In the present time, almost every organization across industries is using cloud technology. To make it a successful venture; you need to have a robust strategy otherwise there will be no use in joining the bandwagon. Making a mistake while adopting cloud technology can cost you dearly. The risk of security is also there.
So, it is important for every company to avoid mistakes to save from reputation hamper, and wastage of time, effort, and budget. To make the business risk-free; here is a checklist of mistakes that are quite common and every organization must stay aware of.
- Inaccurate Infrastructure Estimation: IT teams have traditionally allocated approximately 20% additional infrastructure capacity on-premise. They employ a similar approach to estimate future cloud usage based on current infrastructure and resources. However, this methodology fails to provide precise information about current usage and workload characteristics. To achieve the expected Return on Investment, a cloud infrastructure must operate at full capacity, which can only be achieved by properly sizing workloads. To prevent overspending, resource usage must be monitored and controlled.
- Not Proceeding Pilot Projects: To make a cloud migration success, one has to keep in mind that the whole process should be executed in different stages. And the first and most important stage is running a pilot project before final deployment. It will help to identify the issues that may cost you a fortune in the coming days.
- Migration without Requirement Assessment: There are many organizations that move their entire infrastructure to the cloud in one go. It is a very important point that every business owner must keep in mind that not all services are suitable to operate in the cloud. Not all data come with the criteria to fit in the ‘lift-and-shift’ approach. Some of the software work on legacy technology stacks and many of them have complex functionalities that are not suitable for the cloud. After a detailed data analysis; one should identify the applications that are well suited for the cloud and then start the process.
- Without Considering Cyber Security: The amount of data you store in the cloud directly impacts the area of the attack surface. Cloud security awareness is growing every day; not every service provider takes a robust policy. There may be many issues that are not anticipated and eventually increase the risk of malicious activities. While designing a strategy for cyber security, apart from security compliances; there are several other aspects like data breaches, data loss, unauthorized access, account hijacking, and other vulnerabilities that should be considered. The consequence of security failure can be severely hazardous and no company should overlook this aspect.
- Role-based and Restricted Access are Ignored: Organizations frequently fail to restrict access to sensitive and confidential information to only authorized personnel. This could result in unintended data loss, which staff could then intentionally or inadvertently misuse, harming the brand as well. Furthermore, since cloud storage can be viewed remotely from anywhere, confidential information is in danger. In order to prevent data leaking, firms must implement tight access control procedures.
- Wrong Estimation of Cost: It is very important to estimate the total cost of cloud migration before you start the project. The initial migration process is expensive but the end result is worth this huge investment. No matter how well you plan the budget, there may be some unexpected expenditures that may come to the way. While calculating the expenditure, along with the cost of the migration, you need to keep in mind the cost for the occurrence of unavailable data during the migration period.
- Unfiltered Data for Migration: In any organization, there are a huge amount of data stored on their server for a long period and most of them do not have any use or relevancy in today’s workflow. While migrating to the cloud, those irrelevant data will occupy extra space in the cloud resulting in extra cost. Before the migration, every organization must clean up their data to avoid paying for the ‘electronic garbage’ on the cloud.
- Making No Difference with On-Premise Data Center: Treating a cloud environment like an on-premises data center is a costly mistake many enterprises make. While cloud migration can save money, they require a different resource management process. For example, a proper total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis for moving a single-application server from a data center to the cloud should take into account the number of hours the server will be in use. Leaving a server turned on 24/7 in a data canter adds only a slightly extra cost to the facility’s utility bill, but in the cloud, users pay by the hour. A cloud TCO analysis assumes eight hours per day of cloud usage, which can result in a tripled cost if servers are not turned off when not in use.
- Not Following Shared-Responsibility Model: To get success, understanding the shared-responsibility model is much needed. It is true that your cloud service provider has the key responsibility, but you need to execute some other responsibilities to navigate the environment without any hassle. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) with your cloud service provider will outline the exact responsibilities of each party. You need to go through the SLA and understand all the policies so that you can manage your side of responsibilities to get the best result.
- Not Monitoring Service Performance: It is simple to lose money and deteriorate crucial business operations if you don’t routinely assess the cloud service that is really being received against anticipated expectations. The specified key performance indicators should be reviewed by the organization on a regular basis, and appropriate action should be taken to address both actual and potential departures from the goals.
- Wrong Cloud Partner Selection: Choose a cloud provider that aligns with your end goals and specific needs. Conduct thorough research and engage your IT team to determine the best provider. Explore new possibilities of cloud infrastructure for better ROI and competitiveness. Ensure the provider values transparency and visibility, and that the SLA terms meet your needs and those of your company.
If you are considering cloud migration service; then make sure you should not follow any of the above-stated models; otherwise your business will be at risk. By avoiding these mistakes; you can ensure a smooth run in the cloud environment which is safe and efficient to support your business needs.
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