What holds you back from moving to the cloud?
The most important cloud migration barriers
Cloud is taking over pretty much every industry, so what aren’t you joining the wagon? Large enterprises have been adopting cloud technologies rapidly, in order to engage in the digital transformation of the new age. Eventhough many have already decide to leverage all the benefits of the cloud, there are still departments who resist migrating to the cloud. If you are one of the cloud-resistant persons, keep reading this article and it will definitely change your perception of the cloud. Keep reading and learn some of the best practices to overcome the cloud migration barriers.
#1 Barrier: Security of cloud services is questionable
Among the many common barriers of cloud adoption, there are usually security concerns when it comes to switching to the cloud. But, cloud providers have noticed the importance of leveling up cloud security, by implementing many different measures and features in order to provide secure services to their customers. Google Cloud offers encryption at each step of the way, so that your sensitive data always stays safe.
Google´s Identity and Access Management (IAM) provides a combined view of the security policies in your business departments, with built-in auditing to ease compliance processes. Also, cloud infrastructure is “secure by design” and doesn’t rely on any single technology to ensure its security, but rather builds security through progressive layers that deliver real defense in depth.
#2 Barrier: Businesses don’t find cloud solutions beneficial
Common mistakes of business departments are that they don’t see any benefits of moving to the cloud, mostly because they don´t have the right knowledge about the cloud. Success stories and case studies from other companies may be very helpful in breaking this barrier. Important to notice is that the business departments do not need to possess great cloud knowledge, in order to understand its benefits. Some of the potential benefits of a cloud migration would be cost savings, because you wouldn’t be hosting your infrastructure on-premise but on the cloud, which saves a lot of money as well as effort.
#3 Barrier: Cloud services are too expensive
Are cloud services expensive or not? Well, if used without any prior assessment or consultation, it sure could be expensive and inefficient. Before switching to the cloud, business owners first need to clearly define their business goals, as well as their weaknesses, in order to be able to choose the right cloud solutions for your business. There are different cloud migration strategies and one of the common mistakes is the choice of the wrong cloud strategy, which can cost your business a lot of money and won’t bring much use.
#4 Barrier: Cloud services can not be integrated with other services you use
As companies develop new services and applications, they very often integrate with popular services in order to build the desired features for their apps or services. One of the common barriers of cloud adoption is exactly the integration possibility, as the company is afraid that the cloud solutions won’t be able to integrate with their existing third-party services. Google Cloud can be integrated with pretty much any third-party service you wish for. There are plenty of examples, but a very popular Google Cloud solution that enables effortless integrations with other platforms would be Firebase . Some of the Firebase integrations are: Slack, Jira, Pagerduty and many many others.
#5 Barrier: Cloud migration is overly complicated
Adoption of cloud in your company could be welcomed with a fear. We would agree on this barrier, because there is so much efforts and learning that need to be done in this process. The process of migration itself, is extensive and requires experts to do it. Why would you then spend months and months of on-boarding and training of your employees? We have good news for you – our certified experts could do a successful cloud migration for you in the shortest time. We also offer workshops and training for your employees, in order to give them an overview and introduction of the Google Cloud products. Don´t hesitate to move to cloud, just because the migration process seems to be overly complicate.
#6 Barrier: Are you ready for cultural changes?
Switching to cloud services, means moving to a totally new way of working, which may awaken cultural changes in your team. These changes may frighten your employees but needless to say are the cloud environments the future and offer so many innovative ways of solving (un)usual problems and bring many business benefits to your company. In order to address this cloud migration barrier, make sure to carefully listen to your employees, tackle their fears and encourage them to think out of the box. Everybody needs time to meet, learn, exercise and master the new way of working and so does your team. Make sure to provide them with enough learning materials and information as well as patience.
#7 Barrier: Could legal regulations be a problem, when using the cloud services?
Legal and privacy regulations are often a huge barrier for many companies. The EU has its own regulations, which are often more strict than for example in the USA. But these kinds of thoughts shouldn’t stress you. Google Cloud keeps up with compliance requirements for you, constantly updating its terms and conditions, in order to avoid such concerns.
Conclusion
We mentioned 7 of the common barriers when adopting the cloud service. But don’t let these stop you from engaging in digital transformation and enjoying all of its benefits. If you’re interested in expanding your Google Cloud or would like to move from on-premises to the cloud – we are here to help you!
happtiq is an experienced Google Cloud partner and the cloud migrations are part of our everyday work! Don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll take you on a cloud journey!