Savings. Scalability. Mobility. Redundancy. Remote management. Ease of use. The cloud offers tremendous benefits for your business, and especially for your security department.

The advantages of the cloud are clear, but for many organizations getting there is the hard part. Fortunately, you can learn from others' experiences. Here are eight steps to ensure an easy, seamless transition to the cloud.

1. Establish the migration-architect role  Before you begin, identify one person to serve as Chief Migration Officer (CMO). This person should be a system architect-level team member who is entrusted - and empowered - to plan, coordinate, approve and complete all aspects of the migration. Their responsibilities include defining items such as:

• any necessary refactoring
• strategies for data migration
• cloud-solution requirements
• migration priorities
• production switchover mechanisms
• timelines
• performance metrics

2. Choose a provider/partner If you are not prepared to handle the transition internally, choose  a partner who has proven expertise in both your industry and cloud migration. Ideally, your partner should be OEM-agnostic and have the flexibility to recommend products that best meet your objectives, budget and requirements.

3. Define your goals What's really driving your decision to migrate? Are you looking primarily for backup storage and system redundancies? Do you want specific applications to move off-premise? Or do you want a deeper level of migration that will support the type of unique services that are only possible with cloud-based solutions?

Considering your goals up front will save future costs and headaches, and help you determine what you don't want to experience down the road, such as limited scalability, limited functionality, or reliance on a single OEM.

4. Establish metrics Unclear expectations lead to mediocre results. Establishing clear metrics helps you chart the performance and success of your migration. You may already have defined metrics for many of your applications and services. Will they remain the same, or will the cloud enable you to set new ones? Give particular attention to metrics such as user experience, application performance, infrastructure performance, and ongoing cost.

5. Clarify your priorities When the time comes, will you migrate entire applications all at once? Or is it more practical (and less risky) to migrate one component, service, or location at a time? To determine this, first examine how your services are connected and which are dependent on other services. It generally makes sense to migrate services that have the fewest dependencies first and continue from there.

6. Make a data migration plan The most difficult part of a transition is usually data migration. Proper planning by your CMO is crucial, but there is no single right way to migrate. Your plan might include:

• Two-way synchronization of your legacy and cloud databases. Once all users are moved to the cloud, disconnect the legacy database.
• One-way synchronization to a cloud-based database. Let users connect only to the legacy version. When everything is up and ready, disable access to the legacy database, and switch users over to the cloud-based version.
• Outsourcing. Use a third party for cloud data migration.

7. Make the switch  When it comes to switching over applications and production systems, there are two standard options:

• All at once. Move the entire application or service to the cloud. Test and validate it thoroughly, then switch all traffic to the cloud stack.
• Group by group. Move a small group of users over, and test your results. Continue to move group by group until you've completed your migration.

The right choice for you depends on a variety of factors, including the complexity of your business, the structure of your datastores, and your application architecture.

8. Fine tune Just because you have migrated, doesn't mean you're reaping the full advantage of the cloud's capabilities or making optimal use of your resources. Make a secondary plan to review all the resources you have allocated to your teams and applications. By making adjustments where needed, you can ensure that your cloud migration meets demand, achieves your goals, and is ready to scale on a moment's notice.

Make your move. Call Paradyme.
Paradyme provides advanced, cloud-based solutions for businesses throughout Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. As an OEM-independent provider with proven experience in cloud migration, we are ready to help you make your transition smooth and seamless. To find out how we can help you protect your facilities, or to discuss your goals for cloud migration, contact us today.