There are many reasons for migrating applications and workloads to the cloud, from scalability to easy maintenance, but moving data is never without risks. When IT systems or applications go down, it can be incredibly expensive for a business. One hour of downtime costs over $ 100,000, according to 98% of organizations surveyed by ITIC. Mistakes are easy to make in the rush of competition. There is a lot that can go wrong, especially if you do not plan properly. "By 2022, at least 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer's fault," says Jay Heiser, Gartner's vice president of research.

If you want to avoid being in that group, then you need to know the pitfalls to avoid. To that end, here are seven pitfalls that companies often fall into.

# 1 No Data Protection Strategy

It's important that your business data is secure at rest or in transit: you need to be sure that it can be recovered if a disaster strikes. Consider damage threats, redemption software, accidental deletion, and irreparable cancellations in the cloud infrastructure. If the worst happens and you expect more from an apology or compensation, then a coherent and lasting data protection strategy is necessary. Put it to the test to make sure it works.

# 2 There Is No Data Security Strategy

It is common practice to mix data in a data center and reside on shared devices with countless unknown entities. Cloud vendors can promise to keep your information separate, but monitoring concerns require you to make sure. Consider access control because basic cloud file services often do not provide the same user authentication or granular control as traditional IT systems.

The Ponemon Institute estimates the average global cost of a data breach at $ 3.6 million. You need multi-layer data protection and access control strategies to prevent unauthorized access and to ensure that your data is safely and securely stored in encrypted form, wherever it is.

# 3 No Strategy To Recover Data Quickly

With storage snapshots and previous versions managed by dedicated NAS devices, rapid recovery from data corruption, deletion, or other potentially catastrophic events was possible. But few cloud storage systems take snapshots or offer an easy return to previous versions, so you remain dependent on current backups. You need flexible snapshots that allow for quick recovery and the ability to restore data for critical data and applications.

# 4 There Is No Data Performance Strategy

Shared multi-tenant infrastructure can lead to unpredictable performance, and many cloud storage services do not have the ability to set performance parameters. Too many concurrent requests, network overloads, or equipment failure can lead to delay issues and sluggish performance. Look for a performance control layer for data that allows all your applications and all users to achieve the expected response level. It also needs to be easy to adjust as demand and budget increase over time.

# 5 There Is No Strategy For Data Availability

Hardware cancels, people make mistakes, and disruption of availability is an unfortunate fact of life. It's best to plan for the worst situation. Make replicas of your most important data and find a way to switch quickly if sporadic cancellation occurs. Look for a cloud or storage provider ready to provide a level of service guarantee for your business. Wherever necessary, create a secure option with a secondary storage controller to ensure that your applications do not experience any interruption.

# 6 There Is No Multi-cloud Interoperability Strategy

According to Gartner analysts, as much as 90% of organizations will adopt hybrid infrastructure by 2020. There are many positive drivers as companies try to optimize efficiency and control costs, but you need to properly evaluate your options and impact on your business. Consider the ease with which you can replace manufacturers in the future and any code that may need to be overwritten. Salespeople want to get you involved in proprietary APIs and services, but you need to keep your data and applications multi-cloud capable in order to remain resilient and preserve your choices.

# 7 No Disaster Recovery Strategy

A simple mistake when a developer accidentally drops a code into a public repository and forgetting to remove company cloud access keys from the code may be enough to break your data. Your vendor may be hacked and your data and backups will be lost. It is very important to keep redundant copies of everything you need to completely restart your IT infrastructure in the event of an accident or a mere hacking attack. The temptation to save and reduce data management costs is understandable, but it's a short-term mindset that can cost you a lot more in the long run. Take the time to devise the right strategy so you can drastically reduce your risk.