Business Central cloud migration: better alternatives to dirty migration

Skipping Business Central cloud migration: a shortcut to happiness or a hidden trap?

As businesses rapidly change and grow, many have already decided to migrate to the cloud to benefit from its perks like improved scalability, security, and cost-efficiency. For many, Business Central cloud migration no longer seems to be a question. The question is: how?

It is human nature to look for shortcuts and prioritize short-term thinking when under pressure. If you are a small organization, these frequent changes may make you seem more ‘agile’. But if you are a larger organization that fails to plan ahead, the experience may be chaotic.

Companies in a hurry to use the benefits of migrating to cloud tend to fall for “dirty migration” as a quick fix. Dirty migration means moving legacy systems to the cloud environment as is, without previously assessing, cleaning up, re-architecting and optimizing them. Rushing the process, businesses may eventually end up dealing with a solution that is hard and costly to maintain in the long run. Lift-and-shift migration, which is similar to dirty migration, is considered frequently disappointing by Gartner.

Not planning upfront can become really expensive when it comes to cloud migration. That is why it is critical to see past the trap of fast success. Organizations that unwillingly transfer outdated customizations they no longer use and poor integrations directly to their new cloud solutions may end up wishing they had taken a different approach.

Cloud migration without analysis: a risky move?

Would you buy a house without a surveyor's report?

When we make larger investments in our private lives, we often go to great lengths to ensure we get what we agreed to. Few of us would make ‘expensive’ decisions without the advice of either people we trust or benefitting from some form of objective analysis.

When we move, we rightly expect to know what needs to be fixed in the house, and we generally expect the kitchen to function as such. But even if the function and the flow in the kitchen are similar, we rarely expect the kitchen elements to be the same ones that we have had for 15 years. Somehow, we seem not to always apply this logic to the new ERP we invest in.

Maybe a dirty cloud migration does the trick, but making an informed decision may require a clearer vision of the current system. Starting with a detailed overview to decide what to move and what to discard before the migration is a good idea.

Likely, it would also make sense to consider how you want to maintain it over time. Answering simple questions like that upfront can potentially make life a little simpler.

At Global Mediator, we build the foundation for a clear migration path with Discovery X-ray.

Why a clear “definition of done” for your cloud migration strategy is vital?

According to a McKinsey survey, 74% of cloud migrations fail to capture expected business value, and about 40% of them go over their cloud budgets. The numbers point out the fact that by skipping detailed planning and a good migration strategy, businesses end up left high and dry, with wasted cloud possibilities and serious financial overruns.

Migrating to Business Central cloud is more than transferring applications and data. A successful cloud migration means creating a secure and optimized cloud-based ERP solution, one that is ‘cloud native’. Even if processes are similar, they should be redesigned to take full advantage of the latest technology and be easy to maintain.