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The potential benefits of cloud migration are well understood. Lowered costs, simplified operations, and the faster rollout of applications are just some of the reasons that are compelling businesses large and small to migrate the cloud. Added to which, the recent shift to remote working means that more companies now depend on cloud services than ever before.
Nearly one half of all cloud-native transformations fail to deliver on the promise of enabling more streamlined, agile, and unified operations. According to recent research, the primary reason why these cloud migration projects failed is simple: the technology strategy was not aligned to key business objectives.
Despite the huge number of companies pushing ahead with investments in cloud-powered modernisation programmes, many will find their efforts fall short where ROI is concerned. These cloud migration setbacks means that organisations ultimately fail to achieve their initial financial, strategic and operational objectives.
Here at Bell Integration, we’re experienced at working in partnership with organisations that want to ensure their journey to the cloud via a well-orchestrated and planned cloud migration delivers measurable and anticipated business outcomes. With that in mind, let’s look at the key focus areas that decision-makers need to prioritise when undertaking any cloud migration programme.
In recent years, the cloud has gained increasing importance thanks to the rise of technologies like AI, data analytics, machine learning, the Internet of Things, Industry 5.0 and more. For example, today’s AI powered algorithms build upon the inherent scalability offered by the cloud, enabling organisations to automate routine activities, analyse trends, undertake predictive analysis to determine future events and more.
Last year, 45% of EU enterprises purchased a range of cloud computing services. These included hosting for databases, email, and office systems, as well as platforms for networking and software development, testing and deployment. By 2026, it’s been estimated that 45% of all enterprise IT budgets will be spent on the cloud and 61% of business plans to optimise cloud costs by next year.
Worryingly, however, much like digital transformations, cloud migrations are fraught with complications and a considerable number fail or stall. The scale of this problem is illustrated by the fact that 44% of CIOs admit they approached cloud migration without a sufficient plan, while 55% of business leaders were unable to optimise their process to match a clearly defined business case.
Cloud migration is a key stepping stone for businesses looking to unlock new capabilities and the choice of cloud computing services available is both extensive and numerous. During cloud migration projects, today’s businesses can now opt to utilise public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud environments, selecting the most optimal solution and providers for different workloads. When it comes to determining the level of flexibility, management and control needed, a range of options are available to organisations, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). Increasingly, the era of one-size-fits-all cloud solutions has given way to a more tailored and dynamic approach that enables businesses to select the optimal cloud resources for specific workloads. In doing so, they can ensure redundancy and embrace vendor-agnostic solutions.
The increasing shift to multi-cloud environments is just one hot trend. In the past 18 months, sustainability has become a critical focus for organisations who are looking to make their cloud use more sustainable. Alongside looking long and hard at the sustainability credentials of providers, organisations are taking steps to implement more sustainable data centre designs, using renewable energy as an energy source and implementing energy monitoring systems. Cloud migration programmes are increasingly including sustainability metrics in their FinOps calculations.
Looking ahead, quantum cloud computing is the next big trend on the horizon. Meanwhile, cloud providers are already preparing to address the potential threats posed by quantum computing advancements to existing encryption methods. In response, they are looking to introduce quantum-safe encryption security measures to shield data from emerging threats and fortify the security of sensitive information in the cloud. Successful cloud migration includes future thinking and pre-planning with regards to potential game changing technologies. The downside however is that you look too far into the future and make decisions based on many technology assumptions that simply can’t be predicted. The sweet spot for forward thinking considers a period of roughly 18 months give or take, anything more and you might find yourself in a tight spot down the road.
But let’s return to the present for the moment and take a deeper look at why and how cloud migrations can go wrong.
As the cloud migration practice matures, massive modernisation efforts across industries have seen billions of dollars of enterprise workloads shift from on-premises data centres to a more efficient hyperscale infrastructure.
Problem is that many companies fail to invest the time and attention that’s needed to figure out how to optimise their data and processes and make real changes that will untether the enterprise from its pre-migration habits. This failure will result in:
To put it simply, for cloud migration to deliver successfully you will need to do more than just layer in some new tech. But that’s not the only challenge.
Other pitfalls include taking workloads to the wrong environment, skyrocketing consumption costs, inefficiencies in the cloud migration process itself, and unanticipated cost and complexity.
The process of cloud migration, the moving of workloads and establishing cross-functional workflows can feel daunting. Without thinking things through, organisations risk migrating their existing technical debt to the cloud which drives cost overruns and other inefficiencies. In effect they create a parallel cloud-native organisation alongside their brick-and-mortar heritage operation. This cloud migration outcome simply isn’t acceptable.
For this reason, organisations need to weigh up if they need to refactor legacy applications to take advantage of performance efficiencies and scalability deemed possible with their cloud migration programme. The decision to refactor involving additional cost, or the opting for a lift-and-shift strategy needs to be heavily considered before any migration has been approved or started.
