Digital transformation is disrupting industries at an accelerating pace. As technology capabilities advance rapidly, organizations risk falling behind competitors who leverage cloud-based solutions for agility, efficiency and innovation. One such valuable offering is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Bridge to the Cloud 2, providing benefits for migrating business applications from on-premises servers to the trusted Azure cloud platform.
However, many companies remain hesitant to take this strategic step, failing to seize opportunities that could supercharge their operations. By not modernizing infrastructure and tapping into the cloud’s wealth of resources, these firms expose themselves to serious downsides. This deep dive explores the top 10 risks associated with neglecting cloud migration.
Escalating Costs
Expensive Infrastructure
On-premises hardware requires large upfront capital outlays plus ongoing maintenance, power and cooling fees. Server rooms consume valuable real estate. Within a few years, expensive upgrades are typically needed to support growing data and user loads.
Wasted Resources
Without automated scaling, resources sit underutilized during off-hours yet struggle to meet peak demands. Manual provisioning delays introducing new capabilities. These inefficiencies drive unnecessary spending.
Decreased Productivity
Slow Innovation
On-premises constraints slow experimenting with new technologies. Cloud platforms continuously update, empowering rapid testing, deployment and iterations to drive innovations 1-2 years ahead of competitors still tying resources to data centers.
Distracted Staff
IT teams manage physical infrastructures instead of focusing on strategic objectives. Help desk handles hardware issues diverting from productivity tools. Cloud platforms encapsulate maintenance, empowering internal resources.
Security Vulnerabilities
Dated Protections
On-site systems lack protections from major cloud providers continuously warding off sophisticated threats. Unpatched vulnerabilities emerge rapidly in isolated environments while cloud providers apply updates across vast networks.
Resources Overwhelmed
IT alone cannot efficiently monitor all nodes for signs of compromise relying on manual processes slow to detect advanced attacks. Cloud tools automate defenses leveraging massive-scale analytics inaccessible to most.
Limited Flexibility
Rigid Configurations
On-premises impose fixed capacity planning resistant to spikes or workflow changes. Staff face restricted customization interfering with optimized operations.
Siloed Operations
Independent systems complicate tasks like backups, reporting or collaboration between offices. Strict change controls delay useful integrations available with centralized cloud applications.
Poor Scalability
Static Scaling
On-premises scale through expensive forklifts requiring capacity planning years ahead. Cloud burstable resources auto-adjust within seconds to optimize dynamic workloads.
Limited Throughput
Physical bottlenecks surface under peak volumes while cloud throughput scales elastically on demand. Burst capacity avoids over-provisioning to support sporadic needs.
Subpar Business Continuity
Fragile Availability
Single data centers risk catastrophic outages from disasters while cloud redundancy spreads infrastructure across regions protecting access.
Rigid Recovery
Lengthy DR processes struggle restoring within agreed SLAs. Cloud DR automates replicating backups to secondary regions for near-instant failover keeping operations running.
Stunted Innovation
Constrained Creativity
Resource constraints limit experimenting with new techniques vs cloud sandbox environments harmlessly exploring innovations.
Lack of Expertise
On-premises teams maintain commodity infrastructure instead of emerging tools for competitive differentiation like machine learning or predictive analytics.
Conclusion
By failing to migrate systems supporting core operations and modernize with the cloud’s wealth of capabilities, organizations expose themselves to serious downsides around cost optimization, security vulnerabilities, scalability shortfalls, inflexibility and dulled competitive differentiation. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Bridge to the Cloud 2 subscription offers a valuable on-ramp for harnessing the cloud’s strategic benefits while reducing these risks. Firms delaying this transition risk falling behind as digital transformation picks up steam.