Businesses around the world are increasingly moving their computing environments to cloud service providers, such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS.
The advantages of cloud data migration:
– Reduced overhead costs associated with acquiring, operating, maintaining, and updating server hardware
– Greater system reliability, availability, and security
– Easier disaster recovery and business continuity planning and execution
– Better system scalability
– Greater access to advanced systems and tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI) design and development tools, advanced computing power, and modern BI reporting tools
A company’s cloud transition invariably involves data migration to the cloud. Cloud data migration can be tricky and requires careful planning.
Things to consider with cloud data migration
– What data really needs to be in the cloud? Do legacy data assets that are no longer currently used need to be migrated, or could they be archived in some other way? Are there data assets that are unreliable or of poor quality and in need of data cleansing before they are migrated?
– What volume of new data will the network connection support? If you have hundreds of sensors all generating data, you could overload your internet connection if they all send their data to the cloud in real time. An edge computing strategy might be better.
– What reports need to be migrated? Not all reports in your portfolio are being used, and some shouldn’t be used, because they are obsolete or are based on unreliable data.
– Are there duplicate or near-duplicate reports that can be consolidated?
– If new BI reporting tools are involved, what processes are needed to ensure that the reports and dashboards created with these tools are accurate, appropriate, and reliable?
The answers to these questions, and dozens more like them, inform a company’s cloud data management (or cloud data governance) strategy as well as the planning and execution of the initial migration project.
Garbage that’s moved to the cloud is still garbage—and ultimately wastes the company’s money, because cloud services charge for data storage whether the data is used (or useful, or usable) or not. Enterprises that are planning cloud migration should use the project as an opportunity to clean up their report portfolio, eliminate data clutter, and put improved data management processes in place.
