The process has many moving parts. Acknowledging cloud migration challenges in the industry will permit businesses to move forward with greater care.

Justifying the costs

Migrating data to the cloud isn’t overtly profitable, but companies could eventually notice savings in unexpected ways. It doesn’t yield immediate returns or offer concrete feedback on if the move was a worthy investment. 

The cloud migration process is time-consuming and expensive, though leveraging AI can soften this burden at all stages. It automates continuous monitoring for effective root-cause analysis, so risk management and maintenance don’t rely as much on expensive human intervention. However, there are no tangible metrics to discern if it was a practical implementation.

The best way to prepare for this lack of satisfaction is to determine how much cloud migration could save the company instead of focusing on immediate ROI. 

A thoughtful cloud migration strategy can set up companies for success with more robust cybersecurity. This could save a business millions since the cost of recovering from a cyberattack continues to increase — they’re up 80% for U.S. businesses alone in 2022. This is where economically focused staff members can see value in the cloud migration process.

It will also reduce spending on hardware with its inherent scalability. Most companies pay subscriptions or partner with vendors to manage their cloud infrastructure. This generally costs less than external hard drives and purchasing physical replacements for outdated or faulty technology. 

This compounds since employee wages won’t be utilized for these repairs if data is on the cloud — downtime increases. Therefore, it frees up time and resources for more productive endeavours, such as inputting and overseeing data integration for more successful supervised AI and machine learning.

Perfecting cybersecurity 

Though using a cloud-based infrastructure provides many cybersecurity benefits, it can take time to adapt as risk management plans need rewriting. It also requires adjusting and updating compliance, such as HIPAA or CCPA, to meet requirements in a new digital environment. Precise AI incorporation lets systems automatically alert analysts of gaps or shifts in their compliance agreements.

Assets are more vulnerable during the transition to the cloud. A company may want to create a separate strategy specifically for this phase in the process, so data isn’t compromised between spaces of protection. Understanding how everything will be encrypted and monitored will provide peace of mind until the information arrives safely. 

This is the time to collaborate with the cloud vendor to get familiar with their offerings. Security is often the responsibility of the user — not the vendor. However, some safety features embedded by the vendor may be worth knowing. Once analysts confirm this, they can create a comprehensive strategy for optimal security, starting with the most common cause of cloud data breaches — misconfigured access.

Outline permissions carefully and train staff to use cloud services properly. Alongside training AI to execute privileged management and identity access management (PAM and IAM), these implementations will enhance security measures from more accurate and constant validation protocols. This shouldn’t be a one-time event because vendor updates are inevitable, and emerging cybersecurity threats could shift the direction of a cybersecurity initiative. 

Solidifying a strategy

Every company must know its goal in moving over to the cloud with AI assistance. Assets are safer when this is clearly defined. Depending on a company’s services, a lack of procedures or workflow could cause cloud sprawl — decentralization of the assets in the cloud. 

Companies with a long history in the digital space may have a complex file tree, potentially spreading for decades. Puzzling out how to best rehome these files and using AI, deep learning or machine learning models will unlock the ideal cloud migration method. The best way to circumvent this is to decide on the strategy before implementation. Companies should consider the following:

• Rehosting:

Rehosting requires the least amount of additional planning by transferring data to a cloud service with no structural or operating system (OS) changes.

• Replatforming:

Choosing another vendor for the cloud platform could have some helpful additional resources to maximize the value of the switch, such as maintenance. 

• Repurchasing:

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is an excellent example of buying infrastructure in the cloud to begin storing information fresh.

• Rearchitect:

A business could go the cloud-native route and restructure all digital assets based on the cloud provider’s resources instead of attempting to apply existing practices to the suite.

• Retire:

Sunsetting systems provide a clean break from potentially antiquated methods, so the move to the cloud is a seamless replacement for a third party.

Without a predetermined plan, information could become lost or corrupted between inconsistent data transfers. The cloud’s access to varying data silos could store items in the wrong areas or delete documents outside of original user permissions. 

Solidifying a host and strategy also introduces what AI infrastructure a company could utilize to its advantage. AI integrations with cloud hosting consolidate the need for separate AI infrastructure, which a company could employ using its original data. First-party information allows more curated machine learning and AI predictions for business optimization and insight.

Choosing a single cloud migration process seems simple. However, it all comes down to ease of execution, what suits the needs of a particular organization and how they intend to perform ongoing upkeep.

Overcoming cloud migration challenges

Cloud migration presents obstacles, but it can overcome them. Using the cloud will be a necessary step into the future, streamlining operations while protecting assets as workers become more remote and AI continues to find data to increase capabilities. 

It isn’t the most cost-friendly or immediately secure upfront. However, cloud infrastructure and AI synergize to provide countless benefits and solutions for businesses to yield more profits with greater efficiency and clarity.

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