13 Biggest Challenges When Moving Your Business To The Cloud

Source – forbes.com

The use of cloud technology is on the rise, as businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the multiple benefits cloud computing can have in terms of efficiency and profitability. Whether it’s private, public, hybrid or a mix of various cloud computing models, the technology is now used by at least 70% of U.S. organizations, according to IDG Enterprise’s 2016 Cloud Computing Executive summary. The figure is expected to grow further, as 56% of businesses surveyed said they were working on transferring more IT operations to the cloud.

The chief benefits listed by organizations that have successfully moved to the cloud include increased efficiency, ease of access, simpler administration and management, and overall lower costs. But before reaping the benefits of cloud technology, businesses will first have to move there successfully — a process often fraught with various challenges, from insufficient planning to obsolete technology and more.

Below, 13 members of Forbes Technology Council discuss some of the biggest challenges a business might have to overcome when moving its operations to the cloud.

1. Getting It Right

Unless you’re moving to a platform-as-a-service such as Heroku, it’s pretty easy to get things wrong the first time. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud can be thought of like Legos: There are many different pieces and tons of ways to assemble something. If you can, use a platform-as-a-service (PaaS); they’re prescriptive in their usage, which is great if you lack expertise. – Russell Smith, Rainforest QA

2. People And Processes

When it comes to cloud adoption, the biggest challenge isn’t technology — it’s the people and processes that must change and adapt. This takes time, limiting the effectiveness of cloud adoption. Younger companies and those with tech innovation test centers will make this transition easier. The biggest enterprises will have a long tail of transition when it comes to full cloud adoption. – Tyler Shields, Signal Sciences

3. Having A Defined Strategy And Business Objectives

There is a multitude of reasons to migrate to the cloud: agility, flexibility, performance, cost, digital transformation, etc. Your business objectives must dictate your cloud strategy, which is inherently complex. We work with companies on a daily basis that struggle with cloud migration, and more often than not, the struggle is due to a lack of clearly defined strategy. – Grant Kirkwood, Unitas Global

4. Getting Over The Psychological Barriers

Will the cloud be more secure than my internal data center? Can my cloud provider maintain my uptime standards? Will their technical support address my problems quickly? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” to all of these questions when dealing with a mainstream cloud provider in 2017. I had the same fears in 2010 when I migrated to the cloud. I also reduced my hosting expenses by 75% by migrating our systems to a cloud provider. – Tim Maliyil, AlertBoot

5. Time, Cost And Security

Time, cost and security are the most common challenges. Moving data is a slow process because it requires a lot of bandwidth and man hours. There are also security doubts, and companies often prefer to keep their data on local servers. Overcoming such concerns are the biggest challenges. Managed services are already powerful enough to offer cost-effective service compared to what companies have now. – Ivailo Nikolov, SiteGround

6. Not Getting Caught Up In The Hype

We learned this from mom at the dinner table: Don’t put more food on your plate than you can eat. With cloud migrations, it’s critical to not get caught up in the hype. If you do, you’ll choose to put more in the cloud than your teams can manage effectively, and/or you’ll match the wrong workloads to the wrong provider. Do proper planning to match the workloads and migrate in priority order. – Mike Fuhrman, Peak 10

7. Changing Management

The same as any big IT project, the biggest challenge is often the change in management. You need to be sure to help your organization through the change, that the requirements you obtain throughout the migration are real and that they have actionable results across your entire business. – Michael Ringman, TELUS International

8. Dependable Technological Infrastructure

As a business becomes more dependent on cloud computing, the technological infrastructure of its work space is of utmost importance. Before evaluating new software/storage methods, owners should consider whether their building is equipped for it. Does it have access to multiple, reliable ISPs? Does it have the necessary redundancies to prevent outages? Does it afford the necessary mobile coverage? – Arie Barendrecht, WiredScore

9. Accurately Estimating The Costs

Many companies that move to the cloud do a poor job estimating the true cost of service. Everyone sees the cents per service unit but fails to multiply this out correctly over the length of a month or a year. When tasked to start the migration to the cloud, start with the services that you host in-house that are least used instead of those services most used. This is where you’ll find your savings. – Steven Job, Constellix

10. Modifying The Architecture Of Cloud Services

Issues arise when the migration team wants to re-architect the entire infrastructure to perfectly fit offered cloud services, or when the team doesn’t want to make a single change. It is beneficial to take advantage of cloud services or scale/cost savings, but not if a rewrite breaks the bank. First, get to the cloud as quickly as possible and then start modifying the architecture over time. – Robert Smith, Infofree.com

11. Translating Security Posture To The Cloud Environment

One of the major challenges is translating your security posture to the cloud environment. Companies can’t assume the cloud provider will handle all security aspects over the data. When migrating to the cloud, companies should obtain third-party reports, such as SOC 2, that attest to the security of the cloud organization. These reports also lay out measures the company should have in place. – David Lefever, The Mako Group

12. Determining Whether To Lease Or Own

As companies migrate from using cloud-based computing for offline storage and retrieval to full cloud-based processing, they need to consider that fully leased prices per unit can be substantially higher over the life of the service than acquiring and financing. The faster you want access, the more you will pay. Plan wisely. – John Derham, IQ Media

13. Connecting Legacy Systems With Cloud Applications

Most current systems, particularly systems of record (the backbone of an organization’s operations) are not cloud-ready. The biggest challenge is to connect legacy systems with newer cloud-based business applications. For your short-term to mid-term plans, solutions that can operate in a hybrid environment are essential, along with services from vendors that can support a company’s migration to the cloud.