Detailed Guide Data Cloud Migration: Advantages, Examples, Steps & More

Are you thinking about cloud data migration? It’s indeed a big step and requires you to have a complete understanding of this process. Before you take this step, you must know its benefits and challenges. Today, I am planning to unlock a detailed guide about the Cloud Data Migration process, its challenges, advantages and all the strategies. So, let’s get started and unwrap all the details one by one.

Benefits of Detailed Guide Data Cloud Migration

Following are cloud data migration benefits:

Cost Efficiency:

These days, organizations have been dealing with a large volume of data every second. And if you want to keep that much data on your inhouse data center, it requires investment on resources and data center. On the flip side, when you migrate all the data on cloud, you won’t have to incur operational or capital expenses. You can prevent upfront costs for IT infrastructure and other regular expenses such as cooling cost, maintenance, inhouse staff, electricity, etc through this method. 

Scalability:

Another benefit of cloud data migration is scalability. Every day your business has to deal with a significant amount of data and files both offline and online. So, when your business grows then cloud storage can easily be expanded alongside.Cloud resources are flexible and it can easily scale alongside you. 

Make Collaboration Simple:

After the pandemic, most businesses shifted online and remote work became a common phenomenon. Many employees work from home and they access data digitally. Now if you move your data in the cloud, your teams can collaborate effortlessly. As a result your business productivity and efficiency boosts to a great level.

Improved Disaster Recovery and Data Security:

If your data remains stored on-site then you can’t protect your organization from site-specific disasters. When you obtain cloud data migration services, then your data will remain protected and stored in multiple locations. Beside, service providers invest in advanced security measures such as multi-factor authentications and encryption.  As a result, your data will remain intact and secure against rising cyber threats. 

Data Management and Analytics:

Another plus of cloud data storage is to make the most of data analytics. Cloud service providers also offer data management and analytics tools. It allows you to analyze and process large volumes of data and you can easily get some valuable insights. For example, when you rely on AI and machine learning technologies, they allow you to keep up with the latest trends. 

Environment Friendly:

Many organizations are opting for sustainability these days. They are looking for an environmentally-friendly option. If you run on-site data centers then they consume energy for cooling and power. So, when you want to limit your digital footprint, you can shift all the data to the cloud. 

Compliance:

Staying compliant to Data Protection and privacy regulations is quite crucial for running a business. If you avail cloud data migration services, vendors always stick to laws and regulations. Thereby, you can always follow laws while getting this service. 

Types of Cloud Data Migration Strategies 

Here are different kinds of cloud data migration strategies. Every strategy has some plus and negative points. Once you know all about them, you would be able to pick the best cloud data migration strategy.

1. Rehost 

When you want to reduce infrastructure cost and need quick transfer, then you can opt for Rehosting. It’s where you move all data and applications to the cloud without making any changes. 

2. Refactor 

It’s a strategy where some minor adjustments are made to applications. The purpose of changes is to make it cloud compatible. 

3. Rearchitect 

It’s a strategy where core architecture of applications are modified so you can make the most of cloud-native features. Your organizations have multiple applications that need to be modernized. So, if you want to take full advantage of cloud features, you can opt for re-architect.

4. Rebuild

This strategy is time consuming and costly. And you can opt for this strategy when you have outdated applications. In that scenario, you can’t transfer them to the cloud. Therefore, it’s essential to redesign and rewrite all the applications from scratch.

5. Replace

Sometimes you have outdated applications or some applications that are quite costly to maintain in the cloud network. In this case, you need to discontinue the use of existing applications and then start creating the whole IT Infrastructure from scratch. You start relying on new cloud-based applications that adhere to your business needs and requirements. 

Cloud Data Migration Challenges

Although you can avail multiple benefits from the cloud data migration, this whole process is not quite simple. It unlocks a wide set of challenges. It’s vital to know them all so you can navigate from on-site to cloud effortlessly. 

Data Security:

Every organization has sensitive and confidential data. So, the biggest concern they have is regarding data security and privacy. The best way to overcome such challenges is to choose the best cloud data migration services, which follow utmost security policies.

Complexity of Migration:

The process of migrating data is not that simple. The whole process is super complex, incase when your organization has an extensive IT Infrastructure. You need experts who can handle data migration in the most effective manner. There is a need to make a detailed plan about what data to move and when to move it. Besides, data and apps compatibility with the cloud environment isn’t that easy. Complex processes boost the risk of data loss and downtime.

Performance and Latency Issues:

The biggest issue your organization can face during data migration is reduced performance due to latency issues. Your customers and employees might lose access to the essential data. You will face this problem with latency-sensitive applications. Bandwidth limitation is another concern. 

Data Governance and Control:

Every organization has to follow specific data privacy and other regulations. It’s your duty to maintain governance and control during the data migration process. You need to follow data management policies such as data quality, privacy, access control, etc. This challenge boosts especially when you hire multiple cloud providers. You won’t know what service provider to follow now. 

Skills Gap:

Another biggest issue you have to face after migrating data to the cloud is to hire or train in-house experts.You need to spend additionally for hiring and training your staff who must be well-equipped and well-versed with the cloud skills. 

Cloud Data Migration Process

Here are some main phases of this process:

1. Planning and Assessment

The first step you need to take before migrating all the data to the cloud is to set some goals and objectives. For example, what you want to achieve from this process. When you hire experts, they will evaluate all the IT Infrastructure. They assess everything to decide what kind of apps you need to move and what files should be kept on site. You need to pick whether you want your data on a public or private cloud. Some organizations go with hybrid options. During part of the plan, you will have to pick the right data migration strategy.  

2. Designing the Migration

The next step of Cloud Data Migration is designing the cloud architecture. It means you will decide all about the network to pick, storage specifications, level of security and scalability. The new design must comply with security and compliance standards. You will have to create a full-fledged data migration plan where you will finalize the sequence of data moving, timeline settings,etc. There would be a need to define the roles and responsibilities. 

3. Testing

Cloud data experts always begin migration with proof of concept. It’s a process where experts will do small-scale migration. The purpose is to test the performance of applications and workloads. The ultimate goal is to identify the critical issues.If there is any security issue or breach, cloud migration service provider will handle the issues before full-scale migration. 

4.Data Migration

Before data is migrated, experts will clean all the data, classify it and then create its backup. Your organization relies on the data migration tools and services to move data to the cloud. Once data is migrated, the data is validated to ensure integrity. The validation process ensure that the data transfer process is accurate and complete. 

5. Application Migration

In the next steps of data migration, all the applications will be transferred after making some changes. Only cloud experts can optimize the applications for the environment. Once applications are migrated, some tests are performed, so that apps remain fully integrated with the cloud services and environment.

6. Optimization and Management

In the next steps, cloud services providers will optimize the resources of your cloud environment. The purpose is to spend less and get more. Experts will monitor this environment regularly to ensure that they meet compliance requirements. Post-migration review helps you determine migration success. This continuous monitoring allows you to identify areas of improvement and then make changes accordingly. Try to pick those cloud data migration service providers who train your inhouse staff and at least provide effective support service for efficient management of new cloud environment. 

Wrap up

Finally, you have a clear picture in mind of the cloud data migration process. You need to make the best plan, assess and choose the best strategy. Cost management during the whole migration process is crucial. When it comes to cloud data storage managment, you can rely on ShareArchiver, this platform ensures that all your data remain protected and you can access it as and when you need. Beside, always pick the best cloud data migration services that make the whole transformation simple and cost-effective.