Velostrata, a leader in accelerated cloud migration and mobility, today announced the results of a research study conducted by Dimensional Research, finding almost half of all cloud migration projects are over budget and past deadline. Within the report, the value and benefits of the cloud are well documented, with research finding nearly every participating company migrating applications to the cloud. However, most of those surveyed shared that initial migration projects were more difficult than expected, with some failing entirely. Nearly 75% of participants stated migration projects are taking a year or longer, and a majority reported migration projects are running late and over budget.

"The migration of our applications to the Cloud was proving a considerable challenge - a lengthy and costly process," said Paul Tucker, Head of Data Centre Closure Project at the Department for Education in the United Kingdom, a Velostrata customer. "We needed something that was quicker, easily repeatable, created minimal system downtime and provided assurance to business users that all data would be migrated. Velostrata has proven to be that platform, and as a result we have significantly accelerated our cloud migration journey, and with no disruption to vital operational services where we have used Velostrata."

The survey goes into more detail on the specific challenges that organizations are most likely to encounter during their cloud migrations, and reveals that organizations should expect to face not one, but multiple challenges throughout, as 95% of respondents reported. Of those multiple challenges, those most commonly cited were extensive troubleshooting, security challenges, slow data migrations, migration agents, cutover complexity, and application downtime rounding out the top challenges organizations are facing.

"This study, along with feedback from our customer base, shows the importance of minimal downtime, zero data loss and simplicity when it comes to cloud migration," said Issy Ben-Shaul, co-founder and CEO of Velostrata. "To achieve this, better, more complete cloud migration solutions are needed, and, as our customers and survey respondents show, a complete cloud migration solution includes built-in testing, automation, rollback, mass migration, and WAN optimizations, so as to combat the challenges companies are facing today. Together, we can eliminate cloud migration project complexities, delays, and cost overruns."

Additional key findings from the report included:

• Cloud migration on the rise: 96% of participants are currently migrating applications to the cloud, with 4% already completing their migration.
• Over half of all projects delayed and over budget: 57% of application projects take longer to complete than planned, and nearly half exceed the application migration project budget.
• Projects more difficult than expected: 62% of initial migration projects are more difficult than expected (or fail outright), with 56% of respondants claiming a lack of expertise and/or competing IT projects as an underlying issue.
• Long-lead projects an industry norm: 73% expect the application migration project to take a year or longer.
• Partnerships on the rise: Over 50% of customers are relying on partners for cloud migrations, with 89% reporting satisfaction at partner's performance.
  

"The primary goal of our research was to capture hard data on the status of application migration projects while documenting key objectives, challenges and solution requirements," said David Gehringer, principal at Dimensional Research. "Through gathering this data, we uncovered some real challenges many cloud migration projects face, as well as primary goals and desires of those currently in the migration process."

About the Study

Dimensional Research conducted this study during August and September of 2017. A total of 208 IT professionals responded to the online survey representing companies of different sizes and varied industries. Findings in their entirety can be found here.