3 Key Questions Before Adopting Cloud First

In 2021, Gartner predicted 85% of organisations would embrace a cloud-first strategy by 2025. Whether that forecast will ring true remains to be seen but one thing is clear; the appetite for cloud-first, particularly after the pandemic, is strong.

It’s well known that cloud-first strategies have been a key focus for business, public sector organisations and government departments for many years. Much is made of its simplicity, with firms able to adopt new features rapidly without committing to a large investment in new hardware. For smaller companies, a cloud-first strategy reduces the need for physical space and equipment maintenance, as well as a flexibility to scale operations up or when required.

Sounds like a no brainer, right? At the same time, the journey is both time-consuming and fraught with hurdles and pitfalls. These can take the form of greater costs and incompatible infrastructure which, devastatingly, is only discovered when you begin the migration process. In turn, this failure to plan ahead can leave organisations vulnerable to malware and other cyber threats, as well as increasing the likelihood of data breaches and compliance issues. That’s before considering that your business may be taken offline completely if due diligence is not completed ahead of time.

Before choosing the path to cloud-first or when planning the next phase of a migration, there are a number of questions that should be considered.

Is cloud the right fit for your processes and solutions?

The cloud is powerful and flexible but it may not be the best place for solutions with traditional infrastructure architecture. On prem-style implementations in the cloud can lead to greater costs for compute and storage, than they would in an on-prem environment.

Sure, all the data, hardware and personal information are kept in the one place where you need it, but that means investing in robust security measures and resources to protect it, potentially driving up the cost even more.

Crucially, cloud migration services can offer welcome peace of mind. These solutions can make your applications portable and allow supporting infrastructure to be modernised or replaced, without needing to make changes to the applications themselves. Upgrading a backend database or moving from a mapped network drive to cloud storage are effective examples of this, ensuring a smooth transition with no disruption.

Do your applications need modernising or replacing to take advantage of migrating to the Cloud?

Long-serving applications running on legacy operating systems are not likely to be supported in a cloud environment. Therefore, it’s worth assessing the risk and impact modernising or replacing these key business systems may cause. Ask yourself: is the impact to your users and processes worth the migration effort?

If migration feels like a step into the unknown with little clarity on compatibility, it’s probably too much of a risk. Luckily, there are experts who can make the move painless, transporting applications to new environments quickly and dependably. This ensures ongoing processes continue to run in the existing applications while modernisation occurs or replacements are sourced.

Are there risks to the stability and security of your existing systems for the duration of your transformation project?

If organisations ultimately decide to proceed with a cloud-first strategy, it’s time to consider what happens as the migration project occurs. It’s essential to pinpoint whether your existing systems are going to be fully supported and whether any solutions are currently running on legacy hardware or operating systems that are approaching end of life. Failure to maintain support for these environments throughout the transformation could be catastrophic.

It’s important to utilise specialist services that can free your applications from ageing hardware, speeding up data centre exit and allowing resources to be redirected from maintenance of the existing environment into focusing on the transformation. In turn, this can accelerate the transformation project while reducing the risks of fragile, older infrastructure failing or becoming unresponsive.

To adopt or not to adopt

A cloud-first strategy offers compelling advantages for organisations of all sizes, however it also requires careful planning and foresight. Leading with a strategic approach will help mitigate risks like unexpected costs and security vulnerabilities, which can loom large if not considered carefully.

Organisations must evaluate their readiness for cloud migration by assessing the suitability of their existing applications and systems, as well as decide whether it aligns with specific needs, operational goals and risk tolerance. After considering those three key questions, an expert migration service could be just what you need for tailored solutions and peace of mind.