Cloud Migration Plan: A Step-by-step Checklist for Moving to the Cloud

Utilizing cloud computing capabilities is a way to improve application performance, increase flexibility, and promote automation. Cloud migration is a process of moving a company’s data, applications, databases, and other digital assets from on-premises to the cloud. Learn more about the differences between them in the on-premises vs cloud comparison guide. Considered a major part of the cloud transformation strategy, the migration process is an ambitious endeavor, demanding nuanced and meticulous planning. This guide is designed to provide a step-by-step cloud migration plan with detailed to-dos for each phase. 

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Phases of Cloud Migration

Successful cloud migration is not a single project but a structured journey that requires careful planning, execution, and optimisation. Understanding the key phases of cloud migration helps organisations reduce risk, maintain business continuity, and maximise the value of their cloud investments.

Phase 1: Pre-migration Assessment

The very first phase that any competent cloud consulting service would suggest is an in-depth assessment of the existing applications and infrastructure as a whole. In this part, we will flesh out each step of the process, emphasizing critical actions.

Define Business Goals and Migration Scope

The goal-setting phase is intended to analyze the reasons behind the cloud migration steps. Companies achieve this by asking themselves salient questions and digging deeper into business objectives. The aim here is to align cloud migration goals with the business operations and scope to ensure that this transformation delivers clear results. Begin by providing elaborate and precise answers to the following questions:

• What are your current pain points? This includes the company’s needs, plans, aspirations, and weaknesses.
• What do you want to accomplish? This part describes cloud migration goals: expand production and increase customer retention.
• What is the project scope? Analyze budget, time constraints, and resources, and set measurable success metrics that correlate with your goals.

Audit Current Infrastructure

In addition to examining your business metrics, it’s crucial to thoroughly evaluate the IT infrastructure. To ensure an effective and smooth migration, business leaders must have a 360-degree overview of the company’s servers, dependencies, workloads, licenses, etc. Aside from helping you create a practical cloud migration plan, a detailed infrastructure assessment may expose technical debt, compatibility issues, and legacy software, allowing you to address these issues in advance. Consider the following steps:

• Conduct a thorough inventory: each piece of hardware and software, as well as applications, data, licenses, databases, dependencies, and security configurations.
• Analyze historical KPIs to identify bottlenecks, vulnerabilities, and other potential weaknesses.
• Determine dependencies to see which parts are connected to what, including APIs, shared services, and integrations.
• Study current licensing terms to identify on-premises only software that might require new contracts.
• Document security configurations, such as firewall rules, access management, encryption settings, etc., to match the configurations in the cloud environment.
• Check performance baselines to ensure appropriate matching with the cloud instances.

Data Classification and Compliance

Another vital step in the migration process is classifying data and ensuring compliance with data collection and processing regulations. Typically, organizations split data into four main tiers:

• Public data with no to minimal restrictions;
• Internal data that is safeguarded from everyone outside the company;
• Confidential data that protects intellectual property;
• Restricted data requiring the strictest protection, as it includes personal records, health information, and financial data.

The latter is regulated by laws such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others. Data protection laws define how sensitive data must be collected, stored, and processed. In addition to legal regulations, companies should consider industry standards, including ISO 27001, which dictates security management protocols, and SOC2, which governs controls that ensure availability, security, and compliance.

Calculate TCO and Build Business Case

As the final step of the pre-migration assessment, companies build a business case. To achieve this, business leaders need to account for two total costs of ownership (TCO) numbers: current spending on on-prem and potential cloud expenses. Costs of on-prem infrastructure go beyond physical servers, spanning rent, electricity bills, cooling systems, software licenses, disaster recovery, and staff. Moreover, these costs will persist when on-premises infrastructure remains up after the migration process is complete.

