Migrating an entire enterprise to the cloud can feel daunting, like performing open-heart surgery on your IT infrastructure. Downtime fears, cost uncertainties, and the sheer complexity of moving legacy systems often give business leaders pause. Yet the opportunity is too big to ignore.

As of 2020, businesses globally spent more on cloud infrastructure than their data centres​. Closer to home, African cloud adoption is soaring at 25–30% annual growth, outpacing much of the world’s African business.

Enterprises in Nigeria and beyond are eager to tap into the cloud’s scalability, agility, and innovation.

The key to success? A clear playbook that addresses common pain points and ensures a seamless transition.

In this Cloud Migration Playbook, we’ll cover five essential steps to move your enterprise workloads to the cloud with minimal disruption.

Follow these steps to avoid common pitfalls and unlock the cloud’s benefits for your organisation.

Step 1: Assess Your Business Needs and Readiness

Every successful cloud journey starts with a thorough assessment and clear goals. Begin by asking why and what:

• Define your objectives: What do you hope to achieve by moving to the cloud? Be specific – e.g. cutting infrastructure costs, improving scalability for a growing user base, enabling remote collaboration, etc. Align these goals with business outcomes (faster time-to-market, improved customer experience, etc.)​. This clarity will guide all other decisions.
• Inventory your IT assets: Catalogue all applications, databases, and workloads you currently run​ on IBM. Identify dependencies between systems. This inventory helps determine what can be moved easily and what might need refactoring.
• Assess cloud readiness: Not every system is cloud-ready. Evaluate which applications are easy lift-and-shift candidates and which might require redesign. Also, flag any legacy or compliance-bound systems that must remain on-premise for now.
• Involve stakeholders early: Bring business leaders, IT teams, and customers/users into the conversation. Their input on requirements (security, uptime, data sovereignty) will shape the migration plan​

By the end of this step, you should have a baseline of your current environment and a clear vision of your cloud goals.

This assessment might reveal opportunities for Nigerian enterprises to leapfrog legacy infrastructure constraints or highlight regulatory considerations (like data residency) influencing their cloud strategy.

Step 2: Craft a Strategic Migration Plan

Before you begin migrating to the cloud, it’s essential to develop a detailed strategy. This serves as your roadmap, guiding each move with precision.

Choose the Right Cloud Model and Provider

First, determine whether a public, private, or hybrid cloud is best for your business. Public cloud options like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer scalability and support, but some Nigerian firms explore local providers to mitigate forex risks.

Therefore, evaluate your operational needs, budget, and data sovereignty requirements before choosing.

Select the Best Migration Approach: The 5 R’s

Next, choose how to migrate each workload:

• Rehost (lift and shift without changes)
• Replatform (make slight modifications)
• Refactor (redesign for cloud-native architecture)
• Replace (move to a SaaS solution)
• Retire (decommission outdated systems)

For instance, you might rehost internal tools but refactor a customer-facing platform for better performance.

Prioritise and Phase Your Migration

Rather than rushing into complex systems, begin with a small, low-risk application as a pilot. This builds confidence and reveals potential gaps in your plan. Subsequently, move non-critical environments before addressing mission-critical systems.

Plan for Downtime and Data Transfer

In addition, determine how large datasets will be moved, whether via direct uploads or offline shipping. Use syncing tools to reduce downtime and inform users in advance of any service interruptions.

Clarify Roles and Prepare for Contingencies

Finally, assign clear responsibilities to internal teams or external partners. Importantly, build a rollback plan. As a result, you’ll reduce the risk of disruptions if unexpected challenges arise.

Step 3: Prepare Systems and People

Once the plan is in place, preparation becomes the next logical step. Without readiness, even the best strategies can falter.

Establish a Secure Cloud Foundation

To begin, configure cloud networks (VPCs/VNets), IAM roles, firewalls, and encryption protocols. This ensures every application you migrate lands in a secure, stable environment.

