Making the move to the cloud brings a multitude of benefits for businesses, regardless of their size. For most, the change will usually translate in reduced running costs, faster modernisation capabilities and increased security – but there is more.
The advantages of shifting to the cloud extend far beyond the immediate effects of the global pandemic. Embracing cloud infrastructure leads to a safer and more resilient business setting. In light of the tough times brought on by the pandemic, companies have quickly and steadily turned to cloud solutions to help them adjust.
Why do businesses migrate to the cloud?
Every organisation has its own reasons to migrate, but one recurring and primary reason for making the switch to the cloud is the focus on modernising the business and work environment.
Companies might choose to move to the cloud due to certain problems they are encountering. These can include too many IT resources being used or on-site systems that restrict the use of modern services. Other common reasons for cloud migration are the end of data center contracts, issues with business continuity, cash flow difficulties, and cybersecurity risks.
Here is a list of five of the biggest reasons why organisations choose to migrate to the cloud:
1. Reducing expenses
Migrating to the cloud increases efficiency and reduces operating expenses. With reduced hardware support, increased manageability and more efficient processes, you can save an average of 20 to 30% on virtual machine (VM) resource configuration alone.
2. Freeing up budget
By reducing costs and management overhead you can free up budget and re-adjust your focus to address your business needs.
3. Increasing business agility
As mentioned previously, business agility and continuity is a key element in modern economy, and has become essential for today’s business environment.
Anytime and any-device access to IT resources is crucial for businesses to keep up to speed with competitors, to operate efficiently, to change and adopt new practices, and to effectively respond to their customers and market demands.
4. Achieving a scalable environment
The cloud moves businesses away from servers that are typically under-utilised, enabling a scale-as-you-need approach.
5. Application innovation
The cloud provides an integrated platform for modern development that can increase efficiency for teams and developers.
Cloud migration can allow effective integration of applications, modernising your workspace and allowing teams to thrive and collaborate more efficiently.
6. Increasing security
Migrating end-of-support workloads to cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure provides extended support and updates to strengthen security, ensuring compliance across a hybrid environment.
What should be considered when moving to the cloud?
In the first stages of migration planning, businesses need to take into account the range of workloads and applications that can be migrated to the cloud.
Common migration projects include:
- Windows Server
- SQL Server
- Databases
- DevTest
- Web apps
- SAP
- Specialised workloads
- VDI
A thorough migration will usually require a cloud provider (and core partners) that can deliver a comprehensive set of tools and methods to help simplify and accelerate migration, reducing overall risks.
Your IT partner should make the process simple for you and ensure a seamless migration, starting with a full scan of your content, structure, users, and permissions.
The cloud adoption is a process that can be simplified by breaking it into phases. It’s important to get a clear picture of your overall migration readiness and your entire application and workload portfolio, to then find the best way to configure and achieve migration.
When planning your data and/or server migration, businesses need to know what they are dealing with: get a deep understanding of all the applications, quantity and nature of servers/VMs, and how all the components will be moved to the cloud.
This article originally appeared on Euro Systems and has been republished with permission.