Cloud Migration: Your Top 6 Cloud Concerns

As companies continue to rapidly adopt the cloud, many of the functions that were traditionally managed by IT organizations are now undergoing a massive transformation. But what are the main risks associated with this cloud transformation—and how can IT teams prepare themselves?

iT1 can help. Here, we outline the six main risks and how we can provide you greater support as your partner in your cloud migration.

Availability. Cloud providers may tout the availability of their services (even to the point of four or five 9s!). But at the end of the day, you need complete reassurance that you can trust your cloud services.

How we help: iT1 will work to get to know your specific business and your unique goals, sourcing the right cloud provider to provide stability (and peace of mind) for your business.

Security. Does your cloud service have encryption and advanced redundancy? If so, that’s a good starting point. But remember, security must be proactive—it’s not something that you can buy off the shelf or download and be done with. Your cloud partners should provide guidance every step of the way.

How we help: iT1 evaluates your security from the big-picture point of view down to the micro level. We take a defensive, proactive approach to security, arming you with the strategies and tools you need to defend your business network and data.

Control. Moving from an on-premise solution to the cloud does mean giving up some degree of control. Even the smallest of changes can create major changes—making many uncomfortable with the idea of possible limitations.

How we help: iT1 will talk you through changes in advance of them occurring, preparing you for what your daily management looks like. Additionally, we’re positioned to train your team and put the right level of operations support and control into place so that you can focus on higher priority initiatives.

Pricing. How can you choose the right cloud model that will fit your needs? And what about failures—these are more likely to occur (and increase in expense) if you’ve chosen the wrong cloud model, one that does not fit your specific needs. Bottom-line: unexpected costs are a major source of stress.

How we help: iT1 can work within any budget, and we can help you strategically plan for the right cloud model to support your needs. We offer the experience to provide you with realistic expectations and budgeting expense forecasts.  

Performance. Are you seeing the impact when it comes to your customers’ satisfaction? If applications are moved to the cloud and they are not compatible, everyone is going to feel it from customers to your helpdesk, who will be inundated with calls. The entire chain of impact can be tracked down to the dollar.

How we help: Moving to the cloud is not a “check the box” action item. We can help you by embedding the right analytics so that you can track your improvements every step of the way. We know this is critical to justifying your cloud spend and future cloud costs.

Vendor lock-in: The goal is to enable you to make the right choices for your business. For example, if you want to move a workload to a proprietary platform, it can be costly to move at a later date. To avoid vendor lock-in, you need to make smart decisions from the start.

How we help: Not only is iT1 vendor agnostic, we offer the strategy to build in the right protection for you at the architecture layer in your infrastructure. This will allow you to make the smartest choices for your business versus feeling like you’re forced down any one path.

You can count on the iT1 consulting team to provide a holistic assessment of your business, allowing us to address these cloud concerns and more. Have a cloud concern that we didn’t address here? Let us know in the comments. Our team of experienced cloud engineers is standing by to help.