A cloud conversation often begins with a platform or a price. A more useful starting point is the work your organisation needs to keep doing. Before deciding what to move, make a clear picture of what runs today and what it depends on.
- List your workloads, owners, and dependencies.
- Make business constraints and responsibilities explicit.
- Compare complete options and plan how to check the move.
Build an inventory that explains the work
List the applications and services your team uses, who owns each one, and which business activity it supports. Include the less visible pieces: shared files, scheduled reports, integrations, and the processes that run outside normal office hours.
An inventory should help you ask better questions. Who notices if a service is unavailable? What information does it receive from another system? Is there someone who understands how it is supported? Record uncertainties rather than treating them as settled.
Make the constraints explicit
Talk about when your team can tolerate a change, which locations need access, and what the existing connectivity allows. Identify any contractual or organisational requirements that need specialist review.
Discuss support responsibilities as well. A migration plan should make it clear who will handle everyday administration, who will respond when something stops working, and how a problem will be escalated.
Compare complete options
Look beyond a single hosting price. Ask each option to explain its migration work, licensing assumptions, connectivity needs, ongoing support, and approach to managing changes in usage.
Be precise about what is included and what is still an estimate. Compare a consistent set of workloads and requirements across the options so that the discussion stays focused on your organisation’s needs.
Prepare a move you can explain
Choose a manageable starting point. Document the checks that must pass before a change, how the team will confirm the result, and what will happen if the move needs to be reversed.
Keep users informed about what is changing and how to get help. After the move, review the experience against the outcomes you agreed at the start. A good plan gives you a reason for each decision, including the decision to leave something where it is.
The practical next step
Start with a workload inventory, named owners, and clear constraints. Let those inform the platform discussion.
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