Here is a quick overview of essentials:

• Servers
• Electricity
• Cooling
• Data center space
• Staff
• Licenses
• Disaster recovery
• Network

Cloud TCO includes compute, storage, tier costs, training expenses, and various fees. To calculate the ROI, subtract cloud TCO and migration costs from on-prem TCO. The result is then divided by migration costs and multiplied by 100:

ROI = (On-Prem TCO − Cloud TCO − Migration Cost) ÷ Migration Cost × 100

Read another dedicated guide for a more detailed cloud total cost of ownership analysis. 

Phase 2: Build Your Cloud Migration Plan

The evaluation phase is followed by the creation of the cloud migration plan. This involves choosing the cloud deployment model, the right cloud provider, and the fitting migration method. In this section, you’ll also learn about the role of a migration architect and the importance of baseline KPIs.

Choose Your Cloud Deployment Model

A fitting cloud deployment model is contingent on an organization’s goals, objectives, and project specifics. The common deployment options include:

Single-cloud deployment: While choosing a single public or private cloud provider may not be the most cost-efficient option, it is certainly a consistent one. You know who you are dealing with for sure, and there’s no need for extra integration efforts and spread communication. However, you are also limited to only one format of the cloud.

Pros	Cons
Easy to manage in terms of communication, billing, teamwork, etc.	Vendor lock-in, including availability, pricing, outages, etc.
Streamlined security and compliance controls

Multi cloud deployment: Multi cloud deployment involves combining two or several more public clouds to give you cost savings to indulge in all the cloud capabilities on the shared hosting. It is also a great option in that it enables reliable backups and allows integrating different features and tools from a bunch of different third-party providers.

Pros	Cons
Pick and choose the best services from different providers	Increase in operational complexity, requiring more management tools
Bolsters resilience by distributing risks across multiple cloud providers	Additional data egress fees

Hybrid-cloud deployment: The gist of the hybrid approach is about grabbing all the good pieces, such as features and modules, from different places and setting up your own unique complex cloud hosting solution. Thus, private and public cloud hosting can be combined, giving you the best of both worlds. However, such a solution requires intensified integration and management efforts, as well as a wide geographical distribution of data powers and employees.

Pros	Cons
Enables the on-prem storage of sensitive data, while leveraging the cloud for the rest	Highly complex to integrate, navigate, and safeguard
Promotes flexibility to scale cloud resources without decommissioning the existing infrastructure	Potential latency issues

Select a Cloud Provider

With a complete project roadmap in hand, it’s time to partner up with a cloud provider. The leading cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud (GCP), offer flexible collaboration models where they tailor the underlying software and migration process mechanisms to your business capabilities, goals, and desires. Consider the following criteria when choosing a cloud provider:

Compliance: While Azure excels in enterprise and regulatory frameworks, GCP is focused on data privacy and security and compliance measures. The broadest certification selection is offered by AWS, in the migration guide, including SO, SOC, HIPAA, FedRAMP, etc.

Regional presence: While GCP provides fewer regions and AWS covers 35+, Azure leads with over 70 regions.

Pricing structure: Cloud provider AWS is known for its reserved-instance models, Azure is a great choice for companies operating with Microsoft licensing, GCP averages at the lowest compute costs.

Migration tools: GCP Migration Center is great for replatforming to cloud-native services, Azure Migrate is especially useful for Microsoft-centric organizations, AWS Migration Hub offers the broadest tooling but requires more expertise.

Define Your Migration Strategy: The 6 Rs

Typically, businesses operate with six main cloud migration strategies, colloquially referred to as the 6Rs. Depending on the amount of work required to move the application to the cloud, the strategies are the following:

• Rehost, or lift-and-shift, involves moving an application with minimal to zero changes to the code or the architecture.
• Replatform is a slightly more complex approach that demands some minor tweaks, such as changing the database.
• Refactor is the most ambitious migration strategy that includes significant changes to the application core. Learn more in the legacy application migration guide.
• Repurchase, as the name suggests, is about the complete abandonment of the existing applications and replacing them with a cloud platform.
• Retain involves keeping the workloads on-premises.
• Retire is simply eliminating the application altogether.

