How to Migrate Data to the Cloud

Migrating data to the cloud is a long process that can go wrong, and that is why you need to do the due diligence if you are responsible for getting the work done. The cost of fixing the mess can be unbearable. At the same time, your initial investment may not guarantee you any benefits. Read on to find how you can move your data professionally to the cloud.

Conduct Proper Storage Profile Analysis

The best way to prevent severe performance and cost issues is to choose the recommended cloud storage. For successful data transfer, you should adopt the best practices. Some of these are:

Be sure the storage environment allows your teams’ safe access to data;
The storage system should comply with the relevant regulations;
Test the storage method to gauge the right amount of data that you can migrate safely;
Choose either a pay-as-you-use or fixed pricing model and accurately approximate the storage costs;
Be sure you have back-up and disaster recovery systems to minimize emergencies such as downtime;
Ensure the required security policies are performed.

Prepare the Data

Before you transfer the data, you need to make it suitable for the cloud. Here are the steps that you need to follow to prepare your data as required and mitigate the risk of loss or manipulation during the transfer process:

Find an experienced and trusted vendor;
Ensure your employees and other essential stakeholders understand your goal and are supportive;
Be sure only relevant and useful data is transferred;
Prepare the organization for a possible downtime during data migration;
If you are not an expert, engage a professional to support.

Evaluate the Data Transfer Speed

High speed is always admirable since it determines how fast you can finish the work and allow normal business operations to continue. If your bandwidth is low, your business may encounter serious issues whenever you are doing things like streaming. Some of the ways to avoid interruptions are:

Migrate the data when there are a few or no users of the service;
Throttle the usage.

Use the Best Method to Migrate the Data

Ensure the data being transferred gives the desired outcome. Some businesses engage in extensive data preparation at this stage and experience bottlenecks. The best solution is to facilitate dedicated storage. Instead of migrating data over the internet, you can find a service provider that has the right interfaces and tools to facilitate storage.

Validate the Transferred Data

The data needs to remain useful and accurate. A business should adopt quality data validation practices to prevent the possibility of paying a high cost. The best techniques you can consider include:

Data-issue tracking;
Workflow management;
Source-to-source verification.

Conclusion

Data migration to the cloud is an easy process, but one thing you need to have in mind is that it’s a gradual process. As such, any party looking to migrate data to the cloud should take time to ensure they are well prepared. Sometimes, it takes time before getting it right. However, if you follow the right steps, you will find that the migration feels seamless, and your work is not disrupted.

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