Cloud infrastructure powers everything from streaming services to enterprise databases, yet many organizations still run critical workloads on legacy systems. With the cloud migration market projected to reach $806.41 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 28.24%, organizations of all sizes are racing to modernize their infrastructure and applications. This shift means companies need to stay competitive in a landscape where agility and scalability are non-negotiable.
Engineering teams often encounter unexpected hurdles that can derail cloud migration timelines, blow budgets, and impact system reliability, but they’re not inevitable. This article will help you navigate these challenges with practical strategies.
What are the benefits of migrating to the cloud?
Cloud migration involves moving data, applications, and workloads from on-premises environments to cloud infrastructure. This allows engineering teams to modernize architectures, improve deployment workflows, and leverage cloud-native capabilities.
Here's why organizations are making the move:
Cost efficiency: Replace large upfront capital expenditures with predictable operational costs. Cloud service providers' economies of scale often result in lower total cost of ownership, compared to maintaining on-premises infrastructure.
Scalability and flexibility: Scale resources up or down based on actual demand, ensuring optimal performance during peak times without over-provisioning for normal operations.
Developer velocity: Access modern development tools, managed services, and automation provisioning that accelerate development cycles and reduce time-to-market.
Enhanced collaboration: Enable distributed teams to work efficiently with shared resources, integrated development environments, and standardized deployment processes.
Improved customer experience: Deploy apps closer to end-users using global CDNs and edge locations, reducing latency and improving application responsiveness.
Business continuity: Leverage built-in redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities across multiple availability zones and regions.
Future-proofing: Stay competitive by easily adopting new technologies and services as they become available, without significant infrastructure investments.
16 Top cloud migration risks—and how to solve them
While migrating to the cloud offers tremendous benefits, whether you’re moving to AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, it's crucial to understand and prepare for potential risks. Here's what you need to watch out for and how to handle it.
1. Data security and privacy concerns
Moving data outside your traditional security perimeter introduces new attack vectors and security challenges that your team needs to address proactively. This can expose sensitive data and lose customer trust, leading to compliance violations and lost business. Consider what types of data you're moving to the cloud and where it will be stored geographically, as different regions have varying data protection requirements.
Think of security as a continuous process, not a one-time setup. Start by mapping your data flows and security requirements, then implement a layered security approach, access controls, and monitoring.
Rapid7, a major cybersecurity platform, partnered with Cortex to accelerate cloud migrations, streamline incident response, and improve delivery timelines. They migrated 3,000 RDS instances in under 2 weeks and established better vulnerability remediation processes. With Cortex, Rapid7 significantly reduced time spent searching for information and improved its ability to respond to security incidents.
2. Compliance and regulatory challenges
Moving to the cloud often means navigating complex regulatory requirements across different jurisdictions, each with its own data protection laws and compliance standards. Where you serve customers shapes many aspects of your cloud migration strategy, from where you can store data to how you need to protect it. Failing to meet compliance requirements can result in hefty fines, legal issues, and loss of business opportunities. More subtly, it can slow down your development velocity as teams navigate complex compliance requirements, potentially leading to missed market opportunities.
As part of your cloud-readiness assessment, map your regulatory requirements to specific cloud services and regions. Build compliance into your migration process from the start by implementing automated compliance monitoring and leveraging your cloud provider's compliance-focused features. Regular third-party audits can help identify potential gaps before they become issues.
3. Downtime or service interruptions
Migrating services to the cloud introduces the risk of service disruptions that can impact your users and business operations—and even brief interruptions can lead to immediate revenue loss and damaged user trust. Think about your traffic patterns, data synchronization needs, and how you'll handle the cutover process.
Implement a robust migration strategy that includes blue-green deployments for zero-downtime transitions. Use automated testing to verify functionality at each step, and maintain clear communication channels for coordinating the migration. Consider your rollback strategy and how you'll validate the migration's success.
4. Data loss or corruption
Data migration carries the inherent risk of losing or corrupting critical business information during the data transfer process. For example, different systems have incompatible schemas, data types, or encoding formats. Additionally, network interruptions, hardware failures, or software bugs during the transfer can lead to incomplete or corrupted data, while the sheer volume of data being moved increases the chances of errors occurring somewhere in the pipeline. Recovery efforts can be time-consuming and expensive, especially if proper backups aren't maintained.
