If you’re planning on migrating part or all of your on-premise infrastructure to the cloud, we’ve provided a quick rundown on key things to consider to ensure your journey is as smooth as possible.
Here are our Top 5 Tips for a smooth on-premise transition:
1. Conduct a detailed review of your on-premise infrastructure and data usage. By understanding what you have, you will be better placed to review your offsite cloud infrastructure options. Pure Cloud doesn’t suit every type of business and you may want to look at a hybrid cloud infrastructure model, with a mix of physical and virtualised cloud architecture. Also, consider whether your cloud-hosted services should be configured as a single or multi-site set-up, multi-availability zones (AZ’s) on a public cloud platform, or should you be considering a private cloud solution? These strategic infrastructure choices are dependent on your security, resilience and uptime requirements for your hosted services.
2. Map out your new infrastructure in a diagram form, to help visualise how you want your new infrastructure set-up. Even if you haven’t settled on a new provider or platform, having a visualisation of what you would like your new infrastructure to look like, will help not only your team but also prospective providers to understand your requirements and aims. You can then build on it as your progress your infrastructure planning journey to enhance the overall solution.
3. Define the benefits you want to see from your new offsite infrastructure set-up i.e. better security, more resilience, lower life cycle costs of ownership and/or better support and management. This will allow for you to narrow down the companies you want to work with and if you want to self-manage or outsource the management of your new infrastructure.
4. Look at your future business roadmap – what is the data growth likely to be? are you introducing new hosted services which will need a scalable infrastructure model? This again will allow you to speak with prospective cloud infrastructure providers and review public cloud platforms for suitability with your future business goals.
5. Bring in the right supplier during the planning stages. Do your initial scoping and research to get an idea of what you need, but don’t shy away from reaching out for support from industry professionals. Cloud infrastructure planning comes with a host of pitfalls, as well as benefits. By working with the right company to plan out your new infrastructure, will allow you to feel confident in your decisions. Don’t be blindsided by expensive professional service fees. Many MSP’s like ourselves value the opportunity to work with business to help support their infrastructure planning process. Working with our clients early on in their infrastructure journey, allows us to impart our industry and technical knowledge, which not only saves them time but also budget.
Hopefully the above gives you a framework to support your infrastructure journey. If you would like support or have any questions regarding the article, please speak with a member of our team on 0845 5272 992 or email [email protected].
