Planning for a smooth (and productive) cloud migration

Highlights:

  1. Cloud migration is beneficial to SMBs to save money and improve staff productivity.
  2. Having a well-thought-out migration plan is important to set a timeline for your team, anticipate any obstacles, and define the project’s success.
  3. Running a data discovery is essential to understanding how your data flow functions, as well as where the domain and mail records are hosted.
  4. Partner with an experienced cloud service provider to ensure minimal down time during the migration.

Benefits:

There are a number of benefits for SMBs to move to the cloud, such as reduced costs (and reduced hardware maintenance), flexibility for your business operations, and improved data security and disaster recovery options.

For example, by using the cloud your employees will have access to data from anywhere, whether they are on the road or working from home. Additionally, cloud services offer increased data protection when those employees are working remote.

The cloud has secure solutions for data storage; makes disaster recovery safe and simple; and eliminates the hassle of manually monitoring infrastructure and performance. The flexibility and peace-of-mind that cloud migration brings to SMBs allows their IT departments and employees to focus on day-to-day business.

Planning is the key to success

To make the most of a migration to the cloud, planning is essential. Here are some additional tips to make it a smooth and productive experience:

  1. Prevent communication glitches by ensuring your internet service is the highest speed possible before moving any technology to the cloud.
  2. Make sure you understand where your domain and email records are hosted before you decide which processes will be migrated to the cloud.
  3. Document the software and services your business uses regularly. Whether it’s productivity tools or email, video conferencing or instant messaging, identify all of the ways you can move tools to the cloud and ensure a smooth transition where nothing is missed.
  4. Migrating to cloud services needn’t be a huge leap. It can be gradual. You can simply start with those departments that might benefit most from it and move others as needed. Include the stepped approach in your plan for an easy migration over time.

Hiring a reliable IT support partner helps

Instead of hiring new IT staff, it’s recommended that you conduct your cloud migration under the guidance of an experienced managed IT services provider (MSP) for a safer, less costly move.

Even when SMBs have their own in-house IT staff, they often cannot afford the level of support and security that the right MSP — with the right amount of cloud storage — can offer. Having an experienced and dedicated MSP partner to oversee your entire migration means that you can rest easy knowing your data and systems will be well taken care of throughout the move, and your staff can remain productive.

Visual Edge IT is happy to talk with you about best practices before moving your technology to the cloud. Contact us today to find out how you can get started with your own cloud migration.