Migration strategy	When to use	Complexity	Costs
Rehost	Application functions as-is, not requiring cloud optimization	Low	Low
Replatform	Minor changes are required, without re-architecting	Medium	Medium
Refactor	For legacy applications that demand a complete revamping	High	High
Repurchase	To quickly move data only	Low	Med
Retain	Migration is too expensive, lengthy, or regulation-heavy	None	None
Retire	Redundant systems	None	None

Assign a Migration Architect

Migration architects are technical specialists who oversee the entire process. From selecting the right cloud migration strategy, designing cloud architecture, and defining security and compliance protocols to making critical decisions when something goes south, migration architects are at the center of the cloud transition journey. While smaller projects can manage without a designated architect, large-scale cloud migrations depend on a seasoned migration expert.

Set KPIs and Establish Performance Baselines

Similarly to setting measurable business goals, companies should define clear and concrete technical objectives. A baseline serves as a snapshot of current metrics, allowing you to establish a before and after. Without the baseline, it’ll be impossible to precisely measure the success of the migration process. Take into account the following categories and corresponding metrics:

• User experience: page load time, session duration, conversion rate
• Application performance: response time, throughput, error rate
• Infrastructure: CPU utilization, Disk I/O, network latency
• Business: customer retention cost, employee turnover rate, engagement rate

Phase 3: Cloud Migration Roadmap: Step-by-step Execution

The time has finally come to follow the cloud migration roadmap and execute the previously developed migration strategy. In these seven cloud migration steps, you will go from selecting the right workloads to move first, all the way to decommissioning the old infrastructure altogether.

Step 1: Prioritize Workloads for Migration

Any roadmap requires a careful plan, and cloud migration is not an exception. To prioritize your workloads, consider dependency mapping to inventory your infrastructure and visualize network flows, API connections, database relationships, etc. This step will highlight which workloads are standalone and which are tethered to others, making them more difficult to move.

Use the map to determine the order of migration based on risk, complexity, and business value. While low-risk applications can be moved faster and easier, more interconnected systems require additional preparation. You can also choose between inside-out and outside-in prioritization techniques. The inside-out approach involves building a stable foundational layer before moving applications, and the outside-in refers to migrating edge services first, such as APIs or microservices. The former offers a solid base, albeit delaying app migration, and the latter provides quick gains with increased backend complexity.

Step 2: Refactor Applications If Needed

Known as a long, nuanced, and technically demanding process, refactoring should only be pursued when absolutely needed. Refer to the following cloud migration checklist for refactoring:

• To move crucial legacy applications
• When the costs of running the app on-prem exceed cloud adoption expenses
• Security is a concern
• Technical debt halts automation
• Cloud migration would reduce operational overhead

Step 3: Set Up Your Cloud Environment

The next cloud migration step involved the setup of the new environment in the cloud. Start with Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to create an isolated network to secure your valuable data in the cloud. Bolster safety even more by establishing Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles, limiting access points. You can rely on the principle of least privilege to minimize the retrieval of sensitive data. Additionally, configure security groups to control what traffic can enter your systems. Lastly, monitoring tools, like CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, or Cloud Operations, will help you observe performance and fix issues before they snowball and cause serious damage. These fundamentals are covered in our scalable cloud architecture guide.

Step 4: Execute Data Migration

Once the cloud is set up, you can finally begin moving data. There are three main approaches to a data migration strategy guide, namely, bi-directional sync, one-way sync, and a dedicated cloud migration service.

• Bi-directional syncing establishes a two-way relationship between the on-prem and cloud databases, securing zero-downtime cutover and simultaneous operation at the cost of intense technical expertise and execution.
• One-way syncing pours data in one direction, from on-prem to the cloud, providing a simpler and more straightforward setup. However, this strategy is unsuitable for parallel operations.
• Cloud migration services require upfront compatibility but offer access to cloud-native features for schema conversion automation, cutover orchestration, and monitoring tools.

