Devastating Cloud Migration Mistakes You Need to Avoid

13.08.2025 3,658 20

Martin Pramatarov

So you are finally migrating to the cloud. Congrats! However, please be mindful while doing it. Cloud migration can feel like stepping into the future: faster processes, flexible scalability, and potential cost savings. But let’s be clear: while the cloud opens doors to innovation, the journey is not as simple as hitting “upload.” Countless businesses jump in without a map, stumbling into the same costly traps. You don’t want to destroy your business completely, do you? Whether you are a CTO at a large enterprise or an IT consultant guiding a mid-size company, avoiding these pitfalls is the key to a smooth, efficient transition. Here you have 18 devastating cloud migration mistakes you need to avoid. Let us warn you and help you dodge them like a pro.

Not conducting a proper needs analysis before migrating to the cloud

Why exactly do you want to migrate your business to the cloud? Is it really necessary? What exactly do you want to move to the cloud? You may only need to move a specific part of your structure. It can simply be an app or some data. There might be some apps that you will completely stop using, and they might not be worth moving. Others, you will need to replace.

Think well about what exactly you need. Costs can easily get sky-high without proper planning. Do you really need to migrate your business to the cloud? Answer the question seriously. Consider that it can get so bad that it can lead some companies into bankruptcy.

Not creating a clear cloud strategy

If you really need to migrate your business to the cloud, then you need to define a strategy. Rushing into cloud migration without it is like embarking on a long journey without a map. Teams often launch blindly, lacking clarity on business objectives, be it performance gains, cost reduction, agility, or geographical scalability. This misguided start fosters misprioritized workloads, uncontrolled spending, and misaligned technologies.

To avoid this, begin by defining your goals: Is your aim to reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX)? Accelerating time to market? Enhancing global access? Use business-aligned KPIs and set clear success metrics. Build a documented roadmap with timelines, a schedule for migration, stakeholders, technology selection criteria, expected return on investment (ROI), general costs, and governance models. Revisit and refine this plan frequently, making the strategy your compass throughout the migration journey.

Underestimating migration complexity

Many organizations presume cloud migration is a “lift-and-shift”, a straightforward process of copying assets to remote servers. In reality, cloud migration often involves architecture redesign, code refactoring, infrastructure orchestration, service integration, and dependency mapping. Underestimating this complexity can result in application downtime, performance degradation, surprises in billing, hidden inter-service licensing costs, or overlooked security gaps. What is the solution? Invest time in initial discovery: use tools to map applications, dependencies, performance profiles, and data flows. Break the migration into well-defined sprints, each with defined testing, validation, rollback plans, and checkpoints. Build a sandbox environment to test before full rollout.

Learn how to do a cloud migration, step-by-step.

Nоt researching enough about cloud providers

There is a common misconception that all cloud providers are the same. Not at all! As we said, you don’t simply lift and shift. Always think about the billing model. Each provider can have different policies and costs. Consider the features you need, APIs that may not be compatible with your servers.

Some billing models charge per minute, per hour, or per month. Instance sizes and prices vary widely. Services offer different sets of features and add-ons, and sometimes the same features but with different names. And don’t forget that each service has its own set of APIs that are generally not compatible with each other.

Poorly planned security architecture

Cloud security is a shared responsibility! Providers secure infrastructure, but you are on the hook for your data, configurations, and access. Many teams rely solely on vendor defaults, leaving open ports, weak IAM policies, or unencrypted data. To improve security, deploy a “zero trust” model: enable IAM with least privilege, enforce MFA, segment subnets via VPCs, configure firewalls and security groups, encrypt data in transit and at rest, and log activities centrally. Integrate vulnerability scanning, intrusion detection, and incident response planning. Refresh your security posture through regular audits, threat modeling, and red team exercises.

