutions can be incredibly valuable as they enable easy access to affordable tools to carry out their business and grow. Using the cloud, such enterprises can consolidate applications, optimize operational costs, and allow staff to focus on critical business functions – rather than on the day-to-day management of IT systems. 

Misconception 4: Cloud works like a magic wand for legacy systems 

Many organizations that are dying a slow death due to outdated legacy infrastructure foundations often look at the cloud as a magic wand to fix poor application architecture. However, the truth is, cloud success can be achieved only when the data and applications that are being moved are up-to-date, accurate, and consistent. Blindly migrating rigid and conventional systems to the cloud will not lead to any far-reaching benefits and will most likely result in massive monitoring and management costs. 

When moving to the cloud, organizations must work towards transforming application capabilities in terms of agility, functionality, and scalability. This means re-architecting, revamping, or retiring systems that no longer add value to the business – and ensuring any application that is migrated is resilient enough to drive value in the cloud. 

Read: The Evolution of Distributed Enterprise Systems Towards the Cloud

Misconception 5: Cloud migration can be done in-house 

Cloud migration is a complicated and time-consuming endeavor. Attempting to do it using in-house resources might just be a recipe for disaster, with by-products such as overshooting timelines, uncontrolled costs, and plummeting morale. Performing migration without carefully constructing a cloud strategy or partnering with a qualified cloud expert can be inefficient and risky. 

A cloud partner can help in building a cloud-ready foundation and deliver timely and accurate guiding principles, required skills, necessary organizational changes, and the technology architecture needed to facilitate an efficient transition and successful migration – while helping organizations realize the benefits of controlled costs and more responsive infrastructure. 

Misconception 6: Cloud workloads are difficult to audit

With most cloud infrastructure built on virtual servers, a common misconception with migration is that workloads or data in the cloud are difficult to audit vis-à-vis on-premise servers. The truth, however, is that with the right tools, organizations can conduct more efficient audits in a cloud-based environment.

As the cloud rapidly modernizes traditional data centers, safeguarding data while constantly reducing the likelihood of security issues has become paramount. Modern auditing tools can help in discovering cloud-related risks, identify gaps in cloud governance, set the right policies and IP rights, and guide business and IT users in becoming better prepared to mitigate or deal with those risks. 

Cloud migration, when done right, can be a great asset for organizations, helping them meet their business goals with far greater speed and agility. Being aware of the many misconceptions that surround the cloud can help in gleaning the most value and RoI from cloud migration investment and efforts.