Checklist on Migrating to the cloud

Many organizations worldwide adopt cloud solutions because of their advanced security, scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. During 2020 when remote work was on the rise, migrating to the Cloud had become more essential. If you are planning to migrate to the Cloud, and make it this process seamless. Check out this 7 step checklist.

1. Set up clear goals.

Before adopting the Cloud, you have to understand the reason behind this decision. Why are you doing this? What do you expect? Define clear, measurable goals and prioritize them before you start the migration process.

2. Apply metrics and KPIs.

Metrics and KPIs will help you measure project efficiency and judge on overall migration success. A clear understanding of KPIs will help your team to detect potential issues and timely resolve them. Metrics can include technical indicators such as system availability, page load time etc.

3. Assign your migration team or choose an experienced outsourcer.

Assign a specialized team that will migrate your data, and this can be an in-house or an outsource team. The final decision must address your business needs. Usually, a cloud migration team includes but is not limited to a Project manager, Cloud Solutions Architect, system administrator, security manager, compliance specialist.

4. Choose your cloud provider.

Prior to starting your cloud migration, choose a cloud provider that fits your requirements. The provider should be experienced in data migration and have a good reputation for post-migration support. Pay attention to your future provider’s customer service and approach to communication.

5. Create data backup.

Back up your data before the database migration in case if something goes wrong. Data backup protects you from falling victim to unforeseen circumstances and ensures that you will not lose any important files and documents even in the worst-case scenario.

6. Complete migration process.

There are several ways of organizing the migration process. You might move all apps and data at the same time or split migration into stages. Whatever option you choose, always double-check a project flow at every step.

7. Evaluate the migration process based on KPIs and metrics.

Review the metrics and KPIs that have been set at the beginning and compare them to previous metrics from on-premises environments to finalize your cloud migration. If there is no drop-off in performance or if it has improved, you can safely consider the migration a success.