Beyond the Surface: Hidden Benefits & Hurdles of Cloud Migration

Migration from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud provider platform is getting more popular and growing. No wonder—there are plenty of considerable benefits. This time, we won’t focus on when this is the right decision and when not, but, for starters, we must say that migrating to the cloud should be evaluated from multiple perspectives, and cost sometimes is the last of them. Regarding those multiple perspectives, diving deeper beyond the typical considerations is crucial while preparing for a game-changing move.

So, let's delve deeper and hear what our Centric software engineers' team has to say. Ready to unlock some expert insights?

About Common Strategic Considerations (You’ll Find in Most “Pros & Cons” Lists)

Migration to the cloud changes the way an organization manages its software development lifecycle and operations and usually requires upfront work. It's essential to weigh both the benefits and challenges that are immediately apparent to make a more informed and strategic choice about cloud migration.

Visible pros:

• Scalability and flexibility

• Cost savings

• Advanced security

• High availability

• Edge locations

• SaaS solutions

Visible cons:

• Data security and privacy

• Limited control

• Unforeseen costs

• Vendor lock-in

While these common strategic considerations provide a solid foundation for understanding the impact and implications of cloud migration and are a great start when considering custom solutions to address those visible cons (that might be an issue in your case), they only scratch the surface. 

To truly grasp the full impact and nuances of migrating to the cloud, we must delve deeper into the untapped aspects.

Deep Dive: 6 Profound Insights on Cloud Migration (From an Engineer's Lens)

Now, while all of those above-mentioned pros and cons seem higher-level considerations (which are and must indeed be evaluated by organizations before moving to the cloud), we wanted to outline some more aspects—some insights from an engineering standpoint that can be (and often are) overlooked. 

We're talking not just about lift and shift but also about applying DevOps best practice improvements where possible during the migration process.

1. Thorough IT Inventory: Optimizing Resources and Enhancing Security

Migration to the cloud forces the organization to inventory its on-prem resources. It may have more benefits than it seems at first glance, uncovering all kinds of:

• Inefficiencies

• Insecure software

• Deprecated solutions still consuming resources

Uncovering and documenting this is very useful but can require a significant amount of time. 

Yet, by thoroughly understanding your IT inventory, you can identify areas for optimization and ensure a smoother transition to the cloud. This process also highlights opportunities for enhancing security and phasing out obsolete technologies.

2. Snowflake Server Configurations (From Chaos to Consistency)

During migration, it's often uncovered that the configuration of the build and run servers is unknown and inconsistent, as someone has tweaked them manually over time or installed additional software. Those workloads should be recreated during migration; ideally, the process is automated and documented.

Yes, it's a big job, but it allows for better maintainability and makes it much easier to recover such a system in unforeseen crisis situations.

3. Eliminating Security Gaps: Streamlining Software Management and Updates

Moving forward from snowflake configurations, the other problem that comes together is unapproved software and tools installed on the machines. Besides creating a more complex environment management problem, we now have multiple different software that do not get updated and patched regularly. 

Migrating to the cloud first helps to identify many of those cases. The cloud also provides multiple tools to track software and changes.

4. About Restricting Over-Privileged Access (Most Common Issue!)

The most common issue is over-privileged access. Often, the development team has full access to build and run servers, even for production workloads and sensitive client data. When resources get migrated, it's an excellent chance to:

1. Review required access

2. Limit it to the least privilege access principle

3. Utilize such options as point-in-time access and privilege elevation

Consider how these steps can not only enhance security but also create a more controlled and accountable environment. Are there current access policies that might be putting your organization at risk?

5. Transforming Development Patterns (Automation and Documentation)

Having standardized build-and-run machines forces the development team to adjust their workflow—they can no longer log in to the machine and just tweak that setting for something to work. They need to write a script and document changes. Usually, teams utilize some level of automation, but picking up more of the best DevOps practices and standardization pushes this even further. 

Yes, it takes some time for everyone to adjust, but the final result gives more reliability, less time used for debugging, and more security.

This area benefits the most—so many great practices can be applied to improve the project in all aspects, giving the team the knowledge and expertise to develop new projects better from the start.

6. Enhancing Operational Efficiency

Automation is a must for effective operations either on-prem or in the cloud. So additionally, from adopting best DevOps practices, moving to the cloud enables operations teams to use better and deeply integrated infrastructure tools just out of the box. 

Let alone the additional opportunities to integrate custom AI and machine learning solutions, significantly boosting efficiency and productivity. As you've guessed right, all perks come with some hard work—while this helps a lot, it takes time to adjust the processes and make them efficient.

While most of these items can also be achieved on on-premises setups, they usually don't improve as much as we would like since everything already works, and extra work is not getting enough support. Migration to the cloud pushes the management and the team to review their ways of working and improve.

While most of the items do not bring instant or visible cost savings, which usually gets the most attention, we could argue that standardized, automated, and efficient development and operations teams having all cloud features available to them will deliver value faster, avoid more outages and might save from few ugly security breaches, which might be very well worth it.

Want to discuss this topic further or have questions about your business migration to cloud processes? Let's talk!