5 Common Cloud Infrastructure Migration Mistakes

Organizations around the world are migrating their on-premises applications to cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and others. Migrating to the cloud gives organizations elasticity, scalability and efficiency to drive their businesses. Whether you are considering migrating all or just a portion of your applications to the cloud, the transition from on-premises can present challenges for any organization. Incomplete planning can lead to unplanned delays, insufficient or excess capacity, unexpected errors and performance issues, and as a result, poor end-user experiences. A robust cloud deployment is not just building a reliable high-performing infrastructure- it’s much more than that. It is also the ability for you to build, manage and monitor applications delivering a consistently good end-user experience.

Migration to the cloud can pose considerable challenges and some organizations view it as a gamble but avoiding some mistakes, like the ones listed below, can help you achieve a successful migration.

Not baselining current network performance and application dependencies

Infrastructure planning and design is a very important step that many organizations miss when embarking onto the cloud migration journey. They underestimate the need for efficient network planning which in turns leads to poor performance across networks, apps and eventually end-users. There are tools available which provide a baseline analysis, maps app dependencies, project traffic patterns, perform network modeling, survivability analysis and change planning for mission-critical apps.

Not using WAN Optimization

One of the most overlooked issues when migrating to the cloud is how much network bandwidth is required. A vast majority of businesses still use a hybrid cloud approach, so there will be a lot of data traversing from on-prem systems to the cloud. Thus, traffic which previously traversed over LAN will now have to use WAN. This is one of the key reasons WAN Optimization technology is needed and is more important than ever to eliminate latency issues and network bottlenecks during and after migration.

Not having a robust security posture

Cyber-attacks and data breaches are increasing at an alarming rate making this one of the biggest challenges businesses face today. Using secure protocols at the application level is good but not good enough. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) with end-to-end encryption is a solution that should be implemented as well.

Not making Software Defined-WAN (SD-WAN) part of your network strategy  

As cloud networks become more complex and unpredictable - IT struggles to react. SD-WAN is emerging as the key to the future of the cloud networking while enabling companies to take advantage of what the cloud has to offer. Unlike traditional WAN technologies, SD-WAN decouples the network and the control plane and utilizes a software-defined approach, making it easier to adapt to the changing demands of application delivery and user productivity. SD-WAN provides better network agility by decreasing manual configuration through automation. It improves performance by leveraging multiple network paths and faster broadband connections while also lowering costs by eliminating reliance on expensive MPLS links to remote sites.

Assuming that performance will be better after migration

Applications that run in the cloud demand the same performance as those running on local servers. They demand low latency, high throughput and high availability. Moreover, they must be agile to handle the need for dynamic bandwidth and changes in network topology, including connectivity to new offices or data centers. Ensure that your post-migration app performance and end-user experience is consistently high.

For a successful cloud migration, you need a reliable, modern, highly-available and secure infrastructure for optimal performance of your apps and keeping end users happy. Get more info from some resources below to help you plan ahead and be successful in cloud migration.

About the Author: Steve Brar is the Director of Solutions Marketing for Riverbed. In this role, he leads the marketing strategy for Riverbed's Application Performance Platform and cross-portfolio solutions. Steve has been with Riverbed since 2014. Prior to joining Riverbed, Steve led product marketing for HP's campus networking product lines. At HP he held engineering, product management roles, and product marketing roles. He has more than 12 years of experience in the networking industry. Steve graduated with a BS in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of California, Davis. He is currently based in San Francisco, California.

Edited by Maurice Nagle