Cloud migrations rarely fail because of technology. They fail because dependencies were missed, the target environment was not ready or the business was not prepared for cutover. A disciplined method avoids these traps.
1. Discover
Inventory applications, servers, databases and their dependencies. Automated discovery tools combined with application owner interviews give the most reliable picture.
2. Decide
Choose a pattern for each workload: rehost, replatform, refactor, replace with software as a service, retain or retire. Retiring unused systems is often the quickest saving.
3. Design the landing zone
Identity, networking, security, monitoring and backup must be ready before the first production workload moves.
4. Move in waves
Group workloads by dependency and risk. Start with lower risk systems to prove the process, then accelerate. Every wave needs a tested rollback plan and clear business communication.
5. Optimise
After cutover, rightsize resources, apply reservations or savings plans and remove temporary migration resources. Hand over to operations with runbooks and monitoring in place.
Common pitfalls
- Underestimating licensing and data egress costs.
- Moving workloads before backup and monitoring are configured.
- Ignoring performance testing for latency sensitive applications.
- Leaving no time for hypercare after each wave.
Our migration teams follow this method across Azure, AWS and VMware estates.