Picking the wrong cloud model

IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS? Which one to pick? Not all workloads are equal. IaaS gives you complete control but requires infrastructure management. PaaS abstracts infrastructure but limits flexibility. SaaS offers zero maintenance but less control. Picking the wrong model can drain resources, inflate costs, or hinder innovation. For example, running a legacy monolith on PaaS can break dependencies, while containerizing microservices into IaaS adds unnecessary complexity. What can tour solution be? Map each workload’s goals: control needs, staff skillset, scaling needs. Perform a workload fit analysis. Pilot workloads on different models to assess velocity and cost. Choose a hybrid mix if needed, then standardize patterns for future migrations.

Ignoring application dependencies

If you move an application without mapping its interdependencies, like databases, legacy services, or authentication modules, you risk cascading failures. One misplaced component can break workflows, integrations, or data pipelines. Imagine migrating a backend API while the frontend still points to the old host: chaos ensues! To avoid this, conduct deep dependency analysis using automated tools, architectural diagrams, or tracing dashboards. Document all microservices, APIs, data sync flows, and external calls. Stage migrations by moving interdependent components together or building shims and listeners to route remaining services. Test each phase thoroughly to ensure nothing breaks unexpectedly in the new environment.

Check out these 10 steps to build your database server.

Trying to migrate everything at once

Don’t rush the migration. The moment of moving data is critical. Secure the connection and take all the necessary precautions before initiating the move. A “big bang” migration is tempting but risky. We have seen this movie many times: everything crashes or nothing works, and troubleshooting becomes chaotic. Instead, adopt a phased approach. Start with low-risk workloads, test resilience, measure outcomes, optimize, then scale up. Choose migration “waves” by application clusters, business areas, or complexity tiers. Use pilot migrations to validate infrastructure and scripts. This approach reduces downtime, simplifies rollback, and keeps confidence high across stakeholders.

Failure to optimize post-migration

Cloud is not a “set and forget” environment. Resources left running idle, outdated configurations, and unused storage; all incur ongoing costs. Avoid this by using optimization. Schedule rightsizing audits monthly, clean up unused volumes or bucket objects, leverage auto-scaling and serverless patterns, monitor performance continuously, move cold data to cheaper storage tiers, and revisit reserved instance contracts. A cloud optimization mindset ensures your system remains efficient long after cutover.

Not testing before going live

Testing is where the rubber meets the road. Skipping rigorous tests risks launching broken apps, data mismatches, or user-facing errors. Conduct load testing, integration testing, end-to-end UAT, rollback drills, and security penetration tests. Validate email flows, authentication, APIs, third-party services, and failover scenarios. Monitor metrics and user feedback closely in the early hours post-launch. An unexpected bug might derail customer confidence, so roll out incrementally with feature flags or blue-green deployments. In other words, don’t assume that everything has moved just fine. Verify the applications. Make sure that there are no errors, no missing data, and no database problems. Take some time to familiarize with the cloud before you completely remove your current IT infrastructure and backups.

Not planning the backup

How exactly are you planning to back up your data after the cloud migration? Do you want a physical copy of your data off-line or do you 100% trust the cloud for the backup as well? Make sure that the backup is in your security plan. Too many teams trust the cloud blindly, assuming their provider’s redundancy is enough. But outages, corruption, or even accidental deletions can happen. Before migration, decide: Will you keep an offline physical copy for emergencies, or rely on a separate cloud backup service? Document the process, schedule regular tests, and ensure encryption for stored copies. A solid backup strategy is not just a technical detail; it is your insurance policy. Without it, one glitch could turn your cloud dream into a data nightmare.

Read about 3-2-1 backup, one of the best backup models.

Lack of disaster recovery planning

Cloud failures, whether misconfigurations or provider outages, are rare but possible. Without recovery plans, you risk data loss or extended downtime. Build and test a DR plan that includes backups (cross-region, multi-zone), versioned snapshots, failover sites, rollback scripts, DNS failover, and incident runbooks. Simulate outages periodically (game days) and validate recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO): document team responsibilities, communication protocols, and escalation paths. Having drills in place ensures you avoid panicked scrambles during actual incidents.

