Moving to the cloud? You may need a bigger truck...

This blog has been expertly reviewed by Darren Hogan, Director of Portfolio at Nasstar.

Over 90% of businesses are using the cloud in one way or another. But staggeringly, over 70% of cloud migrations fail. 

There are several common challenges that could ultimately lead to your business’ failed migration, including the absence of the right cloud adoption plan or a lack of technical expertise for what is a very complex project.  

But one key challenge isn't always considered, is your organisation’s data.  

When undertaking a cloud migration project, it’s vital that you seriously consider your services, apps, and data, commonly referred to as ‘cloud workloads’. To do this, you’ll need an expert to help you navigate the bumpy road to cloud success.  

Darren Hogan, Director of Portfolio at Nasstar explains: “For those at the beginning of a cloud adoption journey, it’s a little easier. Your decisions and strategy can be moulded to best practice with an adoption and consumption strategy as your first step. You’ll also need to incorporate the centralisation of services and data migration, at some level. At Nasstar, our extensive experience in cloud adoption frameworks and best practice can help you with all of this.” 

What is data migration? 

The process of relocating data storage and applications is known as data migration. You might be consolidating and moving data workloads from legacy, on-premise data warehouses to a cloud data warehouse, or perhaps you’re building a new data warehouse or data lake on a public cloud platform in preparation for a migration.  

How to move data from A to B 

“If you’re replacing on-premise or private cloud services with a public cloud equivalent, conversations about data migration and how to move your data while maintaining integrity, security, and privacy should be a priority.” continued Darren. 

Moving your data from one point to another means connecting point A (an on-premise or private cloud data centre) to point B (the public cloud). This can be achieved in a few different ways. Your choice of solution will depend on how much data you have to move, the state of your current storage, and what you’re trying to achieve with your new cloud environment.  

The traditional solution is to procure point solutions from hyperscalers such as Azure, AWS and GCP, with products like ExpressRoute, Direct Connect, or Interconnect. However, things can get tricky if you have more than one ‘point A’ - for example, multiple data sources from multiple private clouds or on-premise deployments.  

Having several temporary connections incurring multiple costs can become difficult to manage. Using a single connection redeployed multiple times can decelerate your cloud adoption timeframe. Not only that, but it could also increase your exposure to dual running costs as you operate both private and public cloud infrastructure.  

To mitigate this, you can leverage a hyperscaler onramp that has been provisioned centrally to allow multiple ‘point A’s’ to access your chosen ‘point B’ at the same time. This method can drastically reduce your organisation’s cloud adoption timeframe, while also limiting exposure to dual running costs for infrastructure. 

ICC Cloud Connect 

Nasstar’s ICC (Intelligent Connected Cloud) Cloud Connect offering has been developed to provide a dedicated cloud onramp that underpins your cloud workload and data migration strategy. It delivers dedicated access into public cloud infrastructure for both cloud workload migration and consumption of cloud data and applications. 

Using ICC Cloud Connect, your data can be transferred into all major hyperscalers including Azure, AWS, and GCP. This dedicated and secure connectivity solution between our Intelligent Connected Cloud network and your chosen hyperscaler environment results in centrally provisioned connectivity for a streamlined approach to data transfer.  

Opting for ICC Cloud Connect, either alone or as part of our ICC portfolio, means you have greater flexibility in choosing your hyperscaler. This freedom of choice is vital for determining and choosing the best public cloud environment for both your data and wider business needs.  

Keep on moving 

If you’re about to embark on a cloud adoption journey, or you’re ready to start migrating data and workloads over to the public cloud, let us know. We can help you at any stage, whether you’re unsure where to start or have done your research and are keen to move quickly. 

Book a free consultation with one of our experts to discuss your requirements.