Tackling the cloud migration challenge without breaking the bank

Corporate IT leaders have long been adjusting to a new business landscape that’s driven by mobile, remote, and hybrid workers. And in so doing, they’ve been searching for innovative new strategies for workplace modernization.

Cloud migration is a big one. After all, many have figured out that the “workplace” is no longer a traditional workplace, per se. People today demand flexible work environments, and that means employers need to build IT infrastructures that are versatile, secure, and highly efficient for everyone.

According to The Economic Times, a mass migration toward the cloud is happening before our eyes, and it’s a real game-changer in the business world. Corporate leaders are starting to rethink everything, and they’re building around a “digital first” mindset first and foremost.

This has led to some interesting strategic challenges. For many IT leaders now, the objective is to build a cloud-centric infrastructure that’s effective across the board, yet doesn’t break the bank. Ram Charan, chief technology officer at Fulcrum Digital, warned that this process is one that’s often fraught with risk.

"In most cases, we find that cloud migrations have led to an exponential increase in IT expenditure,” Charan explained. “This is mostly due to ineffective migration selection and planning. Successful cloud migrations need a holistic vision and a thorough analysis of the portfolio to discover where the cloud fits into an enterprise’s overall IT strategy."

From a financial standpoint, cloud migration is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the cloud is powerful and has many uses, so there are all sorts of ways it can bolster your bottom line. On one hand, the cloud is powerful and has many uses! So it stands to reason that by spending too recklessly on too many cloud resources, your business can get into trouble quickly. This is especially true if you “lift and shift” too much of your IT all at once. After all, the cloud is nothing more than an alternative compute environment in another location. If you simply take your existing (bulky, expensive) environment and migrate the whole thing to the cloud, you aren’t likely to find many cost savings.

So what should your strategy be? Ideally, it would begin with identifying the aspects of your infrastructure that are most essential, then building a cloud architecture from the ground up that’s centered around those. You wouldn’t overspend for storage or compute capacity that you aren’t fully using, and you wouldn’t invest in unnecessary subscriptions, either. And in a perfect world, you’d invest in cloud resources that are scalable, as well, so that your technology can grow as your business does.

For help with all of this and more, you can turn to Zones. We know what it's like to be a cloud business ourselves, as the cloud migration process is one we’ve undertaken in our own organization over the years, and we have a wealth of experience and knowledge we’d love to impart. If you connect with the Zones Cloud team today, you’ll be in capable hands moving forward, ready to reshape your organization into a digital-first, cloud-centric business. Let’s get to work, shall we?

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