What You Need Before You Migrate to the Cloud

What do you need before you migrate to the cloud? Skills!

The advantages of the cloud are clear, and most businesses are convinced about its benefits. But migrating your on-premises environment to the cloud is not as straightforward as you might think.

Alongside new technology, you’ll need to hire for a range of new niche large technology skills to ensure a secure and successful transition. The right talent can help smooth the transition and make full use of your cloud provider’s services. Cloud services evolve quickly, so it pays to recruit candidates with up-to-date knowledge and skills, but who are also willing to learn at pace.

While most cloud providers provide the support, training and management services you need for the migration to run smoothly, you should never discount the human element. Make sure you have in-house experts for that day that things go wrong.

Here are three key skills that you should hire for (if you don’t have them already) to maximize the impact of your cloud migration:

1.    Financial 

 “The bottom line is cloud saves companies money and increases their profits.”

John Engates, CTO, Rackspace Hosting

To measure and maximise the cost savings you will make by migrating to the cloud, you’ll need someone in your organisation with the right financial skills. The ROI of cloud hosting can be difficult to quantify, but the right financial talent will be able to assess to overall savings made with the increased productivity, performance, agility and availability that the cloud offers.

2.    Security

“We don’t have enough expertise in the right places now. We often frame cybersecurity as a technology problem. It is a human problem.” 

Peter W. Singer, Co-Author “Cybersecurity and Cyberwar

Migrating to the cloud will bring a new set of security threats and vulnerabilities that you wouldn’t have had to contend with in your in-premises environement. We recently reported an urgent need for cybersecurity talent in the UK, as companies scramble to implement a security plan for their cloud migration. The larger cloud providers will provide a team of security experts to ensure a level of safety for your data, but it pays to be clear where the responsibilities lie, and hire accordingly.

3.    Technical

As you make the transition to the cloud, it is extremely useful to have someone on your team (if not a group of cloud professionals) who understands the ins and outs of virtualisation. It also helps if you have someone in-house who has knowledge of your cloud provider’s offering, and how you can make full use of its main components – which apply to your business and which don’t.

For each bold step in to a digital future there are new skills, experience and knowledge that you need to have on your team. We specialise in niche large enterprise technology recruitment, and can put you in touch with come of the best cloud computing talent the UK has to offer. 

Migrating to the cloud? Talk to one of our consultants today about finding the skills and talent you need on your team.