Conquering the Challenges of Cloud MigrationConquering the Challenges of Cloud Migration

By doing your homework and getting the right help, you can wind up with a fast, cost-effective, and reliable cloud implementation.

If you haven't already, you're going to move something to the cloud at some point in the future. Even if you are not sure that a cloud service is right for you, you still need to investigate the cloud migration process to be able to make an informed decision -- even if you ultimately decide not to go that route. If you are not an expert in cloud migration -- I assume most of you are not -- there are services that can help you be successful.

Once you decide to migrate some functions to the cloud, you will discover that this is only the beginning. Likely, more functions will be moved spanning years of IT and UC operation. Along this journey, many challenges will surface. Among the most common difficulties is the task of properly maintaining existing application services during the migration. Other challenges will be not disrupting the user experience or weakening the security you already have.

Migration decisions are often based on business and budget considerations, but the actual move to the cloud involves many technical processes. It's a good idea to know what you want ahead of making the move so that you know what to look for when seeking migration help:

For more perspective on the cloud migration process, I interviewed Lawrence Guillory, CEO at cloud migration solution provider Racemi. Lawrence is focused on Racemi's single focus: to make migration to the cloud easy while offering a seamless experience for customers.

What do you see as the biggest challenge to cloud migration?

What are the physical challenges?

What are the virtual challenges?

How should security issues be addressed?

Compare IaaS and PaaS.

What happens to the user experience during migration?

How are business continuity plans and operations changed?

Should the enterprise, VAR, or MSP perform the migration?

Are there any issues after migration that can surface?

An automated server migration solution produces the fast, reliable, and cost-effective moves between dissimilar physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure. Whether you are migrating to public or private cloud, consolidating data centers or provisioning new hardware, the customer wants a simplified migration process. Automation reduces the labor, avoids errors, and provides reports on the progress and success of the migration.