What are some cloud migration challenges or limitations?

There are two things you need to look at when addressing cloud migration challenges: network speed and the amount of data migrated.

There are limitations around network speed -- some networks are better at downloading vs. uploading. So, if you send data to a cloud provider -- whether it is Amazon, Rackspace or Microsoft -- and use just their regular networks to get in, you might be constrained by the bandwidth quality of service.

The other big constraint is the amount of data you migrate in a given time period. Are you sending it over the network? Or are you physically putting it onto a hard drive, tape or some other media and physically shipping it to the cloud provider, which ingests it, puts it onto its cloud storage, then allows you to synchronize the data with your environment?

To overcome these cloud migration challenges, here a couple tips:

• Pre-ship data that is fairly static and not used very often. Think of it as avoiding baggage fees by sending items ahead, and then bringing what you need an applying the update.
• Apply data footprint reduction technologies. Deduplicate data, compress it, then archive it to be pre-shipped. Most providers offer various ways to get your data into their services. There are network constraints, but if you have a big enough budget, you can get a high-speed direct connection to move a lot of data in a small amount of time.