A cloud migration is a great opportunity to modernise — or an expensive way to move your problems somewhere else. This checklist keeps it on the right side.
1. Inventory everything
List every application, database, integration and scheduled job, along with who owns it and how critical it is. Surprises during migration usually come from the things nobody wrote down.
2. Choose the right strategy per workload
Not everything needs to be rebuilt. Some workloads can be rehosted as-is, some should be re-platformed onto managed services, and a few deserve a proper re-architecture.
3. Design security and cost controls first
Set up identity and access management, network boundaries, backups, budgets and alerts before the first workload moves. Retrofitting them later is painful.
4. Automate with CI/CD and infrastructure as code
Define your infrastructure in code (e.g. Terraform) and deploy through pipelines. It makes environments repeatable, reviewable and easy to roll back.
5. Migrate in waves and test
Start with low-risk workloads, run them in parallel, validate, then cut over. Plan DNS and data sync carefully to keep downtime near zero.
6. Optimise after go-live
Right-size instances, use reserved capacity where it makes sense and keep monitoring. The first month after migration is where most savings are found.