Migrating your business applications to the cloud is not a one-time job. It requires careful planning and you must be prepared for several challenges that come in the way. The benefits of cloud computing are too big to be ignored. Cloud is all about availability, reliability, scalability, and flexibility. It also ensures superior security and offers efficient data backup and disaster recovery solutions.

Why Migration?

There can be several reasons for an organization to consider migration to the cloud. They have outgrown their present server environment. A small business would consider the cloud because it promises considerable cost savings. You are modernizing and wish to move from your legacy system to the cloud technology.
 
Planning a database migration to the cloud and leaving the other applications in-house can lead to complications and have an impact on smooth performance. To maximize the benefits of the cloud, the two networks must work in unison. Otherwise, the risks of underperformance and inefficiency crop up and your business could suffer.
 
There are a few factors that you must consider that could help in a seamless migration.

Read More:- What You Should Know Before Cloud Migration?

Understand Database Requirements

You must assess the volume of the database that you are planning to migrate. If you are not sure of the size, you will have difficulty in estimating the time it will take to copy the data, the hardware and other infrastructure needed. What will be the instance requirement post migration?

Conduct A Performance Test

You must do a baseline test before you migrate the applications measuring the pre-migration performance so that you can gauge if the performance post migration is satisfactory. If not, you may have to tweak the applications that your cloud hosting provider is using for your database. Issues of latency must not arise. The performance in the cloud must be better and agile than in your previous setup.

Prioritize Your Data Migration

Keep your mission-critical database applications for the last. Start with the non-critical databases that you may house in a multitenant environment. Choose the database applications that do not require any modifications i.e. those which are cloud-ready. This will enable you to learn of any unforeseen problems that the migration process can cause. You can rectify the same before moving the more complex database.

SLA Agreements

Some applications require maximum uptime. Make sure that any disruption in service during the migration will not interrupt the performance of these applications. Also, it is important that the scheduled downtime will not interfere with the daily business operations and put your site offline.

Define Scalability And Excess Capacity

Perhaps, the biggest attraction of cloud computing is the ease with which it allows the customers to scale. It is important that you negotiate with your provider of the business objectives. You anticipate a quick growth and may require reconfiguring your needs. The cloud service provider must have the capacity to allow you instances on demand.
 
Even otherwise, some organizations have seasonal demand. They require more resources during certain periods in a year. In an on-premise environment, this causes a lot of wastage. The public cloud is ideally suited at such times. The traffic surge can be met by the on-demand scalability of the public cloud. It is more cost-effective with the pay as you use billing option. Make sure with the cloud provider that they allow the migration to be incremental.

Cost And Time

This is where most businesses fail. They plan but when it comes to implementation there are several issues they come across which makes all their scheduling and budget go haywire. Calculating the cloud computing cost will help you determine what returns you must expect for your effort in moving to the cloud. Monitoring the expenses will help you control any overshoot of budget.

Security

One of the biggest concerns is the security of data. This is one of the reasons why the process of migration must be planned carefully and handled only by professionally trained people. Data becomes vulnerable to internet threats the moment it is moved from the in-house servers. Internet is notoriously famous for creating havoc even to the well-established businesses.
 
You must apply the best security practices when the data is still in-house the onus of which falls on you. You must chalk out a well-defined strategy with your cloud provider and build a hybrid cloud solution housing your mission-critical applications in the private cloud and non-sensitive databases in the public cloud.

Read More:- Cloud Security Market Growing Out of Proportion

Change In Architecture

Migration to the cloud servers will involve different computing environments. Interoperability is the way the different systems communicate with one another. It means writing codes in a way that it works with multiple cloud providers simultaneously despite having different environments. It is important to ensure that all the database applications can work with more than one provider service.

Portability

All the applications must be written in such a way that it does not get locked in with one provider. Termed as portability, it means having the capability to run in different environments even if it has been written for one environment.
 
Once the migration is done, you must retest every database application to see if it is working perfectly without latency.

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