Azure Cloud Migration Success: Avoid the Blunders and Implement Best Practices

#FocusOnBestPractices

Changes in business models, dependability issues, the necessity for increased agility and insightful analytics, and the need to streamline IT management as well as price structures are pushing more enterprises to shift their applications to a cloud environment. However, serious mistakes do occur during cloud migration.

Companies have legacy applications that won’t run on the cloud. And even if the  applications seem to function, they  still need to be optimized to run efficiently and connect seamlessly with other business applications to offer more value. The best practices together with the perfect tools can improve the Azure Cloud migration process, thus paving a route to success.

Common Mistakes in Azure Cloud Migration

There are benefits to migrating your workloads, data, and applications to the cloud. From improved availability to scalability, minimized operational expenses to simplified maintenance and supervision – cloud migration ensures it all. A failsafe cloud migration strategy lets your business have the required resources and infrastructure for a seamless transition. However, the pressure to be cloud-ready quickly causes many enterprises to rush decisions and processes which can lead to mistakes. According to recent studies, over 50 percent of cloud migration projects fail due to poor planning and execution.

In this blog we’ll walk you through the common migration missteps and the best practices to mitigate risks for a successful Azure Cloud migration.

Choosing a basic strategy: Each company is different and needs a custom cloud migration approach. Choosing a basic strategy without considering the unique requirements of your business can lead to poor performance, security issues, and increased costs. So, build an Azure Cloud migration strategy tailored to your business needs and you will be able to  accomplish desired enterprise and technological outcomes.

An understanding of your business objectives and application portfolio is important to ensure complete visibility into the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI) of cloud migration.

Failing to prioritize workloads: Failing to prioritize workloads can result in unnecessary data loss, delays, and disruption to critical operations. Each workload is distinctive and some might be irrelevant that should be substituted or retired.

To address your whole application portfolio successfully, list the essential workloads and build a strategy for cloud migration and testing, and modify the strategy as required.

No assessment for cloud adoption: Often, businesses move workloads in haste, avoiding a cloud-readiness test. Skipping the cloud-readiness assessment can lead to compatibility issues, data breaches, and compliance violations.

Not careful of the architecture: Ignoring the architecture of the source and target platforms can cause data loss, downtime, and unexpected migration costs. It could result in using tools unfit for the cloud migration. Ensure a smooth transition without affecting application accessibility and daily operations.

Understating security: Your Azure cloud migration strategy should have transparent, documented, and detailed processes to secure data in the cloud ecosystem. Underplaying security can result in data breaches, loss of reputation, and legal issues.

Best Practices for Optimum Results from Cloud Migration

Moving to the cloud ecosystem could prove cumbersome for many enterprises, however, it need not be that way. Building the right cloud migration strategy and implementing the best practices will help your business move to Azure and benefit from the same.

Here are some practical tips to achieve the best outcomes and ROI from Azure migration:

Do a quality assessment: Analyze your current infrastructureidentify key stakeholders, and assess your cloud readiness. This will help you develop a clear migration roadmap for Azure migration and mitigate potential risks. It’s essential to get the basics right. Then design a cloud migration strategy to address all of these elements. Avoid taking the easiest route.

Improve workload quality: Improve the quality of your workload by applying the Azure Well-Architected Framework, which includes five pillars of architectural brilliance: cost optimization, operational excellence, performance efficiency, reliability, and security.

Pillar Description
Reliability
The ability of a system to recover from failures and continue to function. The application should be in a fully functioning condition after the failure. Your users can access the workload when required.
Security
Azure migration will protect applications and data from threats. Focus on security during the complete lifecycle of an application, right from design and execution to deployment and operations. The Azure platform offers protection against several threats, including network intrusion as well as DDoS attacks. However, you need to create security into your application as well as into your DevOps processes.
Cost Optimization
Managing costs to maximize the value delivered. While designing any cloud solution, create incremental value in advance. Employ the Build-Measure-Learn principles to speed up your time to market and pass up capital-intensive cloud solutions.
Operational Excellence
Focus on operations that keep a system running in production. Deployments should be dependable and predictable. Automate deployments to lessen the possibility of human error. Quick and regular deployment processes won't delay the release of new features/bug fixes. You must immediately roll back or roll forward if any update has issues.
Performance Efficiency
The capacity of your workload to scale to meet the requirements put on it by users efficiently. The major ways to attain cloud performance efficiency include scaling efficiently and implementing PaaS offerings that have scaling integrated.

The below infographics show an advanced synopsis of the Azure Well-Architected Framework:

Azure Well Architected Framework

Assess your team skills and competencies: Evaluate your in-house team’s knowledge and abilities to understand their competency to create a practical cloud strategy. You also need to collaborate with an experienced AWS and Azure cloud migration partner like Korcomptenz to have trained resources and develop a successful cloud migration plan and get professional Azure migration services.

Continuous improvement: Plan for continuous improvement by monitoring and optimizing your cloud environment, identifying areas for improvement, and incorporating feedback from stakeholders.

Automate migration: Automate your migration process with Azure Migration Services, which provides a streamlined and secure way to migrate your workloads, data, and applications to Azure.

Set clear goals: Build your Azure migration strategy with clear milestones, objectives, and realistic durations for every job. Have a profound understanding of potential threats as well as solutions if things turn askew in cloud migration.

Focus on training: Train your staff on Azure best practices and tools to improve their skills, productivity, and confidence in the cloud ecosystem.

Focus on security: Emphasize security and control right from the start. List the security needs and simplify roles and duties ahead of time for complete clarity by utilizing Azure migration services.

Conclusion

Azure cloud migration can be a daunting task, but with the right strategy and best practices your business can reap the benefits of improved agility, scalability, and cost savings. Remember to avoid common mistakes, prioritize workload quality, and plan for continuous improvement. Whether you choose to migrate your workloads manually or use Azure Migration Services, make sure to train your staff and prioritize security to ensure a successful and secure transition. If you need further assistance, don’t hesitate to contact our Azure migration experts for guidance and support.

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