Moving to the cloud is something that will become inevitable for many companies in the near future.

The benefits of cloud integration are too many to count and it’s a must for any business that wants to do business remotely. Migrating to the cloud can be intimidating, however, since so many things can go wrong. But, with the right plan in place and by avoiding crucial mistakes, you should be able to migrate safely and successfully. Here’s how to move your business to the cloud in five easy steps.

Appoint a migration officer

The first thing you have to do is appoint someone who will be in charge of every single part of the cloud migration. This person should have management skills in IT and cloud infrastructure. If you don’t have this person in-house, you may have to rely on a third party. This person will be in charge of designing a migration strategy, determining switchover mechanisms, and listing migration priorities in logical and systematic order.

Choose your level of integration

Know that there are different levels of cloud integration and you have to know which one is the best for you. You could go with shallow cloud migration where all your applications will be transferred to the cloud as-is. They will use the same protocols and interfaces, allowing your people to use the services in the same way they always did.

You could also go for deep cloud integration where your applications may be heavily modified to maximise your cloud spend. If you decide to go that route, you should check out virtasant.com. Based in Austin, Texas, they have extensive experience with deep cloud integration and will allow you to make your move as simple and efficient as possible. They will guide you every step of the way and will help you to keep your cloud spend under control after your migration.

Optimise components before the move

If you decide to go for a shallow integration, it would be nice to optimise any application before you move to the cloud so they can be more efficient and keep your cloud service costs down. One thing you could do is use dynamic scaling or reprogram apps so they can automatically remove or reallocate resources. This way, you won’t have to predict when these modifications will need to be done yourself.

Choose between multi-cloud or single-cloud migration

You also have the choice to move all of your applications to one cloud service or use multiple services at once. You may assume that going with a single provider is automatically the best option, and it does have some advantages, but there are drawbacks to using this approach too.

Going with a single provider means that there will be less of a hassle managing your data and applications. You won’t have to deal with multiple providers with different levels of service, quality, and reliability. This means that access to your services will be more consistent.

The issue with going with a single provider, however, is that you may end up being stuck with them and you will not have much leverage for negotiation. They will know how costly and bothersome moving to another provider will be once all your applications have been integrated with them.

Going with a multi-cloud approach could give you more flexibility now and down the line. You could use different servers for different applications. Your marketing team could be using one service while you use another service to manage your in-house content, for instance.

Determine how you’re going to move components

There are multiple methods that you can choose to move your components. You can decide to move all components in one go, or go gradually. If you decide to move all of your components at once, the process will be fairly easy. But, if you decide to move components one at a time, you will need to evaluate which ones your business depends on the most. If we’re talking about complex applications, you can build dependency diagrams to see which ones are more important to your business.

Dependency diagrams will allow you to get a better idea of the order in which you should be migrating your components. You should focus on moving those that are the least essential to your operation first. These will usually be components relating to your business’s internal processes followed by those pertaining to customers.

Customer service should always be a priority. Moving customer service applications last will make sure that they suffer minimal disruption.

This is what you will need to know before you perform a cloud migration if you want it to go as smoothly as possible. The most important part is having the right people in charge, as well as choosing a service or services you can count on.