Cloud migration has become a critical step for organisations looking to modernise their infrastructure and gain a competitive edge. However, despite its benefits, there are several barriers that may discourage or challenge businesses from embracing cloud migration. In this blog, we will explore 10 common cloud migration barriers and present compelling arguments on why they are no longer valid. 

Cloud Migration Barrier 1: Data Security Concerns

How to Tackle It: Embrace Advanced Security Measures

Data security has always been a major concern for businesses considering cloud migration. However, cloud service providers have significantly improved their security measures, offering encryption, identity management, and compliance certifications. By adopting best practices, encryption methods, and implementing role-based access control, and following the principle of least privilege, organisations can ensure data security in the cloud.

Cloud Migration Barrier 2: Cost of Migration

How to Tackle It: Calculate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

The perceived high cost of cloud migration can be a deterrent. To overcome this, businesses should consider the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over time, which factors in savings from reduced hardware maintenance, operational costs, and increased productivity. Often, the TCO of cloud services proves to be more economical than on-premises infrastructure.

All major public clouds also provide tooling for not only estimating the cost of your cloud infrastructure, but also assessing your current landscape and mapping a migration path. Click here to use Google’s free tool.

Cloud Migration Barrier 3: Legacy Systems and Applications

How to Tackle It: Implement a Phased Migration Approach

Outdated legacy systems can create compatibility issues during migration. To address this, businesses can adopt a phased migration approach. By gradually moving applications and workloads to the cloud, they can ensure that the new cloud environment supports the legacy systems or explore modernisation options.

Public cloud providers have noticed this pain point, and have started introducing tools to help identify, and score workloads against the “cloud readiness”. Tools such as Stratezone have proven to be invaluable when planning your cloud migration. 

Cloud Migration Barrier 4: : Performance and Latency Concerns

How to Tackle It: Leverage Edge Computing and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Performance and latency concerns may arise, especially for businesses with global operations. By leveraging edge computing and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), data can be cached and served from servers closer to end-users, significantly reducing latency and improving overall performance.

Properly designed Virtual Private Clouds (VPS) ensures that traffic communicate over the dedicated, performant, Wide Area Networks (WANs) owned and managed by the Cloud providers. This ensures high performance networking between all components in your cloud infrastructure. 

Cloud Migration Barrier 5: Compliance and Regulatory Issues

How to Tackle It: Choose Compliant Cloud Providers

Meeting compliance and regulatory requirements can be challenging. However, many cloud providers offer industry-specific compliance certifications, ensuring adherence to necessary regulations. Selecting a reputable and compliant cloud provider can ease the burden of navigating regulatory challenges.

Furthermore, Cloud Providers often follow a “shared responsibility model”, and clearly define the areas you need to take responsibility for in order to remain compliant with the various regulations.

Cloud Migration Barrier 6: Lack of In-House Cloud Expertise

How to Tackle It: Train and Partner with Cloud Professionals

A lack of in-house cloud expertise can hinder migration efforts. To address this, organisations can invest in cloud training for their IT teams or collaborate with cloud service partners, such as Deimos, who have the necessary experience and knowledge. A new popular strategy is a managed infrastructure approach to cloud migration.

Cloud Migration Barrier 7: Data Transfer Bottlenecks

How to Tackle It: Utilise Data Transfer Acceleration Services

Large-scale data migration can be time-consuming due to network bottlenecks. However, cloud providers offer data transfer acceleration services that enable businesses to expedite data transfer over the internet securely.

Cloud Migration Barrier 8: Fear of Downtime and Disruptions

How to Tackle It: Perform Thorough Testing and Implementing Redundancy

Downtime during migration can impact business operations. Comprehensive testing and implementing redundancy in the cloud architecture can minimise downtime risk and ensure a smooth transition.

It’s also advised to approach your cloud migration in phases. Focusing on low risk workloads first. This allows you to build confidence in your migration plan and to work towards a zero downtime strategy for those critical workloads.

Cloud Migration Barrier 9: Resistance to Change

How to Tackle It: Create a Clear Cloud Adoption Strategy

Resistance to change is a common human factor in cloud migration. By developing a clear and persuasive cloud adoption strategy, including potential benefits and addressing concerns, organisations can encourage buy-in from stakeholders and employees.

It is important that leadership takes an active role in driving the vision of cloud migration, and supporting the migration at an executive level. 

Cloud Migration Barrier 10: Integration Complexities

How to Tackle It: Utilise Cloud-native Integration Solutions

Integrating existing systems with cloud applications can be complex. However, adopting cloud-native integration solutions and using APIs can streamline the integration process and ensure seamless communication between different components.

Cloud migration barriers may have been perceived as significant hurdles in the past, but advancements in technology and growing expertise have rendered many of them easily surmountable. By understanding these barriers and employing the suggested strategies, businesses can confidently embark on their cloud migration journey, unlocking the true potential of cloud computing and gaining a competitive advantage in today’s digital landscape. To learn more on how Deimos can help with a smooth cloud migration, click here.