Step 5: Test and Validate Your Cloud Migration

It’s no secret that testing is a major part of any technological change, especially something as critical as cloud infrastructure. In this cloud migration step, you can drastically minimize cybersecurity risks, improve user experience, and avoid common pitfalls by running the following tests:

• Functional testing is used to validate application features and ensure their functionality in the new cloud environment.
• Performance testing enables teams to evaluate important performance markers, including load testing, stress testing, network testing, etc. It’s crucial to compare these findings to the baseline metrics to assess the changes from on-prem to the cloud.
• Security testing is run to uncover vulnerabilities that can cause potential security breaches. These include penetration tests, vulnerability scanning, network segmentation, and more.
• Data integrity testing ensures that all data that was moved to the cloud is consistent with the source. Use tools available in the cloud resources to identify encoding mistakes, corrupted datasets, and data loss.

Step 6: Switch Over Production

Follow the cloud migration roadmap and switch over the production system from the traditional on-prem solution to the cloud environment. You can either do it all at once or stretch out the process over a period of time:

• All at once, or Big Bang: Move everything that needs to be moved to the cloud, run tests to validate, and switch traffic to the cloud. Although this approach is faster, less costly and technically complex, it comes with a greater risk. If something was overlooked during testing, the new cloud environment will be riddled with issues, while rollback plans are difficult to execute.
• Phased switchover implies a slow and gradual process, where you open access to the cloud infrastructure to a few users, test the applications, make improvements, and repeat. This technique allows for a more controlled transition with easier rollback and fewer security risks. However, this approach will take longer to execute, requiring bi-directional sync and additional overhead.

Step 7: Decommission On-premises Environment

The final step in the cloud migration checklist is decommissioning the on-premises environment. However, it’s crucial to wait 30 to 90 days after a successful cloud migration to monitor performance metrics and verify user acceptance testing. This vital consideration will assist you with exposing data synchronization gaps and other issues that might affect production after the cutover.

Once the cloud infrastructure has been tested and validated, you can begin to shut down servers. Don’t neglect the potential disposal costs that can quickly accumulate, including recycling fees, data sanitization expenses, hardware destruction bills, etc. Finally, run an audit to identify licenses that must be cancelled, such as operating systems, middleware, and databases.

Phase 4: Post-migration Optimization

The final phase in the cloud migration plan is about long-term maintenance, after the migration has taken place. While migrating to the cloud is a lengthy and difficult process, it doesn’t end there: in the post-migration phase, we continue to monitor performance, optimize costs, and generate governance frameworks.

Monitor Performance Against Baselines

An integral part of the post-migration phase is ongoing performance monitoring. Rely on pre-migration assessment metrics to measure the success of the transformation. Utilize monitoring and observability tools such as CloudWatch migration solution or Azure Monitor feature to capture vital metrics, including error rates, response time, and throughput. After moving everything to the cloud, set up 24/7 cloud monitoring to track latency and memory leaks.

Review and Optimize Cloud Costs

Consider cloud cost optimization best practices to leverage the money-saving benefits of migrating to the cloud. For instance, analyze actual CPU and memory to right-size cloud resource usage and eliminate unnecessary instances. The removal of unused resources will help you reduce waste and minimize the cloud bill.

Most cloud providers offer reserved instances that can be used in predictable workloads to lower compute costs. On-demand instances are intended for unforeseen jobs, aggregating higher costs.

Establish Governance and Access Control

The final step of the cloud migration checklist is to develop a well-defined governance framework, created to magnify the benefits of the cloud environment. Such a framework must include a detailed IAM hierarchy, featuring a roles breakdown and multi-factor authentication (MFA) mechanics. A successful migration governance policy should elaborate on security tools and requirements, data classification, and compliance rules. Finish off by establishing the Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) to set up and control knowledge sharing, cloud environment standards, and decision-making.

