Cloud Migration Checklist

If you are struggling to move your IT infrastructure to the cloud or thinking about how to do it, you are in the right place. Here, we provide the 10 primary steps that you can follow to migrate to the cloud successfully.

1. Determine Your Objective

Start by analyzing your needs and determining how cloud migration can solve them. You need to consider the benefits of migrating to tell whether you should invest your time and resources in the project.

2. Conduct SWOT Analysis

Migrating to the cloud can be destructive. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the undertaking. Also, consider its threats and the opportunism that it offers. After that, you can make an objective decision on whether this costly undertaking suits you.

3. Decide on your Level of Integration

Depending on the nature of your needs, decide whether you need shallow or deep cloud integration. Shallow integration allows you to move to the cloud by making limited alterations. With deep integration, you need to modify the application by auto-scaling, load scaling, and more. It may also involve using Amazon s3 or DynamoDB, or other cloud storage.

4. Opt for Either Multi or Single-Cloud

To run your apps with one cloud provider, you can use a single-cloud. This option enables you to take advantage of all that the service provider offers. But it makes you vendor locked-in, which means moving to a different cloud requires as much effort as the initial migration. For multi-cloud, you can have applications on different clouds, split the application across several cloud providers, or make the app cloud-agnostic. It is more costly but more efficient and makes shifting easier.

5. Establish Cloud Key Performance Indicators

Implement the best KPIs for cloud migration. It will show the migration progress and discover problems that may be lurking in the application. Examples of the best KPIs are:

Page load time;
Error rates;
CPU usage %;
Cart adds;
Session duration.

6. Establish Performance Baselines

Performance baselines help to determine whether cloud migration has enhanced performance as desired or not. You have two options:

Long baseline- takes more time but effective;
Small baseline- Saves time.

7. Prioritize Necessary Refactoring

If required, make some slight modifications to the service and applications before you migrate. The aim is to make them work efficiently in the cloud.

8. Devise the Appropriate Data-Migration Plan

The most challenging part is accessing the data during migration, and you need to plan to mitigate the risk. You can access the data safely by using these options:

Cloud provider services;
Bi-directional syncing;
One-way synchronization.

9. Execute the Plan

Back up the data, set up the cloud environment, migrate the data, and test and tweak the migration for efficiency.

10. Monitor the Implementation

After completing the migration process, implement a comprehensive monitoring program that can help you to identify and fix many issues.

Conclusion

Due to the benefit of migrating to the cloud, the demand for public cloud adoption is on a steady increase. But achieving the desired success remains a significant concern for many businesses. You can now use this cloud migration checklist to help you throughout the migration process.

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