Moving to the cloud? – Don’t make these mistakes !

It’s been a year of unbelievable change for UK businesses, we’re now into the eleventh month of the majority of people still working from home and about to enter a second UK wide lockdown meaning those who had returned to the office won’t be there for much longer. For many businesses, it’s prompted a closer look at infrastructure and not surprisingly an increase in cloud adoption.

For most businesses it’s a great ‘ out of the box’ solution to storage, accessibility and more besides but like any major change there are key mistakes to avoid.  Here we take a look at just a few of the most common mistakes:

Doing it all at once 

This is never a good idea, in any project but when you’re making big changes which will have a positive impact on your business it’s tempting to try and do it all at the same time and get your solution in place as soon as possible. The reality is this approach is rarely successful. Moving your data to the cloud is a big and carefully approached job which is why you’ll need to migrate data slowly and in stages, working in a priority order which is relevant to your business and which safeguards your most essential or sensitive data until last – don’t let critical data be the test run for migration.

Don’t assume anything about security 

Let’s get basic here, if you’re moving to the cloud then you’re moving parts of your data and system away from your internal systems and essentially onto another external system. Of course, there’s security that comes with that, it’s one of the main selling points of cloud solutions however it’s important not to assume that everything is exactly the same. Make sure you and the members of your team understand the security around your data now it’s in the cloud and if you’re working with a provider talk to them about the security in place, how this works and how your organisation should be operating in respect of data to ensure the highest security remains intact.

Don’t get trigger happy on the delete key

If your data is wholly in the cloud or if you have a solution whereby you regularly sync with your internal hardware, you must have a policy in place for deleting data. The things you save in the cloud are not saved to your or any company device, so there’s little point deleting that confidential file from your local computer if it’s still sitting in the cloud. Having a solid deletion policy also allows you to stay in line with GDPR legislation so it’s crucial that you understand as an organisation how data is stored, where it is stored, what happens when it is deleted or erased and when your data is gone for good.

Considering a move to the cloud or need some advice on your journey? Why not talk to our expert team?