Pros and Cons of Cloud Implementation

Cloud migration in 2025: A necessary step or a risky move?

In 2025, many CTOs still face scalability, cost, security, and performance issues with their current infrastructure. They are well aware that they should modernize their tech stack to improve development speed and reliability, but, with so many options available, they often don’t know what to start with. The pressure from leadership to reduce costs and boost agility doesn’t make things easier, either. The truth is, however, that when the increase in data and traffic demands is a fact, cloud computing may be just what you need. Of course, migration comes with challenges and risks, too.

What drives or delays cloud migration decisions in 2025

Very soon, you may realize that there’s no way out and you simply have to move your business and resources to the cloud. The final decision often happens as a result of:

• a review of IT expenses,
• infrastructure performance issues (when on-premises infrastructure is struggling),
• security incidents,
• scaling bottlenecks.

Probably, you’ve been there, too. And probably, you’ve already considered switching to one of the cloud models, aware of at least some of the numerous benefits of cloud computing. What might have stopped you are certain challenges involved. These are, in general:

• Cost management: with various cloud pricing models, costs of the cloud can be unpredictable and not properly optimized; identifying and eliminating wasted cloud resources, as well as Total Cost of Ownership calculation, can be difficult, too.
• Security & compliance risks involve concerns over data breaches in public clouds; however, careful cloud provider selection and policy enforcement can help you meet industry-specific standards e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, and PCI DSS.
• Migration complexity, which may entail downtime risks and performance bottlenecks if migration has not been designed or implemented properly.

If you’re one of those CTOs who consider cloud migration but are concerned about costs, security risks, and operational challenges, read on. With our short guide, you’ll be able to assess the risks and decide whether the cloud is a good solution for you, and which cloud model is best for your case. 

Cloud computing pros: Key business benefits of cloud implementation

Improved collaboration, enhanced security, automation, convenience, usability and accessibility, flexibility, mobility, and space for rapid deployment – are some of the top strengths cloud computing can bring to the table. But there’s more in store. The bottom line of using cloud services company-wise is faster time-to-market, improved customer satisfaction, enhanced productivity, accelerated innovation, and better alignment with business strategies, to name but a few business benefits of cloud computing. Of course, it’s just the tip of the iceberg and there are much more business benefits of cloud computing in day-to-day operations. 

Cost efficiency 

Cutting down technology costs is a major advantage of utilizing cloud services in many cases. These savings are due to lower upfront and operational costs. You don’t have to spend money running and maintaining a data center anymore – you’re free to run your business instead. However, this advantage can only be fully used if proper cloud cost management is assured. If not, one of the major cloud computing advantages can turn into one of the worst cloud computing disadvantages quickly.

Scalability and performance 

What increases cost control (but also flexibility, reliability, availability, and overall performance) is cloud computing’s scalability potential. High-performance infrastructure enables automatic scaling, which means that you can easily – and virtually immediately – adapt the cloud resources use to your changing business needs. The bottom line is avoiding bottlenecks – and making sure that your services and applications always work seamlessly.

Security enhancements 

Over the years, the number, diversity, and scope of cloud security enhancements, have been constantly growing. These include: 

• advanced encryption, 
• zero-trust model,
• multifactor authentication,
• firewalls, 
• compliance certifications, 
• disaster recovery and backups,
• AI-driven threat detection.  

As the number and variety of available security solutions grow, so does the need to manage security configurations right. 

Reliability & high availability 

With cloud computing solutions, your applications and services can possibly work at their best, highly reliable and available. Multi-region failover, uptime guarantees, and disaster recovery are some of the solutions that make it possible. Of course, this automatically increases customer satisfaction and business results, making enhanced reliability and availability one of the major cloud computing advantages, business-wise.

Automation & DevOps efficiency 

Cloud computing is also known and loved for accelerating DevOps practices. And this means streamlining workflows, boosting overall efficiency, improving decision-making, and speeding up the digital transformation of businesses. The means to achieve it cover, for instance, Infrastructure as a Code, friction-reducing cloud native CI/CD services, as well as serverless and container orchestration.

Cloud computing cons: Top challenges and how to overcome them

Of course, every rose has its thorns. In the case of cloud computing, cons often relate to security issues and possible data breaches. Besides, things may get a little too complicated, although going to the cloud was supposed to give you more freedom, or at least more space...

Thorough planning is vital, as unforeseen or hidden costs can drag your project down. While paying only for the resources you consume sounds ideal, issues like underutilized infrastructure, idle instances, or pricing model changes often occur.

To combat this, more organizations implement FinOps (Cloud Financial Management) – a collaborative practice that brings finance, engineering, and business together to ensure cloud spending aligns with business value.

