Every organization wants to optimize their data and move it to the cloud. It’s not an easy task. A typical company has over a hundred terabytes worth of data. Transferring this much data, both structured as well as unstructured, to a cloud service is not an easy task.
There are however ways to make the transition easier. Recognizing the potential constraints that may arise during the transfer is one of those options. There are six factors to consider when conducting a cloud migration: bandwidth, working hours restrictions, downtime impact and peak timesframes, legal restrictions and timezone constraints.
We will discuss each of these limitations and how to minimize them. Let’s begin by talking about how bandwidth can negatively affect cloud migration.
Constraint #1: Bandwidth
It is important to know how long it will take to migrate to the cloud. Bandwidth is an important factor to consider when making this determination. Bandwidth is the speed at which data is uploaded to the cloud. Let’s take, for example, a 100-TB database.
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Start trainingA typical migration allows for transfers of approximately 1 gigabyte per second. This is not realistic. The average transfer speed for this type network is closer to 1 GB per eight seconds. This means that a 100-TB table could take 12 days to transfer over. This does not account for connection resets, or any other issues that may occur.
Bandwidth is not only important during the transfer, but also after the data has been migrated. Your on-premise applications will now have to communicate to a cloud server, which could be thousands of kilometers away. Previously, they only had to communicate to a database located a few hundred feet away. This could cause significant latency issues. Before you make the leap, ensure that you do a test run to ensure your customers have the right experience.
All that said, ensure that your organization understands the time it will take to transfer all data to the cloud.
Constraint #2: Work-Hour Restrictions
Cloud technology is still very new. This means that it can be difficult to find qualified employees. This means that cloud migration should only be performed by dedicated employees who are available at all times. If the lead architect is not available, it might not be the best time for the migration. Misconfigurations can often stall a cloud migration. It is better to wait a few days than to involve a less experienced member of the team.
To mitigate these risks, ensure that there is a schedule. Cloud migrations can take several days so make sure you have an on-call rotation. This will ensure that the right cloud migration specialist is available in case of an emergency. The availability of the right people for the job will directly impact the likelihood of downtime. Let’s discuss that next.
Constraint #3: Downtime Impact
Cloud migrations can lead to critical applications being unavailable for your customer. You should have a plan in place to minimize downtime for critical applications.
First, create a copy of your data in cloud. Now, the data will be in two locations: the target cloud and the on-premise datacenter. After the application has been migrated, you can test the link to the database in non-production. Next, verify that everything is working properly. Then switch to production to move the data source to cloud.
It is acceptable to have downtime, as long as the organization has the funds. It might be
