Cloud migration projects fail for predictable reasons. After supporting dozens of migrations, we see the same patterns emerge.
First, underestimating egress costs. Cloud pricing models are designed to make ingress cheap and egress expensive. Organisations that do not model their data flows before migrating are often surprised by their first bill.
Second, neglecting security configuration. Cloud platforms provide powerful security tooling, but none of it is enabled by default. The shared responsibility model means your provider secures the infrastructure -- everything above that is your responsibility.
Third, skipping the application assessment. Not every workload benefits from cloud hosting. Legacy applications with high I/O requirements or tight latency constraints may perform worse in the cloud than on dedicated hardware.
Fourth, treating migration as a one-time event. Successful cloud adoption requires ongoing optimisation: right-sizing instances, managing reserved capacity, and continuously reviewing architecture against evolving best practices.
Fifth, ignoring the human element. Your team needs training and support to operate effectively in a cloud environment. The skills required to manage on-premises infrastructure do not translate directly.
At STG, we approach every migration with a thorough assessment phase that addresses each of these risks before any workloads move.