FinOps best practices include:

• Real-time cost monitoring and alerting,
• Budget forecasting and spending limits by team or project,
• Resource tagging for accountability,
• Regular cost optimization reviews (e.g., rightsizing, scheduling),
• Educating engineers to make cost-conscious architectural choices.

Tools like CloudHealth, Apptio Cloudability, AWS Cost Explorer, or Azure Cost Management help track and optimize usage at scale.

A well-implemented FinOps culture transforms cost from a risk into a measurable, controllable business metric.

‍Learn how to optimize cloud costs so that they don’t derail your project

Vendor lock-in 

Depending too heavily on a single cloud provider – or being forced to continue using proprietary services – can be problematic. It may increase long-term switching costs, reduce negotiation power, or expose you to a single provider’s outages or pricing changes.

To mitigate this, many companies explore multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategies.

• A multi-cloud strategy distributes workloads across two or more cloud providers (e.g., AWS and Azure), improving resilience, minimizing lock-in risk, and enabling workload portability.
• A hybrid cloud strategy blends public cloud with on-prem or private infrastructure, offering flexibility for compliance-heavy or latency-sensitive systems.

However, managing multi-cloud environments introduces complexity and requires standardized tooling, monitoring, and security controls. Technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform, as well as cloud-agnostic orchestration platforms, help abstract cloud differences and build portable architectures.

Potential security gaps 

Security concerns remain among the top reasons why organizations hesitate to migrate to the cloud. Risks include data breaches, misconfigurations, unauthorized access, and the inherent challenges of shared infrastructure – especially for sensitive industries like finance, healthcare, or government.

To address these, it’s critical to understand the cloud shared responsibility model: while cloud providers secure the infrastructure, you are responsible for securing your workloads, data, and identity access.

Modern cloud-native environments offer a wide range of tools and practices that significantly reduce risk:

• Zero Trust architecture: Verify every user and device, internally and externally.
• Advanced encryption: Data-at-rest and in-transit, plus envelope encryption for added control.
• IAM & role-based access control: Fine-grained permissions with least privilege enforcement.
• Multifactor authentication (MFA) and hardware security modules (HSMs).
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools like Prisma Cloud, Wiz, or Azure Defender to continuously monitor misconfigurations.
• Compliance automation: Pre-built templates and auditing tools help ensure standards like GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 are met faster.

Ultimately, cloud security is not a limitation – it’s an enabler, provided it’s paired with proper architecture, policy enforcement, and team awareness.

Migration complexity 

Cloud migration is a vital step that can make or break it. To succeed, specialized knowledge and skills – in the form of experienced, qualified staff – are simply necessary. Large-scale migration can lead to downtime, data loss, or app performance issues. In some cases, applications will require refactoring or even rearchitecting to run efficiently in a cloud-native environment.

To tackle everything properly, it’s good to use a gradual, phased migration strategy, e.g. hybrid cloud first.

To manage this complexity, use:

• The 6 Rs Framework (Rehost, Refactor, Rearchitect, Rebuild, Replace, Retire) to classify and prioritize workloads.
• Phased migration strategies, starting with non-critical services or proof-of-concept environments to validate architecture, governance, and team capabilities.
• Hybrid cloud environments to allow gradual transitions and minimize downtime.
• Cloud-native migration tools like AWS Migration Hub, Azure Migrate, Google Cloud Migrate for Compute Engine, or third-party platforms like CloudEndure and Striim.
• Data synchronization and replication strategies to minimize disruption for data-heavy systems.
• Cloud readiness assessments and stakeholder alignment workshops to set clear expectations and assign ownership.

IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS: Choosing the right Cloud model

Acceleration of business growth, business continuity, and operational efficiency are all in the cards in the case of cloud migration. The advantages of cloud computing can be amazing indeed, but, on the other hand, things can go wrong easily. The basic precondition for success is a specific strategy and detailed planning – which also covers choosing a cloud model carefully.

There are several cloud models available in the market. Let’s have a look at three of the most popular ones – and analyze their pros, cons, and what each one of them is best for.

‍Model 1: IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)

Pros: enhanced security, availability, performance, responsiveness, unmatched on-demand scalability, downtime reduction, more control, pay-as-you-go pricing model, innovation potential, boosting business productivity

Cons: dependency on the IaaS cloud provider who controls the user’s data and security while it’s the user’s responsibility to maintain software, operating systems, etc. 

Best for: infrastructure architects; hosting; businesses that need scalability potential; eCommerce; disaster recovery; startups, Internet of Things

‍Model 2: PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) 

Pros: ready-to-use environment, speedy development and time-to-market of applications, scalability, easy updates, enhanced collaboration, enhanced accessibility, cost-efficient IT infrastructure

Cons: limited control over infrastructure, ongoing subscription fees, unforeseen costs, vendor lock-in, security risks, possible integration problems

Best for: software developers, analysts, and vendors working collaboratively; building and customizing applications in the cloud; microservices; serverless computing; DevOps

‍Model 3: SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

Pros: cost-efficiency, low initial cost, flexible subscription options, accessibility, easy maintenance and upgrades, reliability, easy access, customizability

Cons: less control and transparency, data security and recoverability risks, requirement of Internet connectivity, risk of performance worsening over time, cost may grow quickly with a number of users

Best for: end-users; consuming software which is hosted in the cloud; remote work; eCommerce businesses

Is cloud migration the right move for your business?

