5. Going "all in" when you really shouldn’t. An integral part of the assessment is analyzing the risk of moving a system to the cloud. Some applications, like heavily customized legacy systems, will be too expensive or problematic to adapt, so, it’s simply not worth the trouble.

Other applications may require control that a cloud infrastructure can’t support.

6. Making false assumptions about security. Cloud platforms have matured to a point where there is ample evidence that cloud security is better than what most companies can manage themselves. That makes perfect sense, since the big cloud companies have thousands of large corporate customers to support. They can’t risk a security breach if they want to stay relevant and grow the lucrative enterprise business.

However, with security, “measure twice, and cut once.” In other words, you can’t over-plan when it comes to security measures. For instance, just because the underlying cloud platforms are secure doesn’t mean your apps are secure.

Planning for the cloud means considering not only what security needs your customer will have for those systems that will migrate, but also how the company can benefit from the strong security technologies available in the cloud.

But That's Not All …

Of course, there are more issues when it comes to assessing potential cloud migrations, such as industry and company-specific requirements. To keep it simple, consider what users expect from your internal environment: high availability, foolproof security, speed, and applications that consistently run well. Aim to match or exceed whatever metrics you're using internally to meet those fundamental needs.