Subdued economic activity, reduced growth and declining consumer confidence is severely impacting small Australian businesses – but there is a silver lining. According to Telstra research, 26 per cent of small and medium enterprises believe cloud-based services will have a positive impact on their operations. Cloud migration involves transferring software, data and applications to the cloud. For small businesses, transferring their operations to cloud can improve scalability, and boost productivity and cost savings.
If your business hasn’t yet started leveraging the cloud, but would like to, the first step in a cloud migration strategy is to establish why you want to follow suit. The biggest mistake is blindly following the pack. Without a clear reason(s), or specific objective, businesses will struggle to find value in cloud adoption. Start small, execute in stages and evaluate progress to help control budgets and gain sound return on investment (ROI) instead of moving to the cloud in one go.
There are a few common pitfalls to avoid when embarking on a cloud migration strategy – let’s explore them now.
Vendor lock-in
It’s critical to identify the purpose and goals for embracing cloud solutions and ensure the provider meets those objectives with a clear path for migration.
If the arrangement is based on a consumption model (pay-per-use), having the freedom and flexibility to move workloads to another platform is crucial – don’t wait until costs start spiralling to act.
It’s easy to get locked into a particular platform, especially with small teams. To avoid this trap, try to have a clear understanding of the overall cloud ecosystem, rather than one particular provider.
Downtime dangers
Large companies can migrate workloads with almost no downtime, but smaller businesses don’t have the luxury of massive redundancy within systems.
It’s best to cater for any downtime and be fully aware of the impact on the business, customers and staff. If the migration goes awry or being offline lasts longer than it should, what are the business continuity implications? No business can afford reduced productivity – or worse, lost revenue, angry customers or reputational damage.
Hidden costs
It’s essential to understand how cloud providers charge for different costs, which can spiral out of control very quickly. Always check the contractual terms. For instance, who owns the data upon contract completion? Is there a cost to transfer ownership?
The elasticity of the cloud makes it both a blessing and a curse for small businesses. Ensuring solid cost controls to manage budgets are essential and this includes networking costs, data egress fees, Platform as a Service (PaaS) pricing, security and more.
While the economic landscape presents challenges for small businesses, leveraging cloud technology enables immediate and long-term cost reduction, improved agility, productivity enhancements and competitive positioning, ensuring organisations can navigate current and future challenges more effectively with sustained growth and resilience.
Migrating to the cloud might seem like an arduous task for small businesses with limited resources, but the move can yield dividends if well executed. Defining clear goals as a starting point is key to developing a successful cloud migration strategy.
Below is a checklist to assist small businesses achieve a successful cloud migration strategy:
- Develop clear objectives – having defined goals will help guide decision-making throughout the cloud migration journey. Determine the metrics to track before and after migration to assess success.
- Evaluate current IT landscape – identify the applications, data, and infrastructure components that are most suitable for migration.
- Establish interdependencies and essential systems – identifying potential risks and areas that require additional attention can minimise disruption and maintain business continuity during migration.
- Review possible threats and challenges – security compliance and downtime issues are important areas to address. Don’t underestimate the importance of implementing strong controls and developing contingency plans.
- Deploy automation tools – solutions that can help to reduce human error, increase efficiency, improve consistency, streamline the deployment and scale cloud resources should be considered.
