Risk Assessment Checklist for Migrating Enterprise Cloud Data

If you are planning a large-scale enterprise cloud migration and want to understand the risks involved, it is important that you perform a detailed cloud migration risk assessment. The risk assessment must cover all aspects of the migration to help you ensure full readiness.

In this guide, we have shared a risk assessment checklist for migrating enterprise cloud data. You can use this checklist to inform your company’s risk assessment decisions.

Cloud Migration Provider Assessment

One of the first and most important migration risk assessment steps to take is to assess the cloud migration provider that you want to go with. After you have shortlisted a migration provider, schedule a discovery session with them and assess them on the following areas:

• Proven expertise – Does the migration provider have proven expertise in large-scale enterprise migrations?
• Past success stories – What kind of success stories has the migration vendor created over the years?
• Migration capabilities – Does the migration vendor’s tool have the capabilities to perform large enterprise migrations?
• Data handling policies – What types of data handling policies does the migration provider have?

Security Risk Assessment

After assessing the cloud migration provider, the next important cloud migration risk assessment to perform is an in-depth security risk assessment. Since cloud migration involves transferring sensitive company data, make sure to assess:

• Authentication process – Make sure that your cloud migration provider uses secure cloud authentication protocols like OAuth 2.0.
• Data encryption during migration – Encrypting data with RSA 2048 or other encryption standards is a must during migration.
• Secure migration infrastructure – Using secure enterprise-grade instances helps ensure maximum data protection during migration.

Make sure to review all the security policies of the migration vendor to understand if they align with your organization’s migration security needs.

Compliance Risk Assessment

Similar to performing security risk assessment, it is important to perform an in-depth compliance risk assessment to perform fully compliant cloud migrations. It is important to make sure that the migration strategy adheres to country-specific data regulation laws, such as GDPR, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and more.

Operational Risk Assessment

The operational structure and plan also play an integral role in determining the success of the cloud migration project. Make sure to perform a proper operational risk assessment covering various areas of operation, including:

• Monitoring – Does the monitor plan ensure total visibility into the ongoing migration jobs?
• Incident response – Is there a pre-defined escalation and resolution approach when incidents, such as file or folder conflicts, take place?
• Validation – Will migration reports be used to validate the one-time and delta migration of each user batch?

Financial Risk Assessment

Lastly, since large-scale enterprise cloud migrations are a significant investment, you must ensure that the migration delivers desired outcomes through which your organization can gain maximum value. Make sure to assess these areas:

• Migration ROI – Is the migration structured and well-planned enough to deliver a high ROI after completion?
• Overage charges – What are the overage charges when migrating versions that double in the destination cloud (specifically Microsoft 365)?
• Tool licensing model – Does the migration tool come with tailored pricing, or does it have annual licensing commitments?

Learn More About Cloud Migration Risk Assessment from Our Experts

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the main components of a cloud migration risk assessment?

Technical readiness, security, compliance, and operational readiness are some of the main components of cloud migration risk assessment. It is important to focus on these areas when performing an in-depth risk assessment of the cloud migration project that your company is planning.

2. How to perform cloud migration risk assessment?

To be able to perform a proper cloud migration risk assessment, assess all the important areas of the migration project, including the migration tool you plan to use, the scope of migration, the overall migration approach, monitoring and validation plan, cutover and post-migration integration plan, and more.

3. Why is cloud migration risk assessment important?

It is important to perform a cloud migration risk assessment to understand all the risks involved before you start the actual migration. Based upon the findings, you can better prepare your company and the IT team to mitigate risks and avoid disruptions.