Moving applications to the cloud can create a more flexible, more responsive IT department, but what about moving application data to the cloud? How secure is that? And are cloud applications truly reliable and less expensive than on-premise applications?

Let’s consider some issues before you take the cloud-migration leap.

1. Goals
 
Are you moving to the cloud to reduce costs, time-to-deployment, or your IT department’s workload? Goals are the foundation of success, so you should list them, prioritie them, and quantify them. Before long, you’ll be able to determine whether some level of cloud migration is right for you.

2. Security
 
Will the cloud application provider secure and encrypt your data, both in motion and at rest; safeguard against breaches; execute threat analyses and penetration tests; and be candid about their findings? Remember: you, not the provider, will have to answer to the client in the event …