Migrating from on-premises to a hybrid cloud model presents real opportunity for small businesses — but it’s complicated. The shift from legacy data centers to a hybrid environment offers scalability, flexibility and cost optimization, yet the migration itself brings a set of challenges that can undermine the benefits if not addressed. A clear roadmap makes all the difference.
CDW helps small businesses map the journey from workload assessment to application modernization, and from security posture to network performance.
Many small businesses rely on traditional on-premises infrastructure or a mix of partial cloud and local data centers. When those infrastructures become stagnant, organizations feel pressure to modernize. Hybrid cloud offers the control of local infrastructure plus the scalability of public-cloud resources. Hybrid enables agility, access from anywhere and redundancy to support business continuity.
Inevitably, though, the migration triggers questions about security, application compatibility, network latency, skills gaps and cost modeling. Small businesses must grapple with whether to lift-and-shift, refactor or retain certain workloads on-premises, all while building a plan that ensures value. An assessment can deliver the insights that a business needs to decide on a path forward, especially about the costs of shifting some or all workloads to the cloud.
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Key Challenges in Migrating to Hybrid Cloud
There are four major challenges that typically surface for small businesses considering a shift to cloud.
- Data security and compliance: When on-premises systems migrate to hybrid architectures, the data boundary changes, and so do the threat surface and access controls. Ensuring visibility, governance and consistent identity across on-premises and cloud resources is essential. CDW’s hybrid optimization insights note that hybrid environments must navigate security gaps, siloed tools and cost-driven complexity. Smaller teams may lack cloud-native security skill sets or fully developed policies for hybrid environments, which raises risk.
- Application compatibility and workload migration: Not all applications move seamlessly from an on-premises environment to a public cloud or hybrid model. Legacy monoliths, tight hardware dependencies or proprietary configurations often need refactoring; or, they may be better retained on-premises. The right workloads belong in the right place and must be carefully rationalized. For small businesses without seasoned cloud specialists, deciphering which apps to keep, replatform or retire can be daunting.
- Network performance and latency: Moving data and workloads offsite introduces latency, bandwidth and connectivity risks. The assumption that cloud is always “faster” may not hold for certain input/output-intensive workloads or for users who are geographically remote. Organizations accustomed to local control may find new performance bottlenecks unless the network architecture is optimized. As part of an assessment, CDW helps map server usage, memory, core counts and performance to estimate cloud equivalents.
- Skills gap and change management: Many small businesses’ IT staff are experts in on-premises systems, but they may not be as knowledgeable about public-cloud, hybrid architectures or modern DevOps practices. That knowledge gap can slow down projects, introduce risks and raise costs. Further, moving to a hybrid model often changes operating models, support responsibilities and service expectations. Without a roadmap that includes training, governance and managed services support, the migration may falter.
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Building a clear roadmap to succeed
Once an assessment is complete, the next step is developing a migration plan. That plan should include workload prioritization, data transfer strategies and a clear timeline for testing and cutover. Small businesses often benefit from taking an incremental approach, moving one workload at a time rather than adopting a full lift-and-shift.
Hybrid cloud also enables disaster recovery improvements, such as built-in redundancy and failover capabilities. By replicating critical workloads to the cloud, businesses can ensure continuity in case of a local outage.
Scalability is another benefit. With hybrid infrastructure, it’s easy to scale compute or storage up or down based on demand, without overprovisioning hardware. This flexibility supports faster DevOps cycles and enables small teams to innovate more efficiently.
No two businesses have the same IT environment or budget. The key is to start small, test your assumptions and use data to make informed decisions. A well-run assessment can reveal both opportunities and challenges — and give you the confidence to move forward with a hybrid strategy that aligns with your business goals.
This article is part of BizTech's AgilITy blog series.