Ensure Compliance and Security Early On

Additionally, for industries such as finance and healthcare, ensure your cloud setup complies with regulatory standards like PCI DSS or Nigeria’s NDPR. If some data must stay on-premises, consider a hybrid model.

Optimise Before Moving

Now is a good time to clean up legacy systems. Remove unnecessary files or upgrade outdated applications—but don’t over-optimise. In some cases, it’s better to migrate first, then improve later.

Train and Equip Your Team

Meanwhile, invest in training for your IT team. Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, monitoring tools, and automation platforms reduces missteps during and after migration. Moreover, encourage enthusiasm by showcasing the new opportunities cloud environments offer.

Back Up Everything

Lastly, before migration begins, perform a complete backup of all systems and data. This precaution offers peace of mind and a fallback if anything goes wrong.

Step 4: Execute in Controlled Phases

With everything prepared, it’s time to start the migration. However, it’s not about moving everything at once—it’s about control and precision.

Start Small, Then Scale

Begin with a test case: a small, non-critical workload. Execute the migration exactly as planned, then test it thoroughly. If successful, move on to more complex systems.

Use Automation Tools

To increase efficiency, use tools like AWS Server Migration Service or Azure Migrate. Automation reduces errors and accelerates progress. For example, use Infrastructure-as-Code templates to deploy uniform environments.

Minimise Downtime

At the same time, implement blue-green deployments or parallel systems. This approach allows you to test cloud systems without shutting down on-premise services, particularly important for businesses with global customers.

Test Rigorously

Following each migration wave, conduct functional, performance, and security testing. Involve QA teams and end-users to confirm everything works as expected. This proactive step prevents major issues later.

Maintain Open Communication

Throughout the process, keep your team and stakeholders informed. Provide updates on progress, setbacks, and next steps. Consequently, you’ll build trust and maintain alignment across departments.

Step 5: Optimise, Manage, and Innovate

Migration isn’t the end—it’s a gateway to continuous improvement. Therefore, once workloads are in the cloud, shift focus to optimisation and innovation.

Optimise Performance and Reduce Costs

Leverage cloud-native tools like autoscaling and monitoring dashboards to track resource usage. As a result, you can downsize over-provisioned resources and reduce unnecessary costs.

Enforce Continuous Security and Compliance

Remember, cloud security is a shared responsibility. While your provider secures the infrastructure, your team must secure applications, data, and user access. Moreover, establish real-time monitoring and alert systems to detect anomalies.

Decommission On-Premise Systems (Cautiously)

If your migration is complete, begin retiring outdated infrastructure—but do so cautiously. Confirm that data and services are fully transitioned. If you maintain a hybrid setup, integrate both systems seamlessly.

Empower Users and Refine Processes

Train staff to use new cloud-based tools and update operational procedures accordingly. This may involve new backup routines, disaster recovery plans, or cloud-native DevOps practices.

Drive Innovation with Cloud Capabilities

Finally, unlock the full potential of cloud computing. Explore serverless computing, AI, IoT, and data analytics. For example, Nigerian startups already use cloud-based AI to solve real-world problems faster and more affordably.

Conclusion and Next Steps

A successful cloud migration can transform your enterprise, making it more agile, resilient, and ready to innovate, and by following this five-step playbook (assess, plan, prepare, migrate, optimise), you can tackle the move systematically and reduce the risk of disruption.

Companies that plan carefully and migrate methodically enjoy faster deployments, global scalability, and often significant cost savings over maintaining ageing on-premise infrastructure.

That said, migrations can be complex. It’s perfectly normal to seek expert help or validation at various stages. With careful planning – and the right partners – you can avoid common migration pitfalls​ and smoothly transition to the cloud future.

Ready to embark on your cloud journey?

Cloud Technology Hub is here to help Nigerian and global enterprises confidently make this leap.

Contact Cloud Technology Hub for a consultation and visit our LinkedIn page for more.

To read more blogs, visit https://blog.technohub.cloud/

With a solid playbook and the proper support, you can move to the cloud seamlessly and unlock new horizons for your business.