Top Cloud Migration Challenges & How to Overcome Them

Top Cloud Migration Challenges & How to Overcome Them

Cloud computing has emerged as a major transformation in recent times, with the global market expected to surge from $272 billion USD in 2018 to $623 billion USD by 2023, exhibiting a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18% during the forecast period. However, many businesses are yet to fully leverage the potential of cloud computing due to the significant challenges involved in migration.  

As more and more organizations move their operations to the cloud, cloud migration has become a critical aspect of their business strategy. However, cloud migration comes with its own set of challenges. Concerns regarding cloud data storage costs, data security concerns, and internal resistance to change are all major obstacles that need to be addressed. In this blog, we will mainly focus on how organizations can determine their privacy risks and ensure that their sensitive and personal data is secure so that cloud migration becomes less of a concern.

Drivers behind companies migrating their data to the cloud  

Firstly, let us understand why so many companies are migrating their data to the cloud. Despite the various challenges associated with cloud migration, organizations are still willing to undergo this process because of its variety of benefits.  

There are several drivers that are behind companies migrating their data to the cloud:

  • Cost Savings:  
    Cloud computing can be a cost-effective solution for organizations because it eliminates the need for them to invest in expensive hardware, software, and infrastructure procurement and maintenance. Instead, they can pay just for the computing resources they need on a subscription basis.
  • Scalability:  
    Cloud computing provides organizations with the ability to rapidly scale up or down their computing resources as needed, without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure or manpower to secure the scale.
  • Flexibility:  
    Cloud computing provides organizations with the flexibility to choose the services and applications that meet their specific needs, without having to worry about managing the underlying infrastructure.
  • Security:  
    Cloud computing providers typically have robust security measures in place to protect against cyber threats, such as data breaches and cyberattacks.
  • Accessibility:  
    Cloud computing allows organizations to access their data and applications from anywhere in the world, if they have an Internet connection.
  • Innovation:  
    Cloud computing providers are constantly innovating and introducing new services, capabilities and performance that can help organizations to stay competitive and agile.
  • Disaster Recovery:  
    Cloud computing provides organizations with a reliable and secure backup and disaster recovery solution that can help them quickly recover from a catastrophic event, such as a natural disaster or cyberattack.

Overall, cloud migration can provide significant benefits to organizations, including cost savings, scalability, flexibility, security, accessibility, innovation, and disaster recovery while ensuring business uptime.

Data migration to the cloud impacts every aspect of the organization, including business processes, tech platforms, and employees. Therefore, you need to ensure that your cloud migration journey is seamless without common migration pitfalls. Even a small misstep can cost your organization heavily, both in terms of money and time.  

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid when planning your cloud migration journey.  

  • Migrating to the cloud at the wrong time  
  • Migrating without upskilling your IT teams  
  • Failing to prioritize workloads before moving to the cloud  
  • Choosing the wrong approach to cloud migration  
  • Underestimating security and privacy risks  
Interesting read: How To Plan A Data Migration Project?

Overcoming cloud migration challenges with sensitive data tokenization

Data tokenization is an effective way to overcome the key issue around protecting sensitive data prior to cloud migration. By replacing sensitive data with non-identifiable tokens, organizations can ensure data security is implemented prior to the migration process.

Moreover, data tokenization enables organizations to comply with data residency requirements, ensuring that sensitive data is stored and processed in compliance with local regulations, without sacrificing performance or scalability. With data tokenization, organizations can leverage the benefits of cloud computing while ensuring the security and privacy of their sensitive data.

Described below are a few top cloud migration challenges and how tokenization can help overcome them.

  1. Data Security

Data security is one of the top concerns for organizations embracing cloud migration. They want to ensure that their sensitive data – such as personal data, financial data and health data, is secure and protected during the migration process. Tokenization can address this challenge by replacing sensitive data with non- identifiable tokens. This ensures that sensitive data is not exposed during and after the migration process, thereby reducing the risk of data breaches and ensuring data privacy.

