7 signs it's time to migrate to the cloud

1. Your data centre contract’s expiring

Wherever they’re based, physical servers aren’t just expensive to buy, they’re costly and time consuming to maintain – a burden that only grows as they age. Typical data centre contracts run for around three years, so next time yours is up for renewal, take the opportunity to weigh things up. Is maintaining servers still the best use of your budget – and your team’s resources? It’s a great time to dig into the real costs (and potential savings) before you get tied into another contract.

2. You need a better way to integrate acquisitions

If making regular acquisitions is part of your growth strategy, integrating those new companies into your own, smoothly and at speed, is crucial. If they’ve each got their own hardware to move and align, that can be a significant challenge. Migrating to a cloud-based model gives you a more scalable, elastic approach you can quickly roll out to newcomers, bringing them on board and getting them up to speed faster.

3. You’re struggling with capacity at busy times

In many organisations, there are real and regular IT capacity spikes, triggered by anything from sales cycles to the demands of month-end reporting. So, if your team’s running out of storage space, memory or processor capacity at those key times, you might be considering upgrading your systems to make sure you can cope. It’s a reasonable consideration, but an expensive one. If your systems only struggle on the 12 days a year you need to crunch those reports, buying hardware that provides that capacity all year round might not be the best investment. It’ll cost you thousands and take a huge amount of time to choose, buy, install, test and roll out all that new kit. Meanwhile, in the cloud world, you can get extra capacity in seconds, at the flick of a toggle, for just a few hundred pounds. Dial it up when you need it, dial it down when you don’t – it’s flexible, scalable, secure and fully maintained for you, freeing up your in-house team.

4. It’s time to replace key software or hardware

If your software or hardware has been in place for a long time, it might be that it just won’t support a move to the cloud, and it’s holding you back from evolving your whole IT infrastructure – and spend. So, when the time comes to replace it, that’s a great opportunity to reconsider your strategy, remove a major barrier and take your organisation in a more agile, cost-effective direction. Why invest in expensive new kit you’ll have to pay to maintain, when you can scale and upgrade faster, using fully-managed cloud tech that grows with you? Similarly, if your software or hardware provider is ending their support for the version you’ve got, that’s another good time to consider a move. They may have a new, virtualised, software-as-a-service (SaaS) version, where they can manage everything on your behalf, in the cloud.

5. You want to raise your security (and reliability) game

Security threats and vulnerabilities are constantly changing, and if you’re not operating in the cloud, it takes a lot of resource to stay on top of them. But if you use a major cloud provider like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS), they’ll handle the whole thing for you. These companies invest massively in security, and you’re getting that baked in, rather than having to implement it yourself. No more worrying about whether your server’s got the latest security patch, your software’s up to date or your network’s compromised – they’ll have it covered. They can also provide you with an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) – best practice for businesses sharing data across multiple locations. Even better, we can make direct connections with those providers, streamlining the journey your data makes and reducing the risk of data drops, hacks and choppy video calls.

6. You need stronger compliance to protect your clients

Depending what sector you’re in, you may have more or less rigorous compliance obligations – for example if you’re handling sensitive data or dealing with vulnerable people. Again, migrating to the cloud can lighten the burden for your own team, because you can take advantage of the security, compliance measures, best practice and VPNs that major players have invested so heavily to create.

7. You want to deliver innovative applications, faster

Whether you’re developing software your customers can buy, applications they’ll use to interact with you, or in-house tools for your own teams, you can do it more quickly and flexibly in the cloud. You won’t have to invest in costly hardware, and the big guns at Microsoft, Amazon or Google will provide everything you need – freeing you up to be creative. Because the cloud environment offers greater elasticity, it’s easier to spin up something new, try it out and close it down again, with no ongoing cost or obligation. Plus, with all of your systems in the cloud, you’ve got an easy, cost-effective path for deployment, testing and roll-out. Smarter spending that drives growth In short, migrating to the cloud gives your business the freedom to invest in talent and innovation, rather than supporting ageing systems. It’s not about trimming headcount, it’s about agility and scalability – making the best use of your people and budgets to drive real, ambitious growth.

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What next?

If you’re weighing up whether cloud migration’s right for you, we’d love to help. Seamlessly integrating your internet connectivity with your new cloud strategy makes a huge difference – to the change process and the results you see.

So, if you’d like expert, impartial advice on the best way forward, get in touch with us, you can also connect with us on Linkedin to receive more of our guides and content.