Businesses around the world are increasingly moving to the cloud: while the global cloud migration market is estimated at $0.30 trillion in 2025, it’s expected to grow to $1.03 trillion by 2030, at a 28.24% CAGR. However, despite the emerging prospects in the form of unlimited scalability, simplified access to digital infrastructure, and cost-effectiveness in its maintenance, the migration process is often associated with a number of challenges that must be taken into account in time. Let’s discuss these cloud data migration challenges in more detail below.
Common Cloud Migration Challenges
So, what are the cloud data migration challenges that the vast majority of businesses face, regardless of their size?
Data security and privacy
Due to the tightening of requirements for the user data privacy (which is reflected in the HIPAA, GDPR, and other standards), as well as the need to copy and transfer this data from local storage to the cloud, it’s important to correctly assess the risks of its leakage and promptly minimize them. Otherwise, when a business doesn’t have a clear understanding of where exactly the data is located and who has access to it, it can easily become a victim of data leaks, hacker attacks, and non-compliance with standards.
Data governance
Another typical challenge of cloud migration is the initially unordered data structure and, as a result, the lack of uniform methods for its classification, encryption, and storage. In this case, companies have to either initially bring the data to a single format or much more resource-intensively develop several scenarios for their transfer depending on the specifics of each dataset. Otherwise, migration can easily get out of control, exposing this data to the risk of leakage.
Legacy system compatibility
Many companies use legacy systems due to untimely upgrades of their internal IT infrastructure. Their migration to the cloud can be problematic since it usually requires significant code revision or complete modernization, which can lead to missed deadlines and increased project costs.
Service disruption
If the migration plan isn’t well-thought-out and no data backup is provided, this may lead to temporary unavailability of critical business functions. In regular businesses, this may cause financial losses—and in businesses with 24/7 service, even fines and penalties.
Vendor lock-in
Vendor lock-in poses a major risk during cloud migration when a business becomes too dependent on a single cloud provider’s services and infrastructure. Over time, switching to another provider can require significant redevelopment, leading to high costs and delays. This lack of flexibility can restrict innovation, limit competitive pricing options, and increase long-term operational risk.
Cost management
While cloud solutions can help you save money in the long run, without a transparent cost model and end-to-end resource monitoring, you may end up with hidden costs, or, for example, have to regularly pay for services and products that you don’t use (or only use occasionally).
Scalability and performance
An improperly built cloud architecture (i.e. one that doesn’t take into account the potential for load growth) can cause performance issues. This problem is especially typical for businesses with episodic user load spikes, when scaling must occur in real time.
Regulatory compliance
We’ve already mentioned the importance of compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and other standards related to the privacy of user data. In particular, in addition to problems associated with the loss of reputation and competitiveness, violating these standards can cause more prosaic issues—if the data leak is made public, this can entail lawsuits by the injured party and state penalties.
Data migration plan
A well-defined data migration plan is crucial to ensure a smooth transition to the cloud, yet it’s often underestimated during cloud migration projects. Without a clear strategy for transferring, validating, and securing data, businesses risk data loss, prolonged downtime, and compliance issues. Poor planning can also lead to mismatched data formats, broken integrations, and disruptions to critical operations.
Testing
Testing is a critical but often overlooked phase of cloud migration that ensures applications, data, and systems function correctly in the new environment. Inadequate testing can lead to performance issues, security vulnerabilities, and unexpected downtime after go-live. Thorough validation—including functional, integration, security, and load testing—is essential to minimize business disruption and maintain service quality.
Change management
Change management is a vital aspect of cloud migration, as it addresses the human and organizational side of adopting new technologies. Without proper communication, training, and support, employees may resist new workflows or struggle to adapt, leading to productivity loss and decreased morale. A well-executed change management strategy ensures that employees are informed, engaged, and empowered to embrace the new cloud environment. Effective change management ensures smoother transitions, user adoption, and alignment between IT goals and business operations.
