As businesses move forward with their cloud migration journey, it's easy to overlook some critical steps. While many organisations have already started the transition, skipping or rushing through key phases can lead to unexpected challenges. To ensure a smooth and successful migration, here's a 10-step checklist as a helpful reminder of essential tasks that should not be forgotten.
1. Reassess Your Goals and Objectives
You've likely set initial migration goals, but have you revisited them? Ensure that your objectives—whether scalability, cost reduction, or security—are still aligned with your business needs.
Are your KPIs still relevant, and are you tracking them effectively?
2. Double-Check Your IT Environment Assessment
A thorough inventory of your IT assets, including applications, servers, and data, is crucial. If you skipped or rushed through this step, now is the time to ensure all dependencies have been mapped out and no critical components have been overlooked.
3. Validate Your Cloud Provider Choice
You may have already selected a cloud provider, but have you reviewed the latest pricing, compliance, and support updates? Providers frequently update their offerings, and an early choice may need adjustment based on evolving needs.
4. Confirm Your Migration Strategy
Different workloads require different migration strategies. If you initially chose a lift-and-shift approach, does that still make sense, or would a replatforming or refactoring strategy now offer better long-term value?
5. Ensure Data Migration is Properly Planned
If data transfer has begun, have you verified the integrity and security of the migration? Ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and review whether an online, offline, or hybrid transfer method best suits your organisation's needs.
6. Review Security and Compliance Measures
Security should never be an afterthought. Have you implemented the right encryption, access controls, and compliance measures? Revisiting your security framework ensures you address vulnerabilities.
7. Reassess Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan
If something goes wrong mid-migration, do you have a reliable rollback plan? Ensure backups are up to date and that a clear disaster recovery plan is in place to prevent data loss and minimise downtime.
8. Conduct (or Revisit) a Pilot Migration
If you haven't already run a pilot migration, it's not too late. Testing with a smaller workload can highlight potential problems before they impact your entire system. Were all lessons appropriately learned applied if you've already done a pilot?
9. Validate Full Migration and Perform Ongoing Testing
As your full migration progresses, continuous testing is essential. Are applications performing as expected? Are there any latency issues? Ensure everything is functioning optimally in the cloud environment before fully decommissioning old systems.
10. Monitor and Optimise Post-Migration
Once migrated, the work isn't over. Keep monitoring cloud performance, security, and costs. Fine-tune configurations as needed to ensure maximum efficiency and prevent unnecessary spending.
Conclusion
Cloud migration is an ongoing process, and revisiting these steps can help avoid missteps and costly errors. Whether you've just started or are well into the transition, use this 10-step checklist as a guide to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Does your business need cloud migration support? Contact Verelogic IT Solutions at sales@verelogic.com.
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