Moving Your Office To The Cloud: 5 Essential Tips

Increased digitization and demand for remote availability and accessibility of data have long pushed Enterprises to move their workloads and businesses to the cloud. But nothing has been a more significant driver of digital transformation than COVID, where remote office capabilities are translating into survival for many companies. Much of this digital transformation is powered by cloud computing. According to Forbes, 74% of Tech CFOs say cloud computing had the most measurable impact on their business.

Moving your office to the cloud, however, remains a daunting task. And while mistakes here can prove costly, cloud adoption has a plethora of benefits, including - an elevation in overall productivity, improved implementation, better data mobility, better scalability, and higher security. While organizations continue to transition to the cloud, it is essential to ensure that this cloud migration process is executed optimally. Here are five essential tips that you should know before moving your office to the cloud:

Defining Your KPIs

Before you decide to migrate, establish some clear cloud migration KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These will enable you to identify migration issues quickly and determine success accurately. Common technical KPIs can include response time, CPU usage, memory usage, and more. Business-oriented KPIs would depend on your core focus, sector, and products, of course. Shockingly, less than 33% of organizations establish such clear strategies.

Your strategy will also define your costs and help you identify critical security and compliance requirements. It can also include hiring specialists or forming cloud teams to overlook the functioning of the cloud. 66% of enterprises already have a central cloud team or a cloud center of excellence. A good strategy will include everything from the beginning - such as choosing your cloud infrastructure, to the end - such as implementing end-user training after the move.

Understand what is covered by your SaaS provider
In a Software as a service (SaaS) model, a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them accessible to the customers over the internet. Most major cloud providers work to ensure that all errors from their end are minimized. However, when it comes to accidental or malicious data loss on a business’s end, a lot of them believe that their SaaS providers can assist them in these circumstances too. Unfortunately, this is a common misconception - as up to 95% believe that their SaaS provider will restore all the lost data, which is rarely the case. You need to watch out for mishaps that can take place that include loss of data due to human error or loss of data at the time of migration. Hence, it is imperative to keep your data safe from the start and also understand what is covered and what isn’t covered by your SaaS provider beforehand.

Security Considerations

Before migration, a polished information security program supported by policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards is essential. It is also essential to factor in data classification and protection protocols before you migrate. Security breaches won’t just lead to bad PR and losses - you may also be in violation of local regulations and laws.

Setting up Data Access Policies

A cloud office helps you and your employees to access data more conveniently and remotely. This is perhaps the most visible impact of cloud migration, and of course, hugely beneficial, in addition to being a general productivity booster overall. But it comes with its own risks too.

Minute errors can lead to security breaches and data loss, which can take a toll on the business financially, and otherwise. Therefore, it is important to define the accessibility and extent of access that each user has to the data on your cloud office. This ensures that only people with the right security clearance are able to access and edit those files. Most SaaS platforms provide features which allow the implementation of roles and permissions. In fact, 94% of SMBs appreciate the upgrade in security that comes from adopting the cloud.

Determine Your Backup Strategy

Data can be backed up in two ways: manually or automatically/scheduled. Manual exports tend to be more error-prone due to two primary reasons:

• First, they are time-consuming and can take up a lot of resources.
• Second, since they are done by humans, they can be forgotten.

To ensure error-free, hassle-free, and timely backups of essential and sensitive data, make sure that your backups are automated.

Consider setting up your cloud office today.

According to the Right Scale’s annual State of the Cloud Report for 2019, 91% of businesses used public cloud while 72% relied on a private setup. Moving your business to the cloud ensures that your data and business remains accessible to you and your employees and that it is backed up with real-time updates, to be preserved in case of loss or damage of traditional storage devices. That cloud migration for an enterprise has a range of benefits, isn’t a matter of debate in 2020. It helps you boost productivity, cut costs, and secure your data simultaneously. These essential tips can be handy if you’re moving your office to the cloud for the first time, and will ensure you steer clear of all the possible rookie mistakes!