Cloud computing – a quick overview

The term, ‘cloud computing’ refers to the delivery of any computing service that is handled remotely and delivered to users (most commonly) over the internet. These services can encompass anything from file storage to running applications and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) typically offer a range of packages to their clients on a pay-as-you-go pricing model. 

Moving your IT services to a CSP can drastically cut the overhead of trying to run an internal network while also improving the security of your data and making it accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. For these reasons (among many others), cloud computing is now one of the fastest-growing sectors of the entire IT industry with firms moving en masse to migrate their data, apps, and processing to the cloud. 

The importance of a good migration strategy

While cloud computing will undoubtedly improve the way IT systems function in your company, migrating to the cloud can cause issues if the transfer isn’t handled correctly. A move to the cloud will result in changes to the way you work so you need to plan ahead and involve all interested parties to make sure the move goes as smoothly as possible. 

The importance of a good migration strategy

While all organizations are different and will have their own migration requirements, as a rule, you should follow these key planning stages for successful cloud migration:

Involve all stakeholders and elect a cloud migration architect: As you might imagine, moving files and apps to remote storage will likely have an impact across most facets of your firm and will change how your company functions in the digital realm. For this reason, you need to select a migration architect who should have suitable experience and qualifications – for example, AWS cloud certification or similar for other platforms. The cloud migration architect should liaise with all stakeholders to ensure the move is handled correctly with the least disruption possible. Unfortunately, many company bosses still simply hand the task of cloud migration to their IT department with little thought for its implementation rather than first thinking about how the changes will affect their firm.

Agree what services will be moved to the cloud – and in what order: Most firms have key day-to-day computing tasks that they simply can’t do without but that will be affected by a move to the cloud. You need to spend time selecting exactly what parts of your current IT services are going to be moved to your cloud provider – and in what order in terms of urgency. 

Establish KPIs and measure the success of each service migration: You can’t manage what you don’t measure so you should set benchmarks and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so that you can assess the added value or increase in performance achieved by your migration. Again, as a general rule, these should be on a comparison basis i.e., performance or cost pre-cloud compared to how you’re performing after the migration.