Avoiding Application Migration Mistakes
Whether your organization is moving an application to the cloud for the first time or transitioning between cloud service providers, there’s a lot that can go wrong. Application migration takes careful planning and attention to detail that only seasoned experts can provide.
If your company is planning to carry out an application migration in the near future, you should carefully consider what you can do to avoid these common application migration mistakes.
Failing to Identify Cloud Environment Differences
Many organizations don’t have a very solid grasp of how much disparate cloud environments can differ. Cloud service providers can vary in their services and infrastructure, which can lead to serious issues if these factors aren’t identified early in the transition process.
The impact that this will have on your application can vary widely depending on the nature of that application. For many that rely on an API or other standardized resources, it won’t have much of an impact. However, it could lead to some applications not working at all.
Migrating Before It’s Needed
Cloud migration is a major undertaking for your organization. Before making the decision to follow through on your application migration plan, you should evaluate the reasons behind that decision. It’s important to identify whether the application migration will really provide concrete benefits for your business.
There are many potential reasons for application migration. You might be dissatisfied with your cloud service provider, there could be financial factors involved, or you might be facing compatibility issues. Like any business decision, application migration should have a clear goal that it’s meant to accomplish.
Missing Important Application Adjustments
The extent to which data and applications can be migrated to a new cloud environment without modification will vary widely. While some are essentially ready to go, others might require significant work to prepare. Many organizations fail to recognize that adjustments may be necessary on both sides—not just for the new environment.
There are a variety of adjustments that might need to be made to an application to make it work in a new cloud environment. In many cases, you might find yourself facing some kind of trade-off between speed, cost, accessibility, or other factors when making these decisions.
Carrying Out the Migration All at Once
There are many challenges that come with cloud migration, both expected and unexpected. When organizations make the decision to migrate multiple essential services and applications at once, they’re opening themselves up to considerable risk.
While doing everything at once might sound efficient, the gains are rarely worth the risk you’re taking on. By migrating applications and data in smaller steps, you can avoid a major loss of accessibility should something go wrong.
Not Considering Security Factors
Security is just about the most important aspect of any cloud migration. Not paying close attention to security is likely to leave important applications and data insufficiently protected. During any migration, understanding security needs and evaluating if they’ve been met is crucial.
With a new cloud environment, it isn’t necessarily the case that all security needs are being met. This variability isn’t just a case of good or bad security, but of meeting the specific needs that your application has.
Having Unrealistic Expectations
Organizations can often get swept up in big projects and develop unrealistic expectations. While you should have a defined reason for choosing your new cloud services provider, you should realize that almost any transition will have trade-offs.
Early in the process, most organizations don’t have a solid understanding of the costs involved in cloud migration. It’s a very complicated process, and choosing cheaper options will almost surely mean you’re getting less.
Not Having an Effective Strategy
Because cloud migration can be such a complicated process, you need an effective strategy in place to avoid application migration mistakes. Your application migration could affect different parts of your organization in many different ways.
Understanding what the cloud migration will do to your workflows and having measures in place to address unexpected issues is crucial to pulling off the migration. You don’t want to find yourself scrambling to catch up while the process is underway.
Lacking the Necessary Experience
Moving forward with an application migration can be a challenging experience for any organization that hasn’t done it before. That’s why your team needs reliable partners with the necessary skills, experience, and knowledge to understand your needs and translate them into an effective application migration.
Cloud Management with Awnix
Awnix provides an extensive range of cloud management services and hybrid cloud solutions. Our team has the extensive experience needed to provide your organization with an effective and worry-free application migration process. Reach out to Awnix today to find out what we can do for you.