To accelerate the digital transformation process in organizations, global decision-makers have been betting on the migration to cloud computing as a strategy to increase flexibility and agility in operations, making IT teams gain time to focus on innovation and improvement of products and services.
But still, you may be wondering: what other factors show that it’s time to move to cloud computing? Or, if you don’t have problems with your on-premise infrastructure, are you wasting time or opportunities by not going to the cloud?
And you are right to ask these things. The decision to migrate to the cloud is as strategic as choosing the team ahead of the process, the cloud provider, and what to migrate first.
Nine Factors That Indicate It Is Time To Migrate To The Cloud
When Your Competition Moves To The Cloud
Watching your industry, and especially your competitors, move to the cloud is the first sign that you need to start considering this possibility, even if only to conclude that it may not be the best choice at the moment.
In terms of competitive advantage, pulling your segment can make a difference. But the advantages are not restricted to pioneering: It can bring benefits in terms of cost reduction, scalability, agility, and innovation.
When The Server Hardware Is At The End Of Its Life Cycle
It is much easier to consider migrating to the cloud when your server is obsolete and needs to be replaced, which will require considerable CAPEX – capital expenditure.
A data center’s difficulty with the cloud is the initial investment in equipment purchase and installation, which happens when you need to renew or scale your computing or storage capacity.
When You Need To Refurbish Your Data Center Frequently, Increasing Investment
You may be satisfied with your current data center and seriously consider migrating. However, if your IT demand and density are growing, obsolescence and performance will lead to a data center with more robustness, complexity, and costs.
After evaluating all the investment in maintenance and renovations of the local data center and comparing it to the investment in the migration, we conclude that the migration to the cloud is more cost-effective as it presents a stable and available infrastructure for a lower price.
If You Have Seasonal Usage Spikes But Pay For Extra Server Capacity Year-Round
The existence of seasonal peaks in the use of the installed capacity of the data center is another factor that indicates when to migrate.
That’s because you’ll need to pay for an idle computing infrastructure all year long only to have it available for a few moments.
As in the cloud, you pay for use; you will have the ease of expanding when you need it and reducing capacity when you have idle, according to your current processing and storage needs.
To Adopt New IT Features Such As Updating Your Core Software
Today, 54% of applications running in the cloud have been migrated from on-premises infrastructure. However, it is common for legacy on-premises software to be unprepared because they were not designed for a cloud environment.
Therefore, to migrate your legacy software to the cloud, you will certainly need to make several adaptations. Ultimately, you won’t even have support for these applications in the cloud. And then, your case should be evaluated to avoid further problems in the future.
Many companies leave the migration to carry out when they make significant upgrades or even create new applications from scratch. It is an opportune time to include the infrastructure change in the promotion or development.
If You Cannot Guarantee IT Security In Your Data Center
It is more common than it seems that on-premise infrastructures have flaws in their security features, as well as unclear and strict policies in this regard. It is not easy to ensure cybersecurity within the enterprise.
Although it is a factor that indicates the moment to migrate to the cloud, it is not a certainty of the pure and straightforward resolution of the problem. For example, when we talk about compliance, new issues arise, such as regulations limiting data storage to some regions or allowing them to be in the cloud. More challenges come to light when we talk about cybersecurity in the home office.
At this point, the cloud servers can secure data more efficiently than the enterprise. Even though they store data from many companies, they have many security resources available, under the penalty of having their credibility destroyed worldwide.
When You Need Technologies And Functionality That Only The Cloud Provides
If you want agility and innovation, there are few options other than migrating to the cloud, which makes it a must.
Most emerging technologies appear first in the cloud and are only viable with cloud functionality. So, if your organization intends to drive innovation movements, it certainly indicates that it is time to migrate.
If you need operational mobility to maintain business continuity software accessible only locally, editing documents on other machines and other simple things is impossible in on-premise infrastructures. When we talk about home office, then the problems redouble.
Also Read: Advantages Of A Multi-Cloud Solution For Companies