Dubbed "the third wave of the digital revolution", cloud computing has taken the tech world by storm. While "everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we" may not always be the right attitude, in the case of cloud computing, following the crowd is, in the majority of cases, very reasonable. Of course, as with everything, there are pros and cons, exceptions to the rules, and cases where cloud computing is just a perfect match.

Luckily, since you’re not one of the early adopters of cloud computing services, you may take advantage of the experience of ones that have been there before you. Actually, they had decades to experiment with it, acknowledge the ins and outs of adopting it, as well as all the benefits of cloud computing and cloud computing disadvantages. 

But is cloud computing really Cloud Nine for you? The answer is: well, it depends. There are many factors to consider, like: 

• business goals,
• budget,
• data type,
• cloud scalability,
• deployment model,
• IT infrastructure and data security,
• disaster recovery options,
• legacy applications and compatibility.

Cloud migration decision checklist

"Should we migrate to the cloud, is it worth it now, and what’s the business case?"

1. Business & strategic alignment

Ask: Does cloud migration support our top business goals right now?

• Are we aiming to improve time-to-market for product development?
• Is agility (scaling up/down fast) important to our competitive advantage?
• Are we expanding into new markets or launching new digital services?
• Is our infrastructure holding back our innovation or speed?
• Is there pressure to modernize legacy systems to stay relevant?

If you checked 3 or more: cloud likely aligns well with your strategic direction.

2. Cost-benefit analysis

Ask: Is cloud migration financially justifiable for us right now?

• Have we estimated the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of staying on-prem vs. moving to the cloud?
• Are we spending disproportionately on infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, or hardware?
• Do we have workloads with fluctuating resource needs (which would benefit from usage-based pricing)?
• Will cloud migration eliminate capital expenditures (CapEx) that hurt our cash flow?
• Do we have cost forecasting and monitoring tools or a FinOps strategy in place?

If current infrastructure costs are high, unpredictable, or growing fast, cloud can reduce OpEx — if managed well.

3. Current pain points & triggers

Ask: Are we currently facing operational issues that justify migration?

• Are we experiencing slow performance, outages, or infrastructure scalability limits?
• Has there been a recent security incident or compliance gap?
• Is the IT team spending excessive time on infrastructure maintenance rather than innovation?
• Are we unable to meet growing data or traffic demands?
• Have competitors recently modernized or migrated to cloud-native architectures?

These pain points often act as strong migration triggers — and may indicate urgency.

4. Timing & readiness

Ask: Is now the right time — or should we wait?

• Do we have at least partial buy-in from leadership and stakeholders?
• Is budget available for migration-related investments this year?
• Can we afford disruption or downtime for a partial migration phase?
• Do we have any major digital initiatives, product launches, or reorganizations in progress that would compete for resources?
• Is the market climate favorable for strategic tech investments?

If you're lacking buy-in, budget, or timing alignment, consider a phased approach or re-evaluation in 6–12 months.

5. Security, compliance & control needs

Ask: Will cloud help or hurt our compliance and control requirements?

• Do we operate in a regulated industry (e.g., finance, healthcare, public sector)?
• Do we require granular control over data residency and access?
• Can the cloud improve our disaster recovery and business continuity posture?
• Are our current security tools and processes outdated or difficult to scale?

If security/compliance needs are increasing but you're struggling to meet them on-prem, cloud may improve control — if carefully implemented.

6. Alternative solutions considered?

Ask: Have we considered other ways to improve performance/cost/agility?

• Can we modernize our on-prem setup (e.g., virtualization, containerization) without migrating?
• Have we explored hybrid models as an intermediate step?
• Could performance be improved with CDN, edge computing, or hardware upgrades?
• Would a cloud-native redesign of only some services (e.g., CI/CD pipelines) deliver enough benefit for now?

Sometimes partial migration, hybrid, or cloud-native service adoption can provide 80% of the benefits with 20% of the risk.

Should you migrate now?

The final decision should always be well thought out, with all these (and many more) aspects carefully analyzed. This will help you decide whether, or not, you should embark on a cloud migration journey, and who should be your guide. 

Struggling with scalability, cost, security, or performance issues with your current, legacy infrastructure? Want faster time-to-market, improved customer satisfaction, and better alignment with business strategies? If you urgently need help in catching up with competitors by seamless cloud migration, contact Brainhub now.