Cloud Migration Checklist for Belgian Companies

Moving to the cloud is one of the most impactful technology decisions a Belgian company can make. But without proper planning, cloud migrations can lead to cost overruns, security gaps, and operational disruptions. This checklist covers the essential steps to plan and execute a successful cloud migration.

Phase 1: Assessment and Planning

Before migrating anything, take stock of what you have and where you want to go:

1. Inventory your workloads — document all applications, databases, and services that are candidates for migration, including their dependencies and resource requirements.
2. Define your cloud strategy — decide between public cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), private cloud, or hybrid based on your performance, compliance, and cost requirements.
3. Choose a migration approach — for each workload, determine the right strategy: rehost (lift and shift), replatform, refactor, or replace with a SaaS solution.
4. Estimate costs — model the total cost of ownership including compute, storage, networking, licensing, and managed services to avoid budget surprises.
5. Set a timeline — create a phased migration plan that prioritizes low-risk workloads first to build experience before tackling critical systems.

Phase 2: Security and Compliance

Security must be built into the migration from day one, not bolted on afterward:

1. Review regulatory requirements — ensure your cloud architecture meets GDPR and NIS2 obligations, including data residency requirements for Belgian and EU data.
2. Design identity and access management — implement least-privilege access controls, multi-factor authentication, and centralized identity management before migrating workloads.
3. Plan network security — design VPCs, security groups, and network segmentation to isolate workloads and control traffic flow.
4. Enable encryption — encrypt data at rest and in transit, and establish key management processes.
5. Set up monitoring and logging — configure cloud-native security monitoring, centralized logging, and alerting from the start.

Phase 3: Migration Execution

1. Prepare landing zones — set up your cloud accounts, networking, and baseline security configurations before deploying workloads.
2. Migrate in waves — move workloads in planned batches, starting with less critical systems to validate your processes and tooling.
3. Test thoroughly — validate functionality, performance, and security after each migration wave. Include penetration testing for internet-facing services.
4. Automate infrastructure — use infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation) to ensure reproducibility and integrate with your DevSecOps pipeline.
5. Plan cutover carefully — coordinate DNS changes, data synchronization, and rollback procedures for each workload migration.

Phase 4: Optimization and Operations

1. Right-size resources — monitor actual usage after migration and adjust instance sizes, storage tiers, and reserved capacity to optimize costs.
2. Implement governance — establish tagging policies, budget alerts, and resource management practices to maintain control over cloud spending.
3. Automate operations — use cloud-native tools for automated backups, patching, scaling, and disaster recovery.
4. Train your team — invest in cloud skills training for your operations and development teams to maintain and evolve the environment effectively.
5. Review and iterate — conduct regular architecture reviews to identify optimization opportunities and modernization candidates.

How ICTLAB Can Help

ICTLAB provides end-to-end cloud infrastructure services for Belgian organizations. From initial assessment and architecture design to migration execution and ongoing optimization, our team brings hands-on experience across AWS, Azure, and GCP. We ensure your migration is secure, compliant, and cost-effective from the start.