Cheaper, faster and less disruptive, re-platforming is another migration option. However, this approach limits scalability and leaves technical debt stranded in the cloud minimizing any value gains from cloud migration.
Bottom line, there is rarely a one-size-fits-all or easy solution when it comes to cloud migration. Organisations need to adopt a multifaceted approach that considers all the options in relation to their existing environment and future business objectives.
Going full steam ahead with regards to your cloud migration plans without the right strategy in place will result in major headaches as well as time and budget overruns. The setback of a failed or delayed cloud migration will quickly hit the bottom line and upend any strategic business plans that are dependent on the completion of a successful cloud migration. And it happens more often that you might think. According to McKinsey & Company, 75% of cloud migrations go over budget.
To avoid this common cloud migration misstep, organisations will need to prepare a detailed and coherent cloud migration plan that identifies and prioritises applications that represent the greatest reward and least risk.
But before this, it’s essential to establish the business goals behind any cloud migration. For some organisations the key driver for cloud migration is cost savings or capital preservation. For others it will be the ability to rollout and scale applications faster, or mitigating the risks associated with legacy infrastructure. This business case will help organisations make informed decisions about the cloud model and services they need and assess potential costs and benefits. It should also outline how cloud migration outcomes will be monitored and evaluated.
Having laid this cloud migration foundation, organisations next need to conduct a thorough assessment of the current IT infrastructure and business processes. This will help determine what to migrate to the cloud and identify what gaps need to be addressed to elevate the organisation’s readiness to migrate.
After this, the detailed cloud migration strategy can be planned and executed.
It goes without saying that you’ll need to get full buy-in from all business and technology stakeholders on your cloud strategy and ensure that everyone agrees with the drivers behind the migration project. Next, identify and hire experienced and effective cloud migration experts who can help you through the initial discovery phase and help you decide between a single, hybrid or multi cloud model. This cloud model selection will be determined by a variety of factors that include issues like security, compliance, performance, and cost.
Here at Bell Integration, we work with organisations from the get-go – that includes helping them define the business strategy behind their cloud migration project. After which, we’ll assess all infrastructure, platforms and applications, identifying opportunities to retire, re-platform or right-size the technology stack to generate as much efficiency as possible.
A key priority for us is ensuring that organisations are focused on the change management perspective of the cloud migration programme. That includes identifying key business success factors (KPIs) and ensuring that any cloud migration is performed against strict SLAs set by the operations team.
When it comes to performing the actual cloud migration itself, we proceed through the migration in a highly sequenced and incremental manner. This prioritised approach ensures that every step can be validated and monitored and that business-as-usual operations aren’t disrupted.
As we’ve seen, embarking on a successful cloud migration journey involves meticulous planning and strategic decision-making to ensure as seamless a transition as possible for users and applications.
Transitioning to a cloud computing environment involves implementing new technologies, procedures, and third-party integrations. In short, it’s complex, and new as well as existing teams won’t have the know-how or qualifications needed to identify and document interdependencies and create a phased plan for moving specific components to the cloud. Simply porting legacy software over to the cloud can result in downtime, the loss of key functionalities, and dissatisfied users and customers. Cloud migration initiatives benefit from the experience of migration teams with decades of successful cloud migration projects under their belts mitigating the risks inherent in the complexity of workload and data migration.
Most importantly of all, transitioning from a strong on-premises IT culture to the cloud, and especially the public cloud, requires a meaningful shift in attitude and approach. So, cross-organisational buy in, engagement and involvement will be critical in the undertaking of any cloud migration project.
Finally, a lack of focus and direction will result in dramatic overspending on services that won’t generate any value for the organisation. Or worse still, introduce spiralling complexity or expose the organisation’s data to new risks. Ultimately, gaining the visibility needed to govern the organisation’s new cloud environment will be critical.
With careful and detailed planning and the right strategy, you can execute a cloud migration that is delivered on-time and to budget and which will deliver all the business benefits the organisation anticipates and needs.
To help you move ahead with confidence, we’ve created a detailed 5-step guide to help you plan a successful cloud migration. Our Fast Forward Your Cloud Journey e-book breaks down the cloud migration process into five clearly defined phases, each of which plays a crucial role in ensuring a smooth transition to the cloud with minimal risk or disruption.
Covering everything from how to determine your cloud migration requirements and select the right cloud environment for your needs, through to preparing and executing the migration process itself our guide provides a detailed road map to help you identify the best way forward for your cloud migration initiatives.
Bell's vClarus platform maintains compliance throughout the migration process, providing a single depository for the data, avoiding multiple data points with conflicting information and speeding up the transition, reducing risk and cost.