  1. Compatibility Issues

Compatibility issues can arise when migrating applications and data to the cloud. Tokenization can help address this challenge by ensuring that the data is in a compatible format for the cloud. By replacing sensitive data with tokens, the data can be easily migrated to the cloud without any compatibility issues.

  1. Storage Costs

Cloud migration can be costly, especially for organizations with large amounts of data. A data privacy solution can address this challenge by identifying the amount of stale or unused data. Companies can determine whether to move the data to a temporary, cold storage facility or purge the data altogether, thereby reducing the total data footprint by as much as 70 percent.  Doing this data hygiene not only reduces the privacy risks significantly, but it also reduces the cost of migration.

  1. Retaining Original Data

By preserving the link to the source data, it becomes possible to conduct more detailed analysis compared to anonymization. When data is anonymized, it's limited by the initial parameters, such as age groups, which may not offer sufficient precision or adaptability for upcoming uses. However, tokenized data provides analysts with the ability to produce new subsets of cloud data whenever necessary, all the way down to the original, specific Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

In conclusion, cloud migration can be a challenging process for organizations. However, with the right approach and tools, these challenges can definitely be overcome. Tokenization is a powerful tool that can help address many of the challenges associated with cloud migration. By replacing sensitive data with non-identifiable tokens, organizations can ensure data security, address compatibility issues, reduce cost, simplify the data environment, and ensure smooth change management during the migration process.

Also read: Seven Different Types Of Cloud Migration


How Protecto can help you simplify your cloud migration process

Cloud migration is essential for organizations looking to leverage the benefits of cloud computing. However, it comes with its own set of challenges. Data tokenization is a powerful tool that can help organizations overcome these challenges by ensuring data security, addressing compatibility issues, reducing cost, simplifying the data environment, and ensuring smooth change management during the migration process. By leveraging data tokenization, organizations can migrate to the cloud with confidence, knowing that their sensitive data is secure and compliant with local regulations.

Organizations can overcome the challenges associated with data privacy and ensure a successful cloud migration by engaging Protecto’s professional services team. With Protecto's intelligent tokenization technology, the risks associated with cloud migration is significantly reduced, as our team of privacy experts will bring their expertise to get you jumpstarted with identifying and protecting your sensitive data in your structured data sources.  

Key features include:

  • Simple APIs: Our turnkey APIs enable you to go live in days  
  • Security: Your PII data is stored in a zero-trust data privacy vault  
  • Data Residency: Multiple region options available to keep your privacy vault  
  • Superior Performance: Our scalable privacy APIs grow along with your changing need  
  • Redundancy & Availability: Ensures 99.9% availability and robust redundancy    

You will undoubtedly benefit from our services and feel relieved that you made the right choice. Book a demo today to see how Protecto can help discover your privacy risks and protect your sensitive data.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What are the top cloud migration challenges?

A: The top cloud migration challenges include data security, application compatibility, data integrity and availability, network connectivity, regulatory compliance, and vendor lock-in.

Q: How can tokenization help overcome cloud migration challenges?

A: Tokenization replaces sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens, protecting sensitive information during migration and storage in the cloud. Tokenization can also help ensure regulatory compliance by minimizing the storage of sensitive data in the cloud and reducing the risk of data breaches. Additionally, tokenization can mitigate vendor lock-in concerns by allowing data to be easily migrated between cloud providers without compromising security or compliance.

Q: How can tokenization help ensure data integrity and availability during cloud migration?

A: Tokenization can help ensure data integrity and availability during cloud migration by preventing data corruption and loss. By replacing sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens, tokenization can ensure that data remains intact and available during migration and storage in the cloud.

Q: How can tokenization help ensure regulatory compliance during cloud migration?

A: Tokenization can help ensure regulatory compliance during cloud migration by minimizing the storage of sensitive data in the cloud and reducing the risk of data breaches. By replacing sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens, tokenization can help organizations meet regulatory requirements while still taking advantage of the benefits of cloud computing.

Download Example (1000 Synthetic Data) for testing

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