In the excitement of migrating to the cloud and transforming your organisation into a high performing digital workplace, some important factors can get overlooked. Not least your network which will be critical performance and security once you’ve migrated.
Insufficient network coverage will quickly scupper that dream of increased productivity and flexibility. If your network is not fit for purpose, users may find accessing the cloud problematic and cloud applications will not perform at their best. Moreover, if cloud migration is part of your organisation’s growth strategy, network limitations will make it hard to scale on demand.
As part of our cloud assessment workshops we explore cloud readiness and whether the network is robust enough to ensure a successful cloud migration. You can find out more about these workshops here >
Network considerations for a successful cloud migration
Analyse the applications you plan to migrate
Different applications have different network requirements demanding on how much data they move across the network. High bandwidth might be critical for some, whereas delay and latency may be more of a factor for others.
Don’t forget remote employees and sites
What level of connectivity is required by users working from remote sites, such as regional offices, from home or elsewhere? Do they need to move large amounts of data across the network and therefore require high bandwidth?
Legacy on-premise applications
Applications that are either staying on-premise or will be migrated at a later date, still require network resources. However network configurations designed for on-premise platforms don’t work well in the cloud, and vice-versa. On-premise systems work well with a static network limited to a physical location but the cloud requires flexibility to manage all the network resources available universally. Network virtualisation can help you overcome these challenges.
Back up Internet Service Provider
Continuous service becomes vital when an organisation migrates to the cloud so a back up ISP is essential.
Network resources for cloud migration
You’ll also need to allocate network resources to the cloud migration to ensure a successful process. Legacy applications like on-premise email systems need a large amount of networking resources, so it’s vital that you have capacity.
Network security
The virtual and highly distributed nature of the cloud presents some challenges when it comes to security. Cloud resources not only need to be protected but it’s also vital that they’re available as more business functions are moved to the cloud. Your cyber security strategy, policies and tools must now be aligned with the cloud, as well as any hybrid solutions.
Network monitoring
As well as security considerations it’s also time to think about how you’ll maintain and monitor network performance throughout the cloud migration project and beyond. Now’s the time to find out whether your corporate LAN network monitoring tools can be integrated with a public IaaS, to give visibility on network performance inside of the cloud. Alternatively, cloud-focused network performance monitoring platforms may be an option.
If you want to understand whether your network is cloud ready, book a cloud assessment workshop with our cloud migration team. This workshop is tailored to your organisation’s requirements and cloud strategy, and will provide you with a roadmap with key recommendations for decision makers and stakeholders. Click here for more details, or get in touch directly to discuss next steps.
