Cloud migration: is your software ready?

Cloud migration has become a strategic priority for many companies - but moving to the cloud is not just a technical shift. Cloud migration is the process of transferring applications, data, and workloads from on-premises or legacy environments to cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. It promises scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency, but only when approached correctly.

Today, cloud migration has become increasingly popular and is often seen as a go-to solution for all companies. However, moving to the cloud just for the sake of moving to the cloud - without a clear strategy or a solid understanding of why your business actually needs it - is a recipe for failure.

This is why a cloud migration readiness checklist becomes critical. By assessing your software before migrating, you can identify hidden risks, clarify what needs refactoring, and define a realistic migration path. A proper readiness check saves time, reduces costs, and prevents unnecessary stress - helping your team move to the cloud with confidence instead of firefighting.

In this article, we’ll walk through a practical checklist to help you determine whether your software is truly ready for cloud migration - and what to fix before you move.

What needs to be ready BEFORE you start cloud migration?  

First, conduct a cloud readiness assessment. It’s a process a company undergoes to determine their system’s capabilities and find out whether it’s ready to migrate to the cloud. It gives the organization a clear understanding of what needs to be done and ensures a seamless move to the cloud. 

Here's what you need to do:

1. Inventory everything you run: create a complete inventory of applications, services, databases, integrations, and third-party dependencies. Review infrastructure and security measures for compatibility with cloud environments.
2. Classify applications by migration path. Label each application as lift-and-shift ready, requires refactoring, requires re-architecture, and should remain on-premises. This prevents migrating technical debt into the cloud.
3. Review architecture against cloud patterns. Validate whether applications support horizontal scaling, stateless execution, externalized configuration, and managed services.
4. Define security and access controls early. Design IAM roles, least-privilege access, secrets management, encryption policies, and audit logging before migration starts.
5. Set budgets, tagging rules, cost alerts, and ownership models. Define who is accountable for cloud spend from day one.
6. Ensure monitoring, logging, alerting, backups, and incident response processes are in place - or implemented alongside migration.
7. Validate team readiness: identify skill gaps, define platform ownership, and align engineering, DevOps, and security teams on the operating model.
8. Create a phased migration roadmap, avoid “big bang” migrations. Start with low-risk, high-learning workloads, validate assumptions, then scale the migration iteratively.

A practical cloud migration readiness checklist

A structured readiness checklist will help teams identify gaps early, mitigate risk, and avoid costly rework. Below is a practical checklist that covers the critical areas that need to be addressed before the migration begins.

Checklist for a risk-free cloud migration

When your software is NOT ready for cloud migration

Here are key indicators that your software may not yet be ready for cloud migration:

• Tightly coupled architecture

Legacy monolithic applications with tightly coupled components are difficult to decompose for cloud environments.

Without refactoring into modular or microservices architectures, migration can result in high latency, complex dependencies, and operational challenges.

• High dependency on legacy systems

Applications that rely on outdated operating systems, hardware-specific drivers, or proprietary middleware may face compatibility issues in the cloud.

Unsupported dependencies can prevent smooth migration or require significant redevelopment.

• Lack of cloud-native design

Cloud-ready applications are typically stateless, horizontally scalable, and designed for distributed environments.

If your software depends heavily on local storage, specific server configurations, or manual scaling, it will struggle in a cloud ecosystem.

• Insufficient performance and scalability testing

Cloud migration may introduce variable network latency, storage I/O limitations, and different load patterns.

Without rigorous performance testing in simulated cloud environments, your application may underperform or fail under real-world cloud loads.

• Inadequate security and compliance readiness

Moving data and services to the cloud introduces new security and regulatory requirements.

If your software lacks encryption, secure identity management, or auditability, migration could expose you to risks and compliance violations.

• Complex data management

Applications with large volumes of tightly integrated or frequently changing data may encounter challenges during migration.

Data synchronization, consistency, and latency issues can disrupt functionality if the application is not designed for cloud storage paradigms.

• Organizational unpreparedness

Cloud migration is as much a cultural and operational change as it is a technical one.

If your IT team lacks cloud expertise or your processes are rigid and legacy-focused, migration efforts may fail regardless of technical readiness.

Avoid these 10 common cloud migration mistakes

1. Migrating without a cause

Before you start the migration process, consider which data, workflows, or applications will benefit from the migration. Moving every piece of data or software to a cloud must have a business justification.

2. Skipping a readiness assessment

Ignoring application, infrastructure, and team readiness can result in compatibility issues and performance degradation.

3. Migrating everything at once

It’s hard to manage dependencies, troubleshoot failures, or roll back errors, while overwhelming IT teams and increasing costs.

4. Migrating monolithic applications without refactoring

Legacy monoliths may not perform well in cloud environments without modularization or redesign.

5. Choosing the wrong cloud model or vendor

Misaligned SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS choices can limit scalability, functionality, or cost-effectiveness. You shouldn’t assume that all cloud environments are the same. Every cloud provider has its specificity. When you’re making your decision to choose between various cloud providers, make sure you know the differences and choose what‘s best for your company. 

6. Unrealistic projection of cloud migration costs

Underestimating cloud migration costs is a common mistake; unexpected expenses from compute, storage, data transfer, and optimization can quickly exceed projections, leading to budget overruns. Moving to the cloud can reduce CapEx, but poor planning may lead to unexpected OpEx increases.

7. Ignoring compliance and security

Neglecting regulatory and security requirements can cause violations and data breaches. You need to check how your cloud provider defines security services. How their cloud is protected for breaches and what additional means of security you can apply.

8. Ignoring staff training

Teams unprepared for cloud tools and practices struggle with deployment, monitoring, and maintenance. Moreover, cloud experts remain crucial even after migration - for maintenance, troubleshooting, optimization, and knowledge sharing. You can address this challenge in at least three ways: first, by training your existing employees; second, by hiring new talent within your organization; and third, by outsourcing to an experienced cloud migration company that can provide the necessary skills.

9. Lack of upgrade policy

Lack of upgrade policy or sticking to the non-cloud upgrade policy is a big mistake. You risk running outdated software, introducing vulnerabilities, and facing unexpected downtime. Cloud platforms are continuously updated with new features and improvements, so failing to align your upgrade strategy with the cloud can prevent you from taking full advantage of scalability, cost optimization, and automation capabilities.

10. Neglecting post-migration governance

Lack of monitoring, auditing, and ongoing optimization undermines long-term cloud benefits. Ongoing management is also crucial for performance tuning, identifying inefficiencies, and ensuring that cloud resources continue to align with business needs. 

Conclusions

Cloud migration requires careful planning and preparation. To avoid risks and ensure success, you need to define your migration strategy in advance: what will be migrated, on what timeline, and why, including the KPIs you aim to achieve. Working with experienced IT consultants can make this process smoother, faster, and more effective. 

SmithySoft offers end-to-end cloud migration services, including readiness assessments, architecture optimization, phased migration planning, and post-migration support. By partnering with SmithySoft, you can minimize downtime, control costs, and fully leverage the benefits of the cloud with confidence. Get in touch with SmithySoft and start your cloud journey!