Your Platform Migration Strategy Checklist
As technology continues to rapidly evolve, businesses and nonprofits face growing pressure to modernize their technology to stay competitive and efficient. Whether you're struggling with outdated systems, rising maintenance costs, or underwhelming performance, moving to a cloud-based platform can open the door to long-term scalability, security, compliance, and operational improvements.
However, without a clear and well-planned strategy, a platform migration can quickly turn into a costly, disruptive experience. That’s why creating a thoughtful roadmap is essential for a smooth transition.
At Rooted Software, we specialize in helping ministries and churches, SMBs, mission-driven organizations, and nonprofits alike migrate their technology with confidence. Below is a comprehensive checklist to guide your team through the migration process, from early planning to post-migration optimization.
1. When to Consider a Platform Migration
Recognizing the signs that it’s time to upgrade your platform is the first step. You may be experiencing:
Outdated, unsupported, or legacy applications: If your technology stack is no longer receiving updates or vendor support, it's likely putting your organization at risk.
Rising operational costs: On-premises infrastructure often requires costly upkeep and energy consumption, which adds up over time.
Scalability challenges: As your organization grows, your systems need to scale with it. Older setups may not be flexible enough to keep pace.
Performance bottlenecks: Frequent crashes, slow load times, and limited integration options can negatively affect productivity and user satisfaction.
Moving to a cloud-based or modernized platform can help you reduce costs, enhance system performance, and offer better service delivery to your users. A strategic migration also helps align your tech stack with your long-term goals, including digital transformation, security and compliance, and operational agility.
2. Pre-Migration Planning Checklist
Effective migrations start with careful planning. Before making any moves, it’s important to fully understand your current systems and what you want to achieve in the future.
Inventory and Assess Your Current Systems
Start by taking stock of what you already have:
List all applications, databases, data stores, and associated workloads
Identify business-critical systems and those that can be retired
Determine which applications are suitable for a simple lift and shift approach and which need reengineering or replacement
Documenting your environment helps eliminate guesswork later and lays the foundation for choosing the right migration method.
Define Business Goals and Migration Scope
Set clear goals that tie into your organization’s broader objectives. Ask:
What do we hope to improve—speed, cost savings, uptime?
Are we migrating the entire system at once or using a phased rollout?
What’s our budget, and how much downtime can we tolerate?
Being specific about your goals helps ensure that technical decisions support your organization's mission and business requirements.
Engage Key Stakeholders Early
Successful migrations require cross-functional collaboration. Loop in team members from:
IT: for infrastructure and security
Finance: to monitor cost implications
Compliance or legal: to manage data protection and industry standards
End-users: to provide feedback on functionality and workflows
Early involvement helps minimize disruption, clarify roles, and uncover blind spots that could delay progress.
3. Choosing the Right Migration Strategy
Once you understand your current environment and goals, it’s time to choose a migration approach. The industry commonly refers to the "7 Rs" of migration strategies:
Rehost: Lift and shift existing applications to the cloud with minimal changes.
Re-platform: Make slight modifications to optimize performance without changing core architecture.
Refactor: Re-architect the application to take full advantage of cloud-native features.
Repurchase: Move to a different product, typically a SaaS solution.
Retire: Decommission applications that are no longer needed.
Retain: Keep some applications on-premises if there’s no immediate value in migrating them.
Relocate: Move entire systems from one environment to another without making changes.
For SMBs and nonprofits, rehost or re-platform is often the most cost-effective strategy for quick wins. However, for long-term performance and cost savings, a hybrid approach (such as a mix of rehost and refactor) may deliver better results.
4. Migration Execution Checklist
Once your plan is in place, it’s time to execute carefully and deliberately.
Create a Detailed Migration Plan
Break the migration into phases with clear timelines and responsibilities. Include:
A communication plan to keep stakeholders informed
Contingency plans in case of setbacks
A rollback strategy if something goes wrong
Rigorous testing to validate performance and functionality
Pilot testing one department or function before a full rollout can reduce risk and provide valuable insights.
Ensure Infrastructure Readiness
Before any data moves, confirm that your target environment is ready:
Size your new environment based on projected workloads
Ensure compatibility with cloud vendors or third-party applications
Set up monitoring tools to track performance and availability
Also, confirm that your network bandwidth, firewall rules, and access controls are configured properly.
Secure Your Data
Security and compliance should be embedded in every step of the migration process:
Encrypt sensitive data in transit and at rest.
Apply identity and access management (IAM) best practices.
Conduct compliance audits if you’re in a regulated industry (HIPAA, etc.). These steps require careful coordination with legal and technical teams.
Test backup and restore procedures to ensure business continuity.
Validating data at every phase—before, during, and after the migration—ensures nothing is lost or corrupted.
Migrate in Phases
Rather than attempting a “big bang” migration, opt for an incremental approach:
Begin with low-risk systems to build confidence
Test functionality and user experience after each phase
Monitor for anomalies and address them before moving to the next workload
This phased approach minimizes disruption, improves change management, and allows for continuous learning.
5. Post-Migration Optimization & Support
Your migration doesn't end when the last piece of data is moved. Post-migration support is essential to maximize your Return on Investment (ROI) and customer satisfaction.
Monitor and Measure Success
Track system performance and compare it to your pre-migration benchmarks. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) might include:
System uptime and latency
Application response times
Total cost of ownership (TCO)
User adoption and satisfaction scores
Monitoring tools can alert your team to issues in real-time and help proactively address them.
Improve and Repeat
Use feedback and performance data to:
Refine configurations or reallocate resources for better cost savings.
Identify which legacy applications can be further optimized or replaced.
Transition more workloads to cloud-native models if applicable.
Continuous improvement helps ensure a smooth and future-ready tech environment.
Provide Training and Documentation
New systems often come with new workflows and interfaces. Help your team adjust by:
Hosting training sessions for both technical and non-technical staff.
Creating documentation for daily tasks, troubleshooting, and escalation.
Offering ongoing support through help desks or vendor-managed migration services.
Investing in training ensures a smooth transition and reduces support tickets post-launch.
Rooted Software’s Migration Support Services
At Rooted Software, we help small and mid-sized organizations develop migration strategies that work, without disrupting operations or exceeding your budget.
Whether you need full-service cloud migration, rehosting assistance, or hybrid solutions, we’ll guide you through:
Comprehensive pre-migration assessments
Custom migration plans based on your unique needs
Secure data handling and rigorous testing
Ongoing monitoring, support, and post-migration adoption and optimization
We understand the unique needs of nonprofits, churches, ministries, and SMBs, and we tailor our migration services to match your mission and resource constraints.
If you’re located in or near the East Bay Area, CA, or Colorado Springs, CO, check out our Managed IT Services to learn how we can support your tech ecosystem.
Conclusion & Call to Action
A successful platform migration is more than just a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic move that can boost your efficiency, reduce costs, and prepare your organization for future growth. With the right plan and the right partner, your migration can be smooth, secure, and transformational.
Let’s make your next move your best move. Contact Rooted Software to start building your custom platform migration strategy today.