Your cloud migration strategy gives you the ability to get your call control and applications delivered from a cloud server. It provides features and functionality on a subscription level basis that allows organizations to obtain advanced system benefits without a capital investment and long term asset depreciation.
Cloud computing brings a multitude of benefits to an organization. From simplified operations to cost-savings, there's reasons for everyone from your CFO to your IT Manager to celebrate modernized infrastructure. The modernization of infrastructure means the whole IT environment needs to be virtualized. This means compute, storage, networking and management for operations.
Preserving on-premise solutions require constant maintenance for security, compliance and updates. Cloud solution providers often have dedicated staff that takes care of these things for you, alleviating your burden of responsibility.
If you host all your data on-premise you run the risk of losing everything if a disaster, like flood or fire, strike. Offsite cloud backups are a great introduction to utilizing the cloud.
Many companies that build and maintain their own infrastructure have out-of-date servers and components. By migrating to the cloud, not only do you modernize your infrastructure, but you save yourself the costs of building and maintaining your own infrastructure.
Cloud environments are made of many servers that are controlled by a unifying piece of software that treats them as a single entity. All of these servers operating as one, safeguards against hardware failures.
As your business grows, so too will the amount of data you store. By utilizing the cloud to store some or all of your data, you free up on-premise storage capacity. Stored in the cloud, your data is available to access by workers at home or in the office.
If you have the right expertise, you can craft the perfect cloud environment for your business.
Benefit from from hardware and resources exclusive to you without the need for security and maintenance know how.
A mix of both private on-premise cloud and third-party public cloud are utilized for increased flexibility and deployment options.
IaaS is an easy and fast cloud solution. It is common to pay-per-use, making it cost effective to pay by the hour, week, month, or space occupied on virtual machines.
SaaS is a highly scalable solution that allows you to easily access more or fewer services, on-demand, depending on your needs, goals, and budget.
Not all cloud-based solutions are created equal. Many aren't truly unified, but rather a collection of different platforms, each with their own hardware and software requirements plus unique management tools.
What to look for:
If your strategy is still evolving, you need a solution that can go to work right away in your existing hardware-based, on-premise IT environment and then deploy a cloud-based "everything as a service" strategy when you're ready to move on.
What to look for:
A cloud communications solution does not exist on its own, it needs to seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure and business applications.
What to look for:
With people working anywhere and everywhere, productivity is dependent on the ability to communicate and collaborate remotely and have a consistent experience regardless of location or device in use.
What to look for:
Cloud communications technology moves fast and evolves rapidly to meet the ever-changing needs of dynamic business environments. As the market grows at 10.5% annually, many upstart companies without experience are entering the market vying for their piece of the pie. For a good experience, look to the leaders in unified cloud communications.
What to look for:
With all the benefits of cloud communications, the solution is not a great fit for every organization. But having a defined cloud migration strategy can have a huge impact on your organizations transition to the cloud.
Your goals will determine the exact requirements of your migration to the cloud. You need to determine if your proposed migration is feasible at a basic level. Ask yourself
Knowing exactly what type of environment you'll use and how you'll distribute the workload is essential for a successful migration strategy. You have many options to consider including:
Most firms opt for hybrid cloud computing due to its wide range of benefits and high flexibility to deploy applications and services.
A clear outline of your workload strategy is crucial, so spend some time preparing this before you begin the migration.
Downtime is inevitable when migrating to the cloud. If you're going to migrate multiple apps or platforms, you need to determine what order is the most efficient to mitigate downtime.
Consider:
Once you've determined your schedule, you'll need to find a way to clearly communicate that schedule to your stakeholders. Anyone affected by the migration should have the opportunity to respond with feedback long before migration begins, giving you time to address concerns and iron out any wrinkles.
Will you have assistance in the cloud migration or are you completing the migration on your own? If you're doing the job solo, you'll want to make sure you have the right tools to get the job done and have the process run smoothly.
Asses the tools - software, web portal, etc. - designed to manage that process. When creating a cloud-based infrastructure, keep management tools in your focus and detail them as part of your cloud strategy.
Not only will you need documentation of your strategy, but to ensure a successful migration you'll also need to document everything you know about your application and your data.
Create a plan for porting your applications, so that if you need to migrate them in the future or bring them back on-premise, you can.
Documenting your data structure is vital if you're moving to the cloud. You won't be able to manage your data without first creating both a clear data structure and documentation to support it.