Cloud Migration Mistakes to Avoid
Cloud migration is one of the most impactful upgrades a business can make. It improves collaboration, reduces hardware costs, and enables remote work. But poor planning leads to data loss, extended downtime, and costs that spiral out of control.
Mistake 1: Not auditing your current environment first
Many businesses jump straight into migration without understanding what they have. You need a complete inventory of your servers, applications, data volumes, and dependencies before moving anything. Without this, you risk migrating systems that should be decommissioned, or breaking integrations that depend on on-premise resources.
Mistake 2: Lifting and shifting without optimization
Simply moving on-premise workloads to the cloud without rearchitecting them wastes money. Cloud-native architectures use resources differently than traditional setups. A server that costs $200/month on-premise might cost $800/month in the cloud if you replicate the same configuration without optimization.
Mistake 3: Ignoring security during migration
Migration is a high-risk window. Data is in transit, configurations are changing, and access controls are being reconfigured. If you don't plan security into every step of the migration, you create vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit. Always encrypt data in transit, validate access controls post-migration, and conduct a security review after completion.
Mistake 4: Skipping user training
The best cloud infrastructure in the world is useless if your team doesn't know how to use it. Budget time and resources for training before, during, and after migration. Cover the basics: where files live now, how to share documents, how to use new collaboration tools, and who to contact for support.
Mistake 5: No rollback plan
What happens if the migration fails halfway through? If you don't have a tested rollback plan, you could end up stuck between two environments with neither fully functional. Always maintain your original environment as a fallback until the migration is validated and stable.
Planning a cloud migration?
ASKK Tech Solutions has migrated dozens of businesses to Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and hybrid cloud architectures. We handle the planning, execution, and training so you can focus on your business.