September 17, 2023 | By Opti9
Successful AWS migration takes more than simply choosing to migrate. It’s a journey, and you need to be confident in your choice to upend your existing on-premise workflows to align with your business’s future. The fundamental process around a migration strategy includes understanding the benefits of a new system, assessing gaps in your existing system, migration planning, and ultimately the actual migration aspect. The overview of the process is clear, but migrating your assets to an unfamiliar format can be daunting.
Servers grow, IT environments become complex, and organizations rarely have the time to organize. In this article, The Opti9 team compiled five best practices to guarantee successful AWS migration for your company.
Businesses cite a lack of #cloud experience or a #skillsgap as critical barriers to #AWSmigration. Follow these #bestpractices from @opti9 to help you along the way. Click To Tweet
1. Map Out Your Migration Strategy
You need to start with a strategy that identifies clear business motives and your reasoning for moving to the cloud. The decision to migrate to the cloud can be several business factors, including hardware updates, data center lease expiration, license renewals, global market expansion, and more. There is no one size fits all strategy that covers every reason for migration.
Ask yourself:
- Will you migrate in phases?
- What assets will be moved first?
- Will you follow Gartner’s 6 R’s? (Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor, Retire, Retain)
Bonus: 5 Indicators Your Business Is Ready to move to the cloud
2. Outline How Operations Will Take Shape
Your company’s relationship with data will look different after your migration. This is an opportunity to make your data work for you. Look at processes that may need to be modified or revamped, operational tools that will assist you in the cloud, and any level of operational training that will empower your team throughout your journey and afterward. Thinking about operations upfront lets you focus on the big picture and make sure your environments align with the overall business strategy.
Case Study: See how opti9 achieved better data management for Sonifi
3. Automate Where Possible
Another migration roadblock for companies is the threat of downtime or service disruptions during migration. To minimize potential disruptions, it’s a critical best practice to automate any repeat procedures to save you time. Automating repeated patterns will speed up the total migration time and lowers both cost and risk.
Tools are on the market to help accelerate your migration to the AWS cloud. Scripts can help replicate server formats from on-premise to cloud.
Migrating to AWS takes more than choosing to do so. Guarantee a successful #AWSmigration by following these 4 best practices from @opti9. Click To Tweet
4. Leverage An Advanced Consulting Partner
Companies are apt to cite a lack of cloud experience or a skills gap as critical barriers to migration. Due to the abstraction of the cloud, the concept can be stressful for your team. You can avoid this added stress by keeping your team focused on their jobs rather than letting disruption happen in the first place by leaning on migration experts. Of course, they will need some understanding of the changes coming. Let them know why you chose a cloud migration and explain the process. Getting team buy-in will make your migration process smoother.
Leveraging an expert AWS migration partner can remove the uncertainty many companies experience at the beginning of their migration journey. Most companies aren’t experts in cloud migration, as it’s not something IT departments deal with every day. AWS migration is something that most companies build toward in their strategy.
Further reading: Why Companies Are Migrating to AWS With a Trusted Partner
At Opti9, we’ve completed migrations of all varieties and industries and have created best practices, so you can lean on the expertise we’ve cultivated. Our process takes the daunting task of migration and creates a smooth path designed to give your company the confidence, training, and foundation for success throughout and after your AWS migration.
We create a migration strategy by evaluating and planning with an in-depth assessment of your current systems and help you plan for your migration. We then identify the best systems for your on-premise situation, build the proper foundation, migrate your data, and subsequently optimize and manage without disruption.
With the right AWS consulting partner, you can expect a migration process that is:
- Smooth & secure. AWS CIS Benchmark compliance and hardened security posture.
- Detailed & accurate. A strong landing zone with accurate forecasting and detailed planning.
- Agile & accelerated. Multiple connectivity options to keep your business running and an agile approach to speed your migration.
- Knowledgeable & Intuitive. Focused knowledge transfer and an intuitive training and partner process.
Take the stress out of your AWS migration and lean on the opti9 experts. Contact us for a free AWS Migration Readiness Assessment to get a sense of where you are in your journey and how we can help you guarantee successful AWS migration.