In a previous post, you learned that the two main reasons a cloud migration is initiated are to improve performance and/or to reduce costs. While this is true, cloud migration is not a regular discussion for the bulk of Information Technology departments within enterprises worldwide.
While this topic is discussed more often than five years ago, it’s not as common as discussions about server decommissioning or system patching. So, it’s not common, just more common than usual (now say that ten times fast … No prize, sorry).
These conversations are more likely to happen after a trigger event. Basically, they take place after events that open the cloud as a potential solution. Common events that can lead to discussions about cloud migration are called ‘cloud migration triggers’.
Cloud migration triggers are the events that are likely to happen to an enterprise, which will commonly lead to a discussion about cloud migration as a solution to the issue(s) at hand.
So, what are some of these ‘cloud migration triggers’?
Some of those triggers are:
- Threats to the security of computers and computing resources
- Need for the ability to quickly scale up/down for the needs of specific applications/data sets
- Cost concerns, aka reductions of the going-forward budget
- Needs for redundancy of data sets or computational power across multiple geographies
- Options for avoiding renewal of datacenter contracts (e.g., the renewal comes with a substantial increase in cost for similar services)
What will happen is that one or more of the above will become a trigger for the enterprise. As a result, the company will start having internal discussions about the cloud being a possible solution to the problem(s). So, in short, cloud migration triggers are common situations that lead to a discussion about moving a company’s computer-related assets to the cloud.