Data integrity
Any corruption, loss, or unauthorized alteration of data can lead to costly errors and undermine business trust. Maintaining data integrity requires thorough validation, secure transfer protocols, and continuous monitoring both during and after migration. Protecting this integrity is essential for compliance, operational continuity, and informed decision-making.
Time and resource commitment
Cloud migration is a process that always requires a lot of time, effort, and resources from the business, no matter how advanced the data migration tools it uses. Moreover, in addition to this, you’ll also need to establish clear and smooth coordination between departments to implement correct data synchronization scenarios within your migration plan.
Long-term strategy alignment
Without aligning migration efforts with future growth plans, scalability needs, and evolving market demands, companies risk investing in solutions that become obsolete or restrictive. A clear, forward-looking strategy helps prioritize cloud capabilities that drive innovation, agility, and competitive advantage. This alignment ensures that the cloud infrastructure remains a strong foundation for sustained business success.
Security-specific Migration Challenges
Understanding these cloud migration problems related to data security is crucial for effective planning and risk mitigation:
Data Interception and Leakage During Transfer
During migration, sensitive data can be vulnerable to interception or man-in-the-middle attacks if not properly encrypted or secured. Ensuring secure channels and encryption protocols is essential to prevent unauthorized access.
Insufficient Data Isolation Leading to Unauthorized Access
After migration, improperly isolated data environments can allow unauthorized users or systems to access sensitive information, increasing the risk of data breaches.
Configuration Errors from Manual Processes
Human errors in configuring cloud resources during migration can expose data unintentionally. Leveraging specialized migration tools to automate configurations helps reduce this risk.
Lack of Transparency in Cloud Provider Policies
Some cloud providers may have unclear or limited policies on data handling, making it difficult for organizations to conduct independent audits and ensure compliance with security standards.
By proactively addressing these challenges, businesses can safeguard their data and ensure a secure transition to the cloud.
Testing-related Migration Challenges
As for testing a new, cloud-based environment, the following cloud migration issues can be highlighted:
- Incomplete coverage of the new software environment by tests—in this case, you may miss critical bugs
- An unstable environment during migration—this is always fraught with difficulties in reproducing errors
- Lack of test automation—this significantly slows down the implementation of CI/CD
How to Avoid or Mitigate These Challenges
Now it’s time to consider the best practices for overcoming the aforementioned challenges of migrating to the cloud:
- Develop a detailed migration plan, from inventorying resources and setting priorities to defining time frames and developing test scenarios
- Adhere to a hybrid strategy, unless there’s an urgent need to migrate all data and processes in one stage
- Conduct a detailed analysis of offers from cloud providers to choose not only the best pricing policy but also functionality and data security
- Provide real-time monitoring at all stages of migration
- Prepare your personnel through training, adoption of regulations, and introduction of solutions for instant assistance
- Take care of the implementation of continuous testing and automation of QA processes
- Build a recovery plan in case of rollbacks or failures
Cloud Migration Tools and Platforms
For fast and secure cloud migration, you have the following tools:
- AWS Migration Hub—for centralized management and monitoring of migration to AWS
- Azure Migrate—for assessment, preparation, and migration of virtual machines, databases, and applications to Azure
- Google Cloud Migrate—for fast migration of virtual machines and containers to Google Cloud
- CloudEndure—for real-time migration of critical services to AWS
- VMware Cloud Migration Tools—for the correct migration of existing VMware infrastructures to cloud environments (doesn’t require manual reworking of the architecture)
- Rclone, rsync, or SCP—for transferring files and directories manually or using scripts according to DevOps practices
Conclusion
Now that you know the most common challenges and solutions for cloud migration, you can begin this process more consciously. At the same time, if you don’t want to bother with all these aspects yourself, or the skills of your in-house IT department cannot cover all of the above, it makes sense to consider resorting to professional secure cloud migration services for businesses. This way, you’ll receive a guarantee of safe and cost-efficient migration without unnecessary stress and downtime.
