As a business leader, you may be considering replacing your outdated, on-premise technology with scalable and cost-effective cloud computing. While there are many compelling reasons to migrate to the cloud, the transition is not always seamless without a well-developed plan and the expertise of a trusted, experienced managed service provider.

What is cloud migration?

It involves moving data and applications to cloud computing infrastructure, either from on-premise or legacy infrastructure or from one cloud to another. Legacy infrastructure is outdated hardware or software that is still in use. 

Benefits of Migrating to the Cloud

Cost savings: Cloud computing eliminates the need for substantial upfront investments in hardware, software, and infrastructure. SMBs can leverage the pay-as-you-go model, paying only for the resources and services they use. This helps reduce capital expenses and enables predictable operational expenses.

Scalability and flexibility: Cloud platforms provide SMBs with the ability to scale their resources up or down quickly and easily based on their business needs. This flexibility allows them to respond to fluctuating demands, accommodate growth, and avoid overprovisioning or underutilization of resources.

Enhanced collaboration and productivity: Cloud-based collaboration tools enable teams to work together on projects in real time, regardless of their physical location. This promotes seamless communication, file sharing, and collaboration among employees, leading to improved productivity and efficiency.

Business continuity and disaster recovery: Cloud service providers typically offer robust data backup, replication, and disaster recovery solutions. SMBs can take advantage of these capabilities to protect their critical data and applications, ensuring business continuity even in the event of a localized hardware failure, natural disaster, or other disruptions.

Access to enterprise-level technologies: Cloud providers offer a wide range of advanced tools and technologies that were previously only accessible to large enterprises. SMBs can now leverage sophisticated applications, analytics, machine learning, and AI capabilities without investing in expensive infrastructure or specialized expertise.

Increased security: Cloud providers typically invest heavily in security measures and offer advanced security features, such as encryption, access controls, and regular security updates. This helps SMBs enhance their data security posture and protect their sensitive information from unauthorized access or breaches.

Improved IT management: Cloud migration offloads the burden of managing and maintaining on-premises hardware and software infrastructure. SMBs can focus more on their core business activities while relying on the cloud provider for tasks like system updates, security patches, and infrastructure maintenance.

Global reach and scalability: Cloud services enable SMBs to expand their business geographically and reach customers in different regions without setting up physical infrastructure in each location. They can leverage cloud providers’ global infrastructure to deliver their products or services to a broader customer base.

Challenges of Cloud Migration

However, cloud migration also presents challenges, such as migrating large databases, maintaining data integrity, and ensuring continued operation. To successfully manage an on-premise-to-cloud migration, a business must establish goals, create a security strategy, copy over data, move business intelligence, and switch production from on-premise to cloud. Cloud and managed service providers like Integrated Technology can help businesses strategize their cloud migration processes.

Migration Options

There are five options for enterprises considering cloud migration: rehost, refactor, revise, rebuild, or replace. Each approach involves different levels of rewriting or re-architecting the application from the ground up on a PaaS provider’s platform.

In addition, businesses must decide how they want their cloud infrastructure and deployment to look post-migration. A hybrid cloud mixes two or more types of environments, such as public clouds, private clouds, or on-premise legacy data centers. A multicloud combines two or more public clouds to serve several purposes including redundancy and cost savings. A single cloud deployment is another option.

Eliminate Chaos from Cloud Migration

Partnering with a managed IT service provider helps businesses like yours seamlessly transition from legacy technology to the cloud.

For managed IT services in Boca Raton, Florida, trust Integrated Technology. Organizations with ten or more employees in the Boca Raton area choose our team of technology experts to manage, monitor, and protect their data, network, and technology environment from hackers, data breaches, and other security threats.

We specialize in customized managed cloud solutions that allow your business to reap the benefits of cloud computing. We work directly with your business to ensure optimal cloud migration so you can securely store data and power through external servers. Our solutions ensure that your business can effectively access the cloud and run your business at a higher rate than you could with a local area network server.