Moving data and applications from on-site IT infrastructure to the Cloud is a major priority for all businesses, and the benefits for increased flexibility, agility and business continuity are huge.
Full cloud migration has seen a slow uptake across businesses with concerns around data security, privacy, and the risk to business downtime. Although most businesses have internal IT teams, migrating data and applications to the cloud are not usually core competencies that in-house teams are likely to have. With a myriad of challenges such as bandwidth, user adoption, and lack of testing, many IT teams are turning to third-party support.
In order to give your cloud migration project the best start, it’s recommended that you choose a trusted cloud migration partner to guide you through the process and ensure you are drawing as much value from your investment as possible. Here are five things you need to consider when looking for a cloud migration partner:
1. They are a trusted platform partner
When looking for a cloud migration partner, it’s important to identify a business who is an expert in cloud migration and who has referenceable experience in your chosen platform. For example, if you want to migrate to a hybrid cloud with Microsoft Azure, it’s best to choose an Azure certified provider.
Ensuring your chosen migration partner has relevant experience in your preferred platform will ensure you receive the specific support and guidance possible throughout your cloud migration process.
2. Your partner has industry expertise
When selecting a cloud migration partner, it’s important to look for a partner who has experience in your specific industry or sector. An expert in your field will help streamline the migration process for you, as they will have a clear understanding of:
- Your customers, internal team and stakeholders and their front-end expectations and challenges.
- Your internal processes and a best-practice data structure for optimised use.
- User needs and expectations, and how to account for those in your new system.
While looking for a partner who is an expert in your field, it’s also important to see how broad their customer base is. This means that have a significant amount of experience with a wide variety of migration challenges and, therefore, will be able to recommend the right solution to your team.
At M247, we work with a range of businesses across the UK, providing full pre-, during and post cloud migration support. See what we can achieve for your business by booking your no-obligation cloud assessment today.
3. Your cloud migration partner has a Cloud Centre of Excellence team
When you have an urgent issue, there’s nothing more frustrating than being passed between customer service support staff who are unable to immediately resolve your request or issue.
In order to ensure you’re best supported, it’s critical that you find a cloud migration partner who has a dedicated Cloud Centre of Excellence Team. This group of senior, highly skilled engineers will become an extension of your in-house IT team, and will support your business by providing:
- Quick support and diagnostics to understand any potential problems you’re facing and how to overcome them.
- Adequate education and training to ensure all members of your team can easily navigate your new platform.
- Their expert, certified knowledge on public, private, and hybrid cloud models to your IT experts.
4. They operate using a clear, best-practice migration roadmap
A good provider should follow the same, predictable migration roadmap. Although it’s called a migration roadmap, the migration itself should be a very small part of their best practice plan.
Migration strategies will vary between providers, however your roadmap should be clear, thorough, and robust. Partnering with M247 provides you with this cloud migration roadmap, taking you through seven key stages:
- Thorough assessment of your current data structure and processes.
- Project kick off with key stakeholders, where core needs will be defined.
- High-level design of a migration plan and rough outline of what to expect.
- Full migration strategy with timescales, including key milestones and deliverables to identity workloads, plan architecture, and security governance.
- User testing in a sandbox environment to ensure the correct framework and practices have been put into place.
- Migration & early life support to ensure a smooth and successful transition.
- Robust handover & continued support. M247 will help you migrate your data and applications to the public cloud and will provide you with the necessary ongoing support post-migration.
Top tip
The migration itself should be a very small part of a best practice plan. It’s also essential to find a provider that will offer a thorough assessment of current processes, user testing, and early life support.
Ready to get started? Book your no-obligation cloud migration assessment today.
5. They also provide managed services
Migrating to the public cloud should not be approached as a one-off activity. An end-to-end cloud migration provider will provide continued support from the initial assessment of your business landscape to post-migration training. M247’s well architected review will also support you to make any iterations required to ensure you’re gaining the most value from your migration project. This review includes:
- Server optimisation – In order to maximise your server storage, a good managed services partner will help you understand your data, identify inconsistencies, inaccuracies and redundant information to help you logically choose what should be migrated and the timescales at which these migrations should occur
- User training – To support you throughout the lifecycle of your cloud migration, a managed services company will help your team become cloud champions, fully understanding their new processes and using the platform to its maximum capabilities.
- Hardware, software & network security – A trusted partner will ensure all of your new and legacy data, systems and processes are protected, regardless of the environment they exist in.
6. Finding the perfect cloud migration partner
When looking for a cloud migration partner, you need to find a company you can trust. This trust can be built in a multitude of ways, including:
- Following best practice processes. When migrating to the cloud, a good provider should have an effective roadmap, establishing your business objectives and goals. Typically following a phased migration approach, they should clearly outline the goal at every stage of the migration process and how this will improve the efficiency of your team.
- Significant platform and sector experience. As both a trusted platform partner and an organisation with experience in your industry, they’ll be used to the common challenges faced with your chosen platform and within your sector.
- Offering support throughout the cloud migration lifecycle. A good provider will understand that their role doesn’t stop once the last file has been moved. In order to make the most of your investment, a trusted provider should offer you continued support.
Similarly, to ensure that your migration project is successful and get the optimal benefits of your investment, it’s important to look for a managed services provider. A trusted provider will support you throughout the entire lifecycle of your cloud migration journey and give you greater insight into your data usage. This will allow you to migrate in the most efficient way possible, streamlining your internal infrastructure and keeping costs down to a minimum.
Ultimately, in order to better understand your needs, it’s crucial that your chosen provider supplies you with a thorough cloud migration assessment. Through this assessment, they should be able to outline possible challenges, solutions, costs, and timeframes to help you future-proof your new virtual storage platform.
Although there are many cloud migration providers on the market, not all cloud migration partners will meet the standards your business requires. By focusing on choosing a partner that prioritises flexibility, data security, and data protection will make a significant difference on making your cloud migration as smooth, efficient and seamless as possible.
Key takeaways
- With many cloud migration companies on the market, it’s vital you find a partner you can trust.
- Working with ‘trusted’ platform partners is ideal.
- Your perfect cloud migration partner should have experience in your sector, and others, to help avoid a broad range of challenges.
- A Cloud Centre of Excellence team will ensure all of your queries are dealt with by dedicated experts.
- Best-practice roadmap isn’t a could-have, but a must-have.
- A managed service partner will help provide continued support throughout your cloud journey.
Get in touch for your no-obligation cloud migration assessment
To find out how to get started with your cloud migration, speak to one of our consultants today.
