Cloud Migration Checklist for Growing Businesses
Here is a practical checklist you can follow, in plain language.
Before you start: why migrate?
Be clear on the reason. Common ones:
If you can't state the goal in a sentence, pause. Moving to the cloud isn't automatically cheaper or better. Badly planned migrations often cost more than they save.
Key points
- Reduce the cost and effort of maintaining servers
- Handle growth and traffic spikes
- Improve reliability and recovery from failures
- Support remote work and faster development
- Replace aging hardware
- Meet security or compliance goals
Step 1: Set goals and success measures
Pick measurable outcomes:
These let you judge the project and make decisions along the way.
Key points
- Reduce infrastructure cost by a target percentage
- Improve uptime to a specific level
- Cut deployment time from days to hours
- Shorten recovery time after a failure
Step 2: Take inventory
You can't move what you don't understand. List:
Hidden dependencies are the top cause of migration surprises. An old internal system quietly relied on by three others can break things if forgotten.
Key points
- Every application and what it does
- Servers, databases, storage and networks
- Who uses each system and how critical it is
- Dependencies: which systems talk to which
- Data volumes and where sensitive data lives
- Licenses and contracts, including those tied to hardware
- Current costs, including staff time
- Performance and traffic patterns
- Known problems and technical debt
Step 3: Choose your approach for each system
Not everything should move the same way. Common strategies:
Many businesses retire or replace more than they expect, which saves money and effort.
| Approach | What it means | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Rehost ("lift and shift") | Move as is to cloud servers | Fast moves, low-risk systems |
| Replatform | Small changes to use managed services, such as a managed database | Good balance of effort and benefit |
| Refactor | Redesign parts to use cloud features | Core systems that need to scale |
| Replace | Switch to a ready-made cloud service | Commodity functions such as email or CRM |
| Retire | Switch off what is no longer needed | Unused or duplicate systems |
| Retain | Keep where it is for now | Systems with legal or technical constraints |
Step 4: Choose your provider and region
The big three are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Others, such as DigitalOcean, can suit smaller needs. Choose based on:
Pick a region near most of your users, and consider legal rules about where data may be stored.
Avoid unnecessary lock-in by using common technologies, such as containers and standard databases, where practical.
Key points
- Your team's existing skills
- The services you need
- Pricing for your workload
- Data location and compliance requirements
- Support options
- Integration with tools you already use
Step 5: Design security from the start
Misconfigured cloud storage and over-generous permissions cause many real-world breaches.
Key points
- Use role-based access, and give people only the access they need
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for every account
- Encrypt data in storage and in transit
- Keep secrets, such as passwords and keys, in a secure vault, never in code
- Separate production, testing and development environments
- Set up logging and alerts for unusual activity
- Define backup and recovery plans, and test them
- Review the shared responsibility model: the provider secures the infrastructure, and you secure your configuration, data and access
- Check compliance needs, such as GDPR (the EU's data protection law) or industry rules
Step 6: Plan the costs
Cloud costs are flexible, which also means they can grow quietly.
A common surprise is paying for idle resources and for data leaving the cloud.
Key points
- Estimate monthly costs using the provider's calculators
- Include data transfer, backups, monitoring and support
- Set budgets and billing alerts
- Tag resources by project or team, so you know who spends what
- Consider reserved or committed pricing for steady workloads
- Switch off test environments when not in use
Step 7: Prepare your team
People, not technology, are the most common reason migrations stall.
Key points
- Assess skills and train people on the new platform
- Assign clear owners for each system
- Document the new setup
- Plan communication with users about changes and downtime
- Decide who is on call during and after migration
Step 8: Migrate in stages
Always have a way back. A plan that can't be reversed is a gamble.
Key points
- Start with a pilot. Pick a low-risk, non-critical system. Learn the process and fix issues.
- Build a landing zone. Set up the networks, accounts, security rules and monitoring first.
- Move data carefully. Use secure transfer tools. Keep the old system running until the new one is verified.
- Run both in parallel for critical systems, if possible.
- Schedule cutover at a quiet time, with a clear rollback plan.
- Migrate in waves, from simple to complex.
Step 9: Test everything
Test before the cutover, not after.
Key points
- Functional testing: does it do what it should?
- Performance testing under realistic load
- Security testing and configuration review
- Data integrity checks: nothing lost or corrupted
- Integration testing with connected systems
- Backup and recovery drills
- User acceptance testing with real staff
Step 10: Go live and watch closely
Monitor performance, errors and costs daily at first. Keep the team available for quick fixes. Collect user feedback. Keep the old environment until you are confident, then decommission it safely, including secure deletion of old data
Step 11: Optimize
After migration, the real savings come from tuning:
Cloud is a continuous practice, not a one-time move.
Key points
- Right-size servers to actual use
- Use auto-scaling so you pay for what you need
- Adopt managed services to cut maintenance work
- Automate deployments and infrastructure setup
- Review costs monthly
- Review security and access quarterly
Common mistakes
Moving without an inventory or goals. Lifting and shifting everything, including things that should be retired. Ignoring data transfer and egress costs. Leaving default security settings in place. No rollback plan. Skipping staff training. No cost monitoring, leading to bill shock. Migrating the most critical system first
Timeline
| Size | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| A website or a few small apps | 2 to 6 weeks |
| A mid-size business with several systems | 2 to 6 months |
| Complex, regulated or legacy-heavy environments | 6 to 18 months |
How DECHY runs a cloud migration
We follow this checklist on every migration, scaled to the size of the move. It starts with an inventory and a risk review, then a plan that names every step, owner and rollback point.
A single application migration with us costs $6,000 to $15,000. Larger platform migrations cost $20,000 to $50,000+. If you are starting fresh, a cloud setup with automated deployment costs $2,500 to $6,000.
We test the move before it happens. Data is copied and checked, the new environment runs alongside the old one, and the switch is planned for a quiet period. After the move, we watch performance and costs closely and tune both.
If you want ongoing help, managed DevOps (running and improving your deployment and hosting for you) costs $800 to $3,000 a month. Use the cost estimator for a range, or tell us what you want to move.
Next step
Planning a move to the cloud? Tell us what you run today. We'll audit it, recommend the right approach and plan a migration that doesn't put your business at risk. Talk to DECHY.