Cloud Migration Checklist: Your Step-by-Step Pathway to the Cloud

Last updated on August 22, 20246 min

Eduard Grigalashvili

Technical Writer

Oleg Bogut

Tech Lead

In our article on SaaS migration, we discussed why businesses worldwide are migrating to the cloud. In short, the cloud environment allows them to reduce operational expenses, scale up and down on demand, streamline IT operations, and ensure faster deployment of applications and services.

But however beneficial, the migration process poses many challenges, from security concerns to system downtime. No wonder over half of cloud migrations are either delayed or dramatically exceed initial budgets. To help you minimize such risks, we have prepared this step-by-step cloud migration checklist.

As a provider of cloud migration consulting services as well as IT infrastructure services, AnyforSoft is here to secure your successful transition to the cloud. In the following paragraphs, you will find a comprehensive migration plan that will guide you through this complicated process, helping you move your data with careful consideration of every detail.

Without further ado, let’s get straight to the point!

Step 1: Designate a migration architect

The first step in our checklist for cloud migration is designating a migration architect to lead the effort. Their role is to plan, oversee, and execute the entire migration process, which includes:

Creating a timeline for the migration and the cloud roadmap;
Devising optimal strategies for moving data and apps;
Defining the necessary refactoring required to make the migration successful;
Determining migration priorities;
Defining and adopting third-party tools.

The migration architect should also assess whether your team has the required skills to perform the migration and successfully operate in the cloud environment afterward. In addition, they must determine the total cost of ownership (TCO) to illustrate the ROI of cloud migration. It includes the overall cost of migration, post-migration expenses, staff training costs, future maintenance expenses, potential downtime costs, and so on.

Every migration project requires thought-out decision-making and data-driven technical planning, so having a seasoned migration architect responsible for these aspects is imperative for success.

Step 2: Set migration goals and KPIs

The next step is to establish migration goals and key performance indicators. You should clearly understand what you aim to achieve by migrating your apps and data to the cloud. Your goals might be:

Reducing operational costs;
Modernizing legacy applications;
Enhancing user experience;
Achieving better scalability;
Boosting application performance;
Increasing operational efficiency;
Enhancing disaster recovery;
Increasing system resiliency, and so on.

Based on your specific goals and objectives, you should establish KPIs that reflect them. These metrics will measure how a migrated app or service performs against expectations and indicate whether you are succeeding in achieving your goals. For example, if you want to improve user experience, you can track page load time, bounce rate, error rate, and related metrics before and after migration to see what has improved and what areas still need attention.

Here’s a convenient table with KPI categories and their respective metrics that you can use to measure your success:

Category	KPIs
User experience	Page load time Lag Response time Session duration Error rates
Application performance	Response time Page load time Application uptime Latency Apdex score (application performance index) Throughput Latency
Infrastructure	CPU usage Disk performance Memory usage Network throughput
Security	Number of security incidents Compliance rate Vulnerability detection rate
Business engagement	Conversion rate Card abandonment rate Customer retention rate Customer satisfaction rate Customer lifetime value Engagement rate Average order value CTR Customer churn rate Customer acquisition cost Time on site Bounce rate

Additionally, keep track of these KPIs during migration:

Migration duration (entire migration process and per app);
Availability of critical services;
Downtimes (services, data centers);
The number of service tickets;
Cost of migration.

This will allow you to make well-informed decisions and ensure a successful cloud migration.

Step 3: Assess your current infrastructure

Once migration goals and KPIs are set, assess your current infrastructure to define the scope of work. Start by inventorying your IT assets, including the current data center, hardware components, software systems, network infrastructure, firewalls and other security measures, modern software systems (if any), and current cloud services (if any). This will help you find the most suitable cloud migration strategy.

You should:

Identify critical applications. Determine which applications are critical to your business operations and prioritize them for migration.
Assess dependencies. Identify any interdependencies between applications, databases, and other IT components. This will help you understand the impact of moving one component on others.
Evaluate data volumes. Understand the size and type of data that will be migrated to ensure that your cloud environment can handle it. This will influence your choice of cloud provider.

Also don’t forget about security and compliance requirements in your industry. Before moving your apps and data to the cloud, it’s critical to identify the regulations that apply to your business and ensure that your cloud provider can meet them. This includes:

Data residency. Some data residency laws have explicit requirements for businesses to store and process data within specific geographical boundaries (country or region). If it applies to you, choose a cloud provider that offers data centers in the required location.
Security standards. Learn about security standards and regulations in your industry and ensure that the cloud provider adheres to them to avoid potential penalties for non-compliance.

Step 4: Evaluate your cloud migration options

The next step in the cloud migration checklist is deciding how to migrate your applications. You can choose one of two levels of cloud integration: shallow cloud integration and deep cloud integration. Let’s review both options:

Shallow cloud integration (also known as “lift-and-shift”) is when you transfer your on-premises software to the cloud with little or no changes to its code. This model is called lift-and-shift because the application is lifted “as is” and shifted to the cloud intact (or almost intact). Migrating an app without any changes is known as rehosting, whereas making minor adjustments is refactoring.
Deep cloud integration is when you modify your application during migration to the cloud to take full advantage of cloud features. The changes can be simple (like setting up auto-scaling and dynamic load balancing) or quite complex (like enabling serverless computing).

For obvious reasons, shallow cloud migration is much faster and simpler than deep cloud integration. As a rule of thumb, mission-critical apps are migrated with the deep cloud integration approach, while less important apps and services can be transferred with shallow cloud integration. However, it’s not always the case, and your migration team should thoroughly assess each application before opting for one of the options.

