For members of a small business, migrating to the cloud can sound slightly daunting. After all, you’re picking up your company’s data and moving it to the internet. And there are so many options: Should you use Microsoft Office 365 or Microsoft Azure? Or Amazon Web Services? Should you use a public cloud, a private cloud, or a hybrid cloud? Here are several steps you can take to make your business’s migration progress a success:
Cloud Migration Steps to Follow
DEVELOP A CLOUD MIGRATION STRATEGY
First, you should appoint an employee or coworker to be the cloud migration architect. This person will be the key decision-maker where your cloud migration is concerned. Next, you should work with them to determine whether you want a private or public cloud, or a hybrid cloud, which combines the benefits of both cloud infrastructures. Discuss the data migration process you will use as you move to the cloud. Plot out every piece of data migration so the process will go as smoothly as possible. Then you can work with the migration architect during the following steps.
SELECT YOUR CLOUD INTEGRATION LEVEL
During this step, you should determine how many cloud-unique features you want to take advantage of, and how many changes you want to make to your servers as you move your applications to the cloud. You have two integration level options:
- Shallow Cloud Integration: In this option, you move your applications to the cloud with few changes to them and the servers on which they run. The only changes you would make would be to help the applications run in a cloud environment. This option is sometimes called “lift and shift” because you’re lifting your on-premise application as it is and simply shifting it over to the cloud without major changes.
- Deep Cloud Integration: With this option, you do make major changes to your applications and their server. You will change them so they integrate and take advantage of your new cloud platform’s specific features. For example, you can use this option to auto-scale your data to the cloud, or you can use serverless computing capabilities, if your cloud provider offers them. This option can be as simple or as complicated as you make it.
Select Your Cloud Environment
As with your cloud integration options, you have two choices when it comes to selecting a cloud environment:
- Single Cloud Environment: When you choose this environment, you will use a single cloud provider to serve and house the applications and servers you migrate to the cloud. This option requires either a private cloud or a public cloud.
- Multi-Cloud Environment: With this option, you will house your applications and servers in different public cloud services, often from different cloud providers. An example would be migrating your email to Office 365, while migrating other application to Microsoft Azure, the IBM Cloud, or Amazon Web Services. In fact, you could combine cloud services from all of those providers if you thought it would be best for your data.
Begin Migrating Your Data to the Cloud
In this step, you should use the migration strategies you devised with your migration architect back in the first step. The more you have planned in advance, the more quickly the migration process will go. Implement security measures to keep your data safe as you copy it over to the cloud-based environment. You should also keep your data running in a parallel environment during the migration period so users and customers can access their accounts and their data as you switch over to the cloud.
Cloud Migration Services for Your Small Business
At Reverus Corp., we will work with you to help you understand how cloud computing works before you move your data. We can help you create a stable migration that will let you take advantage of the benefits of cloud services. If you are interested in our cloud migration services or any of our other services, contact us today.
