Many small to medium sized businesses are migrating to the Cloud – backups, better security, regulations, security, and the Cloud ensures that your company is always up to date without having to continually invest more time and money. So, how can your business make the leap? Here are 3 steps to get you started with your migration to the Cloud:
Start With Hosted Email
An easy first step is to move your company email to a hosted email solution. Cloud email solutions may include a number of additional services for spam protection, antivirus protection, email archive and more. When you move your email, first consider how many mailboxes are in use? Can you consolidate or eliminate email inboxes? This is a good time to consider how you can reduce costs and improve security and performance. When moving email to the Cloud, consider starting with just the last six months worth of emails, then move older data over time.
Move Data and Files to Cloud Storage
Moving your files is a logical next step to getting your business to the Cloud. Consider what data you need to migrate to the Cloud. Now is the perfect time to clean up customer data and archive historical information, such as office documents, financial history and email archives. Planning out your migration carefully will save you time and cloud storage costs in the long run.
Move Servers that Support Legacy Applications
Consider how you will move servers that support line of business and other legacy applications. Unfortunately, not all legacy applications can live in the Cloud. But, many legacy applications can leverage at least some of the technology advances you currently use on your on-premises software. When considering moving servers that support line of business applications to the Cloud, it is important to ensure your SaaS suppliers use common APIs so they can easily integrate with one another. So, make sure you understand your requirements so you can identify when integration will become an issue.
If you are considering moving your business to the Cloud, contact your trusted IT advisor to get more helpful tips on migrating to the Cloud.