Step 5: Choose the cloud deployment model

There are multiple cloud deployment models: public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. They have different nuances and use cases that must be taken into account for successful cloud adoption.

Public cloud. A public cloud is owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider, such as AWS, Azure, Oracle, or Google Cloud. Most public cloud providers use the multi-tenancy model, providing access to compute resources over the internet or through a dedicated direct connection.
Private cloud. A private cloud is a single-tenant system in which enterprises run cloud resources within their own data centers. This option allows for greater control and security but is more expensive than a public cloud.
Hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud combines public and private clouds in which workloads move between environments via automation and orchestration. It allows you to take advantage of both environments.
Multi-cloud. A multi-cloud strategy involves using multiple cloud providers for different workloads. This approach gives you increased business leverage and flexibility for where to put your applications in the future. However, since your solution is tied to the performance of multiple providers, issues with any of them may adversely affect your application’s customer experience.

The choice of cloud deployment model should be dictated by your organization’s specific needs and goals. Your migration team should take into account cost considerations, security and compliance concerns, performance needs, and future growth.

Step 6: Choose a cloud service provider

The next logical step in our migration to the cloud checklist would be finding and choosing a suitable cloud service provider. You should thoroughly evaluate your options before making a choice, especially if you’re aiming to transfer all of your applications and data to a single vendor. Committing to the wrong provider will result in performance issues, limitations in software product scaling, vendor lock-in, unexpected expenses, and numerous other adverse consequences, so take your time and don’t rush.

Here are key criteria to consider:

Pricing. Consider cost, including base product pricing, egress pricing (also known as bandwidth or data transfer fees), and additional pricing for add-ons like support.
Technology stack. Ensure the provider’s technology stack integrates well with your existing systems to avoid compatibility issues. Your team should be familiar with the provider’s technology stack to successfully operate in the cloud environment.
Product offerings. Modern providers offer virtual machines, VPS hosting, managed databases, storage, load balancing, and other products and services. Assess what services you need and choose a vendor that can provide them.
Data center locations. As mentioned above, data center location is a crucial factor for businesses constrained by data residency laws. But besides that, you should consider the location of your target audience and choose the data center close to your users to avoid potential performance issues.
Customer support. No matter how good your provider is, you may experience issues at some point in running your cloud application. The vendor should provide proper customer support to help you resolve them. Some cloud providers charge additional fees for these services while others offer them free of charge. Consider this before committing.
Documentation. In addition to ticketed support, documentation is also important for self-diagnosing issues with your cloud infrastructure. Ensure your provider has proper product documentation, community forums, and instructional tutorials.

Step 7: Perform the necessary refactoring

Once you have found your vendor, the next critical step in application migration to cloud checklist is performing the necessary refactoring. Making changes to some of your applications and services will allow them to work in the cloud as efficiently as possible while reducing cloud costs. By refactoring your apps, you also ensure:

They work effectively with a variable number of running instances, allowing you to scale them up and down on demand for improved performance and cost efficiency.
You can utilize cloud resources more efficiently, taking advantage of dynamic cloud capabilities. You can dynamically allocate and de-allocate them according to current demands rather than relying on static, pre-allocated resources.
You can create a more service-oriented architecture (SOA) That way, you will be able to move individual services to the cloud more quickly and independently, having a flexible cloud environment.

Step 8: Migrate your data and switch traffic over from on-premises software

When it comes to data migration, there are several ways to perform it. You can move data gradually or do it in one go. Let’s review both options.

Partial data migration

Partial data migration implies a gradual transfer of data to a new environment over several sessions. By migrating data in smaller chunks, you can identify and address issues in manageable portions rather than risking a large-scale failure. Besides this approach offers a more controlled transition. The main disadvantage of this model is that the software will be unavailable for some time.

Full data migration

In this case, the data is migrated in one go. This approach is more simple, as managing a single large-scale data transfer is easier and less time-consuming than coordinating partial data migration. It also helps maintain data consistency and integrity. On the downside, this method requires the software to go down for a significant time, and the more data you have, the longer your system will be unavailable. Besides, this model is riskier. If you face issues during the migration process, they will affect the entire dataset and application, leading to more severe consequences compared to a phased approach.

As for switching over your traffic, you can also do it all at once or gradually.

Do it all at once. This approach implies waiting until you’ve moved the entire application or service over to the cloud, ensuring it functions correctly, and then switching traffic from the on-premises system to the cloud. This approach offers simplicity and less overhead but is more risky and less flexible.
Do it a little bit at a time. The gradual method involves moving a few customers over, testing that everything works as intended in the new environment, and then moving more customers. You should repeat this process until you’ve moved all of them to the cloud-based application. This method allows for greater flexibility and reduces risks but is more complex and typically takes longer than a single transition.

Take This Cloud Migration Checklist To Go

Transferring data to the cloud is a complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive task. The transition requires careful consideration of many aspects and details as well as meticulous planning to ensure data integrity and security. Considering how mind-boggling cloud migration is, no wonder many IT companies fail to do it correctly.

This on premise to cloud migration checklist is designed to help you remember each crucial step and avoid costly mistakes. And the best part is, you can take it to go. In addition to this article, we’ve created a shorter, more concise version of the checklist that you can download and use during cloud migration. It describes each step presented above in a clear, easy-to-follow format and serves as a handy reference tool, ensuring you stay on track throughout your journey. Whether you're in the planning stage or actively migrating, this downloadable document will help navigate each step with confidence and avoid potential pitfalls along the way.

So don’t leave empty-handed—download your cloud migration checklist for free!