Develop a comprehensive data migration strategy that includes thorough backup procedures and validation checks. Use tools that support incremental data synchronization and maintain detailed logs of all data transformations. Implement automated integrity checks and establish clear procedures for handling data discrepancies when they're discovered.
5. Inadequate cost management and unexpected expenses
Poor cost management can quickly eat into your cloud migration's ROI and lead to unexpected budget overruns. Teams might face challenges justifying cloud spending to stakeholders if costs aren't properly tracked and optimized. The pay-as-you-go model offers flexibility but requires active management to prevent budget overruns.
Implement a comprehensive cost management strategy from day one. Use tags to track resource usage by team and project, set up budget alerts, and leverage auto-scaling to match resource provisioning with actual demand. If you’re able to predict your usage ahead of time, you can lock in lower prices, instead of using on-demand cloud services, which are the most expensive.
6. Performance and latency issues
Moving apps to the cloud can introduce unexpected performance bottlenecks and latency issues that weren't present in your on-premises environment. Applications might face timeout issues, data consistency problems, or cascading failures across services. Even minor performance degradation can lead to frustrated users, lost revenue, and increased operational costs. It's important to recognize how your application handles network latency, where your users are located, and what performance metrics are critical for your business success.
Begin with a thorough performance baseline of your current environment. Implement comprehensive monitoring and tracing to identify bottlenecks and performance degradation early. Consider regional deployment strategies to host services near your uses, and regularly test your application's performance under various load conditions. You may also look at ways to improve your database performance, such as optimizing queries and indexes.
When Capital One migrated its eight on-prem data centers to the cloud, performance improved significantly: they reduced the number of transaction errors by 50% and saw a 70% improvement in disaster recovery time. Performance issues don’t have to stand in your way, and they can improve with a planned and thoughtful approach to migrating.
7. Lack of cloud expertise and training
The skills gap between traditional infrastructure management and cloud operations can slow down your migration and lead to costly mistakes. Teams might struggle with troubleshooting, leading to longer resolution times for incidents and increased operational risk.
Build in time and resources for training, knowledge transfer, and maintaining operational excellence during and after migration. Consider hiring people with robust experience, and invest in comprehensive training programs that cover both technical and operational aspects of cloud computing. Create internal knowledge-sharing platforms and build a central hub for information, such as an internal developer portal.
8. Integration challenges with existing systems
Cloud migration rarely happens in isolation – your cloud environment needs to work seamlessly with existing systems, databases, and workflows. If data is corrupted, it can be difficult to recover. Some systems can’t be rolled back when upgraded or changed, so it’s important to think about data synchronization requirements, API compatibility, and how you'll maintain consistency across environments.
Implement robust API management practices and create detailed integration test plans. Migration plans should start with less critical, loosely coupled systems and services first. As migrations are happening, run parallel systems, so services can be rolled back if necessary. Also, it’s best to document clear rollback procedures as part of your plan.
9. Overprovisioning or underprovisioning of resources
Finding the right balance in resource allocation can be challenging in the cloud. Teams often either overprovision resources to ensure performance or underprovision to control costs, both of which can create problems. Poor resource management can also make it difficult to predict and control cloud spending. Think about peak usage periods, growth projections, and how you'll monitor and adjust resource allocation over time.
Implement automated scaling solutions that adjust resources based on actual demand. Use monitoring tools to track resource utilization and performance metrics. You may want to overprovision as first while you are learning your utilization, and then trim down to leave a smaller margin of free resources. Depending on the service, you may want to have between 30-50% of headroom for unexpected usage spikes.
10. Compatibility issues with legacy applications
Legacy applications often rely on outdated technologies or architectures that may not work efficiently in the cloud. Moving these applications without proper modernization can lead to performance issues and increased operational costs.
Your application's architecture, dependencies, and technical debt all influence migration complexity. Consider how well your applications will work with cloud-native services and what modifications might be necessary.