Common Cloud Migration Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

While working with cloud applications can yield numerous benefits, the path there is tumultuous. In this part, we will explore some common pitfalls that make the transition longer and costlier.

Compatibility Issues

Fitting your existing application to new cloud computing conditions may become an issue of its own. Some extra optimizations may require additional staff with proper software engineering skills. This calls for unnecessary expenses and can be avoided with the timely audit of the pre-migration architecture.

Vendor Lock-in Issues

A vendor lock-in means that your operating flexibility goes only as far as your cloud provider allows it. Certain customization and corporate integration conflicts may arise here. The solution is employing the services of client-oriented cloud providers who know how to work with open-source cloud frameworks.

Potential Security Issues

Market players often put the question of cloud migration security measures to an argument—“how can we be sure all our corporate and secret data is handled properly, without losses or damages?” In reality, it all comes down to backups created beforehand, a well-planned project workflow, and the reliability of your cloud provider — if all is in place, your data will be okay.

Unexpected Costs

When companies majorly underestimate fees associated with data egress, storage, licensing, and over-provisioning, they end up with snowballing unexpected and uncontrollable costs. Make sure to devote enough resources to TCO calculation to plan for extra spending well in advance.

Skill Gap

Expertise that is required to run a traditional infrastructure deviates from the skill set necessary for the cloud migration process and later maintenance. If you’re recognizing a lack of certain abilities to execute any phase in the cloud migration checklist, you have several options: hire in-house experts, contract freelancers, or collaborate with an agency.

Consider NIX Your Trusted Cloud Migration Partner

Working with a reputable, seasoned IT partner is pivotal in one’s cloud technology transformation journey. NIX is a 2025 AWS Cloud Operations Competency Partner offering end-to-end cloud migration services.

Check Your Readiness for a Cloud Transition

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By conducting a thorough cloud readiness assessment, we guarantee a tailored approach to each client. Even after the transition, we continue supporting companies by providing post-migration services that help you maintain long-term success. Check out the AWS cloud migration case study to learn more about our processes, approaches, and results.

FAQ on Cloud Migration

01/

What is the difference between lift-and-shift and refactoring?

While lift-and-shift involves migrating data with little to no change, refactoring does require some code restructuring to increase compatibility with cloud services.

02/

How long does cloud migration take?

Unfortunately, there is no clear answer as the duration is heavily connected to the scope and technical complexity of your cloud migration plan. It’s not surprising that a smaller tool with clean dependencies can be moved much faster than an enterprise-scale system with thousands of workloads and users. Notable duration drivers are legacy dependencies, highly regulated industries with strict compliance, and migration methods.

03/

What are the 7 steps of cloud migration?

The cloud migration checklist begins with selecting workloads for migration, option refactoring when needed, and cloud environment setup. Now it’s time to execute the data migration steps, test the new cloud infrastructure, and switch over production once verified. Finally, decommission the old on-prem setup after one to three months of performance monitoring.

04/

What is a cloud migration checklist?

A comprehensive cloud migration checklist contains tasks, decisions, and considerations that aid organizations in migrating to the cloud. Companies typically create a tailored checklist to share with stakeholders across the teams to ensure business continuity.

05/

How do I create a cloud migration plan?

If you have no experience creating cloud migration plans, it’s recommended to rely on professional templates. You can rely on the cloud migration checklist to have a solid foundation that you can later refine with other stakeholders and IT experts.

06/

What is a cloud migration roadmap and how is it different from a migration plan?

While a cloud migration roadmap offers a strategic, long-term breakdown of important phases and milestones, a plan is a more action-based document with day-to-day tasks, resource utilization criteria, and tool usage.

07/

What are the most common cloud migration mistakes?

Most importantly, never underestimate unexpected costs and fees, pay attention to dependency complexity, and focus more on security and IAM configurations.