For many businesses, migrating business processes to the cloud is an important aspect of digital transformation. Even if just a portion of your apps or infrastructure is being migrated, the process may still be time-consuming.
As a result, only a few firms can undertake the whole transfer to the cloud at once. Cloud migration is generally divided into more manageable subtasks. It is a great strategy for preventing migration projects from becoming onerous on several fronts, including the budget, duties, and resources.
However, there is one area that requires further consideration before moving to the cloud, “security." Even though IT administrators have identified cybersecurity as a top concern for digital transformation, it is often treated as a distinct undertaking.
As such, we've identified the key practices to consider while transitioning your organization to the cloud.
Monitor Your Systems Regularly
Continuous monitoring is crucial not just throughout the migration to the cloud but also after it has been done. It requires monitoring all network traffic in real-time, as well as user activity, to identify and address any potential security breaches as soon as feasible. This allows companies to notice and handle any security issues that may happen during the migration process.
Implement Strict Access Controls
To guarantee that only users who have successfully authenticated themselves and been granted permission have access to vital data and applications, strict access restrictions must be prioritized. To prevent unauthorized access to essential data and applications, this strategy entails integrating many levels of access controls, such as multi-factor authentication and identity and access management, among others.
Encrypt Your Data
Encrypting the data throughout the data migration process ensures its security before, during, and after the migration. Keep in mind that data may be manipulated or stolen in some manner while it moves across databases. One technique for increasing security is to employ secure transport protocols such as the hypertext transfer protocol secure (commonly known as HTTPS).
Adopt a Phased Migration Process
If you want to migrate your data to the cloud soon, it is usually best to do it in phases rather than all at once. Resist the need to go through it all at once. If you carry out the procedure in phases, your team will have more time and flexibility to monitor the transfer of each asset.
To reduce any potential threat, begin with the facts with the least relevance. After you've completed all of that, you'll be ready to begin transferring the most critical data. Before proceeding with this step, ensure that the setup is operational and that any security problems have been identified.
Recognize Data Compliance Requirements
Compliance criteria may differ substantially from one company to the next. Businesses in the healthcare, internet commerce, and financial services sectors are often subject to severe rules. Before initiating a cloud migration, it is critical to assess the requirements for encryption, storage, backup, and data transfer. The sector in which your firm works, as well as the geographic location in which it operates, each has its own set of compliance standards.
Clean Up Your Data
Consider sanitizing your data. It is preferable to seek the advice of professionals on the technique for erasing your storage media. If you use the right wiping technology, which should provide robust workflows and enhanced process visibility, you should be able to wipe your storage media efficiently and securely.
Prepare Data Centre Decommissioning
Many firms do not have a decommissioning plan in place for any of their stored media after migrating to the cloud, which means that their physical or on-premise media may still be plenty. All businesses that are transitioning to the cloud will benefit from having a decommissioning plan. This strategy will include a variety of actions such as itemizing, planning, removing equipment, and sanitizing data. Furthermore, enterprises may collaborate with IT asset disposition (ITAD) vendor partners to outsource physical hardware decommissioning processes.
Furthermore, if you want to employ on-premise storage as part of a hybrid cloud infrastructure, you must have a complete security policy in place for both your on-premise and cloud-based architectures.
Final Words
The cloud migration process is challenging, and if you do not have a data security policy in place, you may expose your business to cyberattacks. If the company is not cautious, it may wind up exposing its data by adopting insufficient data security standards, making its databases vulnerable to attack during the transfer process. Because of this, hackers may easily access and break all important data without encountering any security constraints.
Maintain vigilance and ensure that the suggested practices outlined above are followed to improve data security and ensure that your organization's most important asset is not left susceptible at any stage throughout the cloud migration process.