Locking into a single cloud provider

Vendor lock-in can stifle flexibility and negotiating power over time. If you commit to AWS Lambda-specific code or Azure-exclusive PaaS features, migrating off becomes costly. Avoid this by adopting multi-cloud strategies where feasible or at least designing with portability in mind. Use container orchestration (Kubernetes), open-source tools, or abstractions (Terraform) that work across clouds. Standardize config scripting, container images, and CI/CD pipelines to minimize friction in future moves or hybrid deployments. This flexibility also helps negotiate better SLAs and pricing with providers.

Neglecting user training and change management

IT teams get excited about new infrastructure, but the broader business often lags, leading to resistance, shadow IT, or misuse. Without training, legacy processes cling on, increasing risk. Mitigate this with a comprehensive change program: early stakeholder communication, training sessions, documentation, sandbox environments, and support desks. Offer quick-start guides, FAQs, and “how-to” videos. Incentivize adoption with gamified challenges or rewards. Monitor usage metrics to identify drop-offs and offer refresher workshops. With engaged users, cloud adoption becomes a cultural shift instead of a wrench in processes.

Overlooking data governance and compliance

Regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or data localization laws are non-negotiable. Migrating data to a shared or public cloud without confirming storage location, encryption protocols, or access controls is a high-risk move. Violating compliance can attract lawsuits, fines, and reputation damage. To prevent this, audit every data type: personal data, financial records, intellectual property, and logs. Choose compliant cloud regions (some clouds offer EU or specific country zones). Implement encryption at rest and in transit, enable detailed audit logs, manage access via IAM roles, and undergo third-party compliance assessments (ISO 27001, SOC 2). Document everything for legal audits, and train staff on privacy responsibilities.

Not accounting for hidden costs

Cloud billing is not just compute and storage, expect network egress charges, IP costs, unused burstable instances, reserved instance misalignments, or unused licenses. If unmonitored, costs can balloon unexpectedly. Avoid this by using native cost dashboards and tagging resources by owner or project. Implement alerts for spending thresholds. Regularly right-size VMs, shut down idle environments, and leverage auto-scaling. Evaluate reserved or spot instances strategically. Review network costs and consider CDN or caching to reduce egress. Always forecast projections monthly and compare to benchmarks.

Skipping performance benchmarks

Without knowing how your applications perform on-prem, you won’t know if the cloud improves or degrades performance. Throwing VMs into the cloud without tracking CPU, memory, or latency renders performance invisible and disappointment likely. Start with baseline performance benchmarks: transactional latency, request volumes, CPU cycles, disk IOPS, error rates. Then replicate the tests post-migration under comparable loads. Use APMs like New Relic, Datadog, or Azure Monitor. Adjust configurations based on feedback. Without this, you risk a degraded user experience, increased complaint calls, or SLA violations.

Ignoring application refactoring opportunities

Moving everything unchanged into the cloud means missing out on scalability, efficiency, and modern architecture benefits. Legacy, monolithic systems can benefit from breaking into microservices, containerization, or event-driven patterns. Identify high-value candidates: batch processes, APIs, stateless services. Refactor into lightweight containers (Docker), orchestrate with Kubernetes or serverless functions, and integrate CI/CD pipelines. Even partial refactoring, like separating data tier and compute tier, provides improved elasticity, reduced cost, and improved DevOps velocity.

Check out these 5 open-source DevOps tools.

Conclusion

Cloud migration is more than a technical shift; it is a strategic evolution. Every misstep risks increased cost, downtime, or lost innovation. But by avoiding these 18 common mistakes, and weaving in proactive planning, testing, governance, and optimization, you pave the way for a resilient, scalable, and high-value future in the cloud. Ready to transform with foresight and finesse? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Neterra’s team is here to help you. Just write us at contact@neterra.net. Check out our cloud servers. Let’s make your cloud journey intelligent, intentional, and rewarding!