{"id":110500,"date":"2026-06-10T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/?p=110500"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:58:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:58:59","slug":"why-even-the-best-teams-struggle-with-cloud-migrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/cloud\/why-even-the-best-teams-struggle-with-cloud-migrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Why even the best teams struggle with cloud migrations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to Redgate’s 2026 State of the Database Landscape report, 91% of teams – no matter how experienced – still hit at least one significant challenge during their move to the cloud. The culprit usually isn’t poor execution, but the things no one thought to plan for<\/em>…the ‘unknown unknowns.’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article – part of his mini-series on overcoming cloud migration challenges in 2026<\/a><\/strong> – Grant Fritchey explains the concept of ‘unknown unknowns’, points out what to watch out for in a cloud migration, and offers proven strategies to help your migration go as smooth as possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re in charge and you’ve decided it’s time to move to the cloud<\/a>. Or, you’re a data professional and have been strictly told, it’s time to move to the cloud.<\/em> It’s all good. You’ve got a great team. They’ve worked together for a number of years. You have testing<\/a> and automation in place. You’re confident of your existing processes because they’ve been tested by time and adversity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving to the cloud is going to be mere snap of the fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However – and no disrespect to you or your team – cloud migrations do, in fact, often come with a few surprises. It\u2019s not that your team isn\u2019t capable of making the leap to the cloud. I\u2019m positive they are. It\u2019s not that your current processes and automation won\u2019t help you along the way because, without a doubt, they will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, the increase in risk in moving to the cloud is all about a lack of knowledge – and it\u2019s that<\/em> which leads to heightened risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘unknown unknowns’ of a cloud migration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Without getting into a history debate, or worse yet, a political one, this quote from Donald Rumsfeld<\/a> should be plastered to every technologist\u2019s wall:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns\u2014the ones we don’t know we don’t know.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div> \n\n\n

A migration to the cloud certainly carries some known unknowns. Just as an example, you\u2019re probably fully aware that if you were migrating to a Platform as a Service (PaaS)<\/a> offering such as AWS Aurora<\/a>, backups are managed for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, one of the first known unknowns we can quickly identify is, what does that mean for recovery of your databases in an emergency? How long will it take to restore your database in Aurora? To what extent is a point-in-time recovery (PITR)<\/a> possible? These are known<\/em> unknowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your team is competent. Without a doubt, they\u2019re going to be aware of these unknown values and will plan accordingly. They know that they don\u2019t know how to do a restore within AWS. So, they\u2019ll go find out. They\u2019ll make sure they\u2019ve tested it and trained. Because they\u2019re a competent team already, they\u2019re going to make those kinds of plans. The problem lies elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the cloud migration challenges in 2026?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Graph<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The chart above is from Redgate\u2019s State of the Database Landscape 2026 report<\/a>. Interestingly, 9% of respondents said they had no difficulty at all<\/em> in moving to the cloud. However, that means that 91% did<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A healthy percentage of the issues they ran into were complexities caused by data integration (53%)<\/strong>, system complexity (39%), <\/strong>and skillset requirements (48%)<\/strong>. In short, just shy of half of the organizations out there that ran into problems during their migration to the cloud had issues because of training and knowledge – or a lack thereof. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s what I mean when I say ‘unknown unknowns’<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just about the technology, either. Adding the cloud to your systems also introduces the need to manage security around your data differently. While there are a number of ways to integrate your existing security with the cloud in a hybrid environment, once more, ‘unknown unknowns’ are introduced. Can your existing security infrastructure, however successful it may be locally, be readily integrated with a cloud-based security model?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Protect your data. Demonstrate compliance.<\/h3>\n
\n With Redgate, stay ahead of threats with real-time monitoring and alerts, protect sensitive data with automated discovery & masking, and demonstrate compliance with traceability across every environment. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Learn more<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

The hybrid situation dilemma<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, even if you plan to 100% fully move to the cloud, you’re going to be in a hybrid situation for some period of time. Some data will move quite readily to the cloud, and some will simply take longer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, most organizations end up staying in a hybrid situation on a more permanent basis – either partly in the cloud or partly locally managed. And, according to our findings, it\u2019s exactly this situation that leads to the most problems:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Graph<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

50% of those in a hybrid environment experienced data privacy or security issues<\/strong>. Again, this is because of the things we simply don\u2019t know before we make the migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data quality challenges<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One more issue that\u2019s very likely going to be a challenge, even for your talented team, is continuing to maintain data quality<\/a> as you move to the cloud. You\u2019re adding in a whole new technology stack to your existing processes. Sure, ultimately it\u2019s going to deliver superior mechanisms for you to manage and maintain your data – otherwise why make the effort? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, our survey data again shows where people are hitting problems with their data quality:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Graph<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Happily, with an already successful team, you\u2019re very unlikely to be in the 48% of respondents who said they simply had fundamental data quality issues<\/strong>. You\u2019re also unlikely to hit difficulties moving large volumes of data, and you probably won’t suffer from lack of automation or even a lack of ownership, either. Good teams already have these types of problems under control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, any data quality challenges you do<\/em> have are likely to be much smaller, which is great news. But – the challenges are still there<\/em>, no matter how small – for example, 29% of respondents cited a lack of necessary technical expertise.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put simply: the cloud is different<\/strong>. Your team, however good they are now, will need to be enhanced. 24% of respondents have already experienced integration issues<\/strong> – and you\u2019re introducing an all new integration point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, 22% encountered issues because of tool or platform fragmentation<\/strong>…and you\u2019re likely to be fragmented for a period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your path forward (how best to tackle cloud migration challenges in 2026)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The good news is, even with ‘unknown unknowns’, a high-functioning team with well-defined processes and established automation mechanisms are likely to have the versatility to deal with these unknowns. You\u2019re probably already thinking this through, but allow me to add a few points to help things along:<\/p>\n\n\n

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