The Top 4 Essential AWS Cloud Migration Benefits

Frequent readers of this blog understand the potential cloud migration benefits in general and the specific ones provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), such as reduced costs and faster disaster recovery, and automatic resource scaling to meet times of peak demand. But the benefits of AWS don’t stop there.

The beauty of the AWS Cloud is its continuous evolution and over the years AWS has added products and services to meet the needs of general customers and those in specific industries or with particular requirements. More features and functionalities are being introduced all the time.

It pays to keep up with changes to the AWS product portfolio because you might be missing out on some important capabilities that can save your organization time and money or facilitate your digital transformation.

Let’s dive into some of the lesser well-known benefits of the AWS environment and how ERPA can help you take advantage of them.

The Hidden Gems within the Cloud Migration Benefits

There are a myriad of great reasons to consider a partial or complete move to a powerful cloud environment like Amazon Web Service (AWS), but once you’ve made the move, your organization is likely to find some lesser known but still impactful and very welcome benefits to the transition and life on the cloud.

In this blog, we’ll check out some of the benefits of AWS cloud migration for your ERP that you might not be aware of until you have already made the transition. Let’s explore some AWS-specific unexpected benefits in more detail.

1. AWS Cloud Migration Security

Identity and access management (IAM) is an important topic in cybersecurity because an organization’s computer security depends on a solid and well-managed IAM apparatus.

It’s a common misconception that your cloud environment comes with automatic, built-in security measures that are managed by the cloud provider, and you don’t have to think about cybersecurity anymore.

The bad news is that even in the cloud, cybersecurity is still generally your problem. For standalone software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions, where servers are managed by the service provider, that service provider is responsible for security. But when you build a portfolio of cloud servers that you manage, security is your responsibility.

The good news is that cybersecurity in the cloud is in many ways easier than it is for an on-premise computing environment. AWS offers numerous security-related tools that make the task of security easier for your organization. Some of these are:

• AWS Identity and Access Management: IAM at the server and resource level;
• AWS Key Management Service (KMS): A free service for creating and managing encryption keys;
• AWS Cognito: Identity management at the application level;
• AWS Firewall Manager: A central management tool for network firewalls;
• AWS Directory Service: Microsoft Active Directory for your cloud environment;
• AWS GuardDuty: A managed threat detection service;
• And many more, including Amazon’s central security management tool, AWS Security Hub.

As part of any cloud migration project, ERPA works with clients to set up cloud security as a managed service with the right mix of AWS security tools, so you have peace of mind that your AWS environment is enjoying the best possible protection at the lowest cost.

2. AWS Data Protection and Privacy

Closely related to cybersecurity is data privacy. If your organization owns or controls sensitive customer data, such as payment card information and healthcare records, you are required to meet certain minimum data security standards. As an added complication, those standards may vary from one jurisdiction to another. Here again AWS provides services to help keep private data private with reduced complications.

Amazon Macie assesses the sensitivity of your data stored in your AWS storage services and manages the security of that data. An added bonus, Amazon Macie is a continuous service that monitors your data for privacy issues both during and after migration to the cloud, and automatically sends alerts and initiates mitigation actions when issues are identified.

3. AWS Cloud Compliance

In the modern world, it’s not enough to have data security and privacy controls in place. You might need to prove to an auditor that these controls are effective and meet the requirements of various regulations. If you’re not organized and prepared, a data privacy or security audit can be a painful experience, which is only half as painful as the resulting fines you may be subjected to if you fail your audit.

Products such as AWS Audit Manager and AWS Artifact can help you meet the demands of compliance audits and provide the evidence the auditors need to confirm the security and privacy of your data.

4. Continuous Amazon Web Services (AWS) Innovation

Amazon is continuously developing new products and services to make the AWS environment more useful, easier to manage, and more compelling as an alternative (or companion) to traditional on-premise IT infrastructure.

Migrating to AWS is grants you access to a product mix that is constantly evolving. As a best practice, we recommend an annual review of how you use AWS and evaluating the new products to see what will provide your business with the most return and optimization.

With AWS hosted managed services from ERPA, you can always depend on your ERPA representatives to stay on top of the latest AWS innovations and recommend changes to your environment when it makes sense, whether from the perspective of ease of use, management, cost savings, or enhanced capabilities.

ERPA + AWS Cloud Migration Benefits

As a certified Advanced AWS Consulting Partner, ERPA has been following the growth in the AWS product portfolio for many years. We stay current with new AWS service offerings and understand how they can enhance the AWS experience for each of our AWS managed services clients.

If your organization is ready to start the process of migrating to the cloud, or if you’re already on AWS but keeping up with it and controlling your costs is getting tough, let us help.

Our AWS consultants can show you how we can optimize your AWS environment and unlock the cloud migration benefits that bring you the most value from your AWS investment. Visit our dedicated ERPA contact page and submit a request for more information or call us directly at (614) 718-9222.