Start with a thorough application assessment to identify modernization needs. Create a clear roadmap for application updates and maintain detailed documentation of all modifications. Test application components individually and plan for adequate performance testing. With tools like Cortex, you can easily address integration challenges before they become an issue. In some cases, you may find it easier to rewrite some applications instead of porting them over, and after your initial audit, you may find services you’ll no longer need in your new architecture.
11. Insufficient testing before full deployment
Rushing through testing phases or failing to test all critical scenarios can lead to serious issues once applications are deployed in the cloud. Cloud environments introduce new variables that require thorough testing beyond traditional application testing. Teams might face unexpected behavior in production that wasn't caught in testing environments.
Implement a comprehensive testing strategy, and create test environments that closely mirror production configurations. Use automated testing tools to ensure consistent coverage and implement continuous testing as part of your CI/CD pipeline.
12. Change management and organizational resistance
Migrating to the cloud represents a significant shift in how teams work, deploy, and maintain applications. Without proper change management, organizations often face resistance and struggle to adopt new cloud practices effectively. This can lead to reduced team productivity, increased stress, and potential security or operational issues if new processes aren't properly adopted.
Develop a change management plan with clear communication, training programs, and feedback mechanisms. Create documentation for new processes and establish a cloud center of excellence to share knowledge—hint: Cortex is a great central hub. Consider implementing changes gradually, find ways to maintain team morale, and celebrate early successes to build momentum.
13. Overlooking shared responsibility for security
Cloud security operates on a shared responsibility model, where both the provider and customer have specific security obligations. Teams might assume the cloud service provider handles certain security aspects when they're actually the customer's responsibility. Misunderstanding these responsibilities can leave critical security gaps in your cloud deployment.
Create a detailed matrix of security measures based on your cloud provider's shared responsibility model. Implement security controls and monitoring at all required levels.
14. Unrealistic timelines and overlooked dependencies
Cloud migrations often take longer than expected due to hidden dependencies and unforeseen challenges. Setting unrealistic timelines can lead to rushed implementations and cut corners. Projects might miss deadlines or require significant rework if dependencies are discovered late.
Start with a thorough discovery phase to identify all dependencies and potential challenges. Build realistic timelines that include a buffer for unexpected issues and document these in your internal developer portal, such as Cortex. Break the migration into smaller, manageable phases and maintain clear communication about progress and challenges.
LetsGetChecked, a global healthcare company, migrated to a microservices model and used Cortex to keep teams on the same page and on schedule. Javier de Vega Ruiz, Chief Software Engineer, says, “Cortex makes action obvious for devs, helping them stay focused on priorities, and saving me 4-5 hours a week following up. In the case of our Kubernetes migration, the ability to drive timely action cut our projected timeline from 24 months down to 16—enabling us to capture savings and productivity benefits 8 months earlier than expected.”
15. Inadequate backup and recovery plans
Cloud environments require different approaches to backup and recovery than traditional infrastructure. Failing to adapt these strategies can leave you vulnerable to data loss and extended outages. Your recovery time objectives (RTO), recovery point objectives (RPO), and data retention requirements shape your backup strategy. Teams might struggle to recover from incidents efficiently if procedures aren't well-documented and tested.
Develop comprehensive backup and recovery plans that leverage cloud-native capabilities. Implement automated backup solutions and regularly test recovery procedures. Document all recovery processes and ensure teams are trained on recovery procedures.
16. Loss of governance or control over data and applications
Cloud environments can make it easier for teams to deploy resources and services, potentially leading to shadow IT and governance challenges if proper controls aren't in place. Teams might create resources without proper oversight, leading to inefficiencies and potential security risks.
Implement a cloud governance framework that includes clear policies and automated enforcement. Use tools like Cortex for resource tracking and compliance monitoring. Regular audits and automated policy enforcement can help maintain control without sacrificing agility.
Minimize cloud migration risks with Cortex
Successful cloud migration requires visibility, control, and coordination across your entire engineering organization. Cortex's internal developer portal provides the foundation for a successful migration by:
Defining and assessing whether teams are ready for the cloud
Creating standardized templates for services to reduce compatibility issues
Integrating seamlessly with many tools and platforms
Centralizing information and critical tasks for developers
Automating steps prone to human error with custom workflows
Cataloging all services and their dependencies
Book a demo to see how Cortex can help your team navigate cloud migration challenges effectively.
