Cloud Computing: Considerations for Migration

If a company is considering moving to a cloud computing environment, what are the main issues to consider when transitioning to the new system and transferring existing data from proprietary software apps?

• Is my data clean?
• Is there feature parity between the new and old data and links?
• How far away is the cloud computing service (eg Europe or Australia?)
• Is my Internet connection adequate and reliable enough: will I need to increase my bandwidth; is my upload speed sufficient.
• Think about which regulations affect you regarding the transferral of customer data – certain sectors have very strict rules.
• Are your PCs fit for purpose? New/old.
• Will you be accessing through a browser window or remotely? If you are changing this, it may affect the flow of the connection.
• Will you adopt cloud computing all in one go, or as a phased approach?
• Can you grow or shrink the service? (i.e. is it scaleable?)
• What training does your staff require?
• Can you download the data from the Cloud? Or is it one way traffic only?

SMEs should talk to their software and services cloud providers about what services and guarantees are available when they start moving more of their businesses into the cloud. It’s important to assess what proportion of business could be conducted using cloud-based IT services before assigning availability and up-time of both the internet connection and bandwidth, as well as the security of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications used.

Work out how many people you’ll have accessing the cloud services and from where, before you negotiate with your ISP or software vendor to move IT services into the cloud. And work out what the impact to your business would be if you weren’t able to access these services.

For more information on cloud computing visit www.easynetconnect.net or call 0800 053 1777.