Any business that integrates the cloud into its infrastructure is always eager to migrate its data to the cloud as quickly as possible. However, these are the times when you are most likely to make mistakes that could be costly to your organization. These mistakes often lead to opening up data to security threats and could even risk failure to comply with data regulations.

To avoid the repercussions of these mistakes, the first thing to do is – acknowledge that you’ve made a mistake. Taking action comes next. But, the bigger questions are how will you identify when an error has been made? What can you do to stop the effect of the mistake from damaging your business? How to avoid these mistakes before they happen?

Must Read: What is Cloud Migration and What are its Benefits?

Moving your operations into the cloud doesn’t have to be a nightmare. To help you ensure a smooth and fast transition, we’re listing below some of the most common cloud migration mistakes that you can avoid by simply paying attention.

Pure Lift and Shift
Simply put, this is the process of moving code and data to a platform analog in the public cloud, without making any modifications. Yes, this approach might save time and money, at least at first, but it will definitely not get you where you need to go. This is because cloud-based applications need to have some cloud-native localization which is needed to use the public cloud platform in optimal ways, especially to take advantage of native features in order to reduce operational cost and increase performance.

The reason why we say that this approach is unfruitful is that after a year or two, enterprises are bound to go back in and modify their applications to use cloud-native features once they witness the cost of hosting non-native apps. In the meantime, the application is already 30-40% less efficient!

Migrating Data and Workflows Without Purpose
You shouldn’t be migrating your data or workflows to the cloud just because you can! Unless your organization has a clearly defined business purpose of migrating data after adopting the cloud into your infrastructure, you must hold on for your team to come up with an effective analysis of the costs and benefits of moving your data and workflow to the cloud. We’re all aware of how cloud solutions have grown exceedingly powerful over the past decade but that is not reason enough!

Not Configuring Data and Apps for the Cloud
When you move data or projects onto a cloud environment, you might need to reconfigure your data to work inside the cloud depending on your file types and the cloud environment you’re using because running an application in the cloud requires more computing power than what your cloud provider gives you. So, be sure to test your applications and projects that you put into the cloud to ensure that they’re working properly.

Also Read: The Affect of Cloud Computing on Enterprise Evolution Post COVID-19

Migrating Data All at Once
Just like the pure lift and shift, migrating all your data at once is not the right option. Cloud migration is a lengthy process that takes several months to years to fully complete. The time taken in this process is definitely dependent on how much data is stored in your enterprise but it also takes time because it is supposed to be conducted in stages.

When you’re migrating to the cloud, you most probably don’t have experience with the provider’s cloud solutions. This gives your organization a valid reason to plan out its migration to the cloud in phases. You should aim to first get at its core (consist of migrating non-essential or test data first) and then move on to more business-critical or sensitive data. This way, even if you make mistakes in your cloud migration early on, you won’t be putting any of your critical data at risk. Finally, when your enterprise becomes more familiar with your cloud deployment, you can start moving more essential data.

Avoiding or Delaying Integration with DevOps
This mistake is actually a bigger deal than what it sounds. Too often, the cloud teams don’t correctly communicate with the DevOps team. This disconnect causes confusion about how the cloud meets the DevOps toolchain and processes.

As we said, this mistake is bigger than what it sounds, it can literally cost you millions in lost productivity and is absolutely unnecessary. To assure that you carry out this process efficiently, you can do app development and operation in the cloud and can couple DevOps tools chains, testing, and deployment with cloud-based services.

Recommended Read: The 5 Best Practices to Move Ahead with Hybrid Cloud Computing

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