Cloud storage and application transfer are not the ingredients of a new technology but acquaintance of the corporate operations with cloud is gaining importance now. One in a million adoptions in technologies goes smooth and thus, this switch is bound to have its challenges. Some people believe in waiting a little bit more, until after the birthing pains are over. But what if you can’t?
How to Do It?
Face it. This will be the first stumbling block you face. You have 2 options. You can do this manually or use a migration suite. The obvious advantage to using migration software is that you can do this easily, automatically, piecemeal or as a whole. There is also the option of migrating from one cloud server/host to another, and of reverting to your desktop.
Online Reliance
If you plan to migrate to cloud, what happens when your cloud host goes offline? At the very least, the best providers will guarantee to pay for your down time. Regardless, there was still a deadline you did not meet. Bad enough if this was internal, what if you failed to pass something required by a client.
Tip: Keep a skeleton of apps and software. If possible have a secondary internet provider and back up the most recent files internally.
If It Ain’t Broke…
Moving a working internal system to a cloud server requires you to upgrade and update your technology, procedures, and business models. Why? You’ll think “I’m migrating anyway, why not streamline and improve things”. In some cases, you are left with no choice because of compatibility issues.
Business Process Continuity
The best way to migrate to Cloud is to do it with minimal negative effects on your day to day activities. If this is for individual use, you will need to do this during off peak hours. If this is a business, then chances are your migration will require certain personnel to stay the night or work over the weekend. This way, regular hours are least likely to get bogged down. If this is to be done during office hours, you need to make sure you are still operating at 50% to 75% capacity.
Wrong Type, Wrong Provider
There are several types of Cloud, i.e. internal/privately hosted or publicly hosted. There are also numerous cloud providers. What happens if after migration you realize that this set up and/or provider is not the one for you? Now you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, specifically to revert (if still possible) or to move to another provider.
Tip: To minimize the risk of this happening, you should perform your due diligence on the type of and the named provider.
Last Minute Kinks and Bugs
Even the most effective and efficient migration will result in a couple of glitches. Take this all in stride. The important thing to do is to catch it as soon as possible, patch it, and make sure it does not happen again.
About the Author: By Aditi Tyagi
Aditi Tyagi, Editor-in-chief of MyRealData, devotes an immoderate amount of time on the keys of her keyboard and it is only rational that specific part of her precious time is consumed in writing. When she is not working out with her fingers ranting about technological stuff, she loves to read books, especially the ones carrying romantic stories.
License: Creative Commons image source
