This article explains why businesses move to the cloud, weighing the cost, scalability, and security benefits against real migration risks and costs.
Why it matters: Cloud decisions affect IT budgets, security posture, and how fast teams can scale. Getting the move right, or wrong, has lasting financial and operational consequences.
Key Takeaways
- Cost savings drive most cloud migrations: Pay-as-you-go pricing lets companies cut upfront hardware spending and pay only for what they use.
- Cloud migration carries real trade-offs: Benefits like scalability and security come with risks such as vendor lock-in, hidden costs, and downtime.
- The right migration path depends on strategy: From lift-and-shift to full re-architecture, the Deltek platform supports the approach that fits your business.
Moving to the cloud means shifting data, applications, and computing workloads from on-premises servers to a cloud provider's remote infrastructure, paying only for the resources you use.
Businesses move to the cloud mainly to cut costs, scale faster, and reduce the burden on in-house IT teams. The shift is accelerating: According to data reported by Isentra Group, 94% of enterprises now use cloud services, and the global cloud migration market is projected to grow from $232.51 billion in 2024 to $806.41 billion by 2029.
Why Do Businesses Move to the Cloud?
Businesses move to the cloud to cut costs, scale faster, strengthen security, and free up IT teams for higher-value work. Three drivers matter most.
Lower Costs
Cost savings is the top reason companies move to the cloud. Cloud services eliminate the need for expensive on-premises hardware, and companies pay only for the resources they use. This pay-as-you-go model shifts IT spending from a large upfront capital cost to a predictable operating expense, and it removes the cost of replacing hardware at end of life.
"We expect to save over $100,000 a year just by eliminating third-party hosting and inefficient support. That's a huge return on investment, especially when you consider what it means for the nonprofit side of our organization."
- Carter Johnson, CFO, Hui Huliau
Scalability & Flexibility
Cloud resources scale up or down as demand changes, so companies avoid paying for capacity they do not need. This flexibility helps businesses respond quickly to growth, seasonal spikes, or new market opportunities without a major infrastructure investment.
Stronger Security
Major cloud providers invest more in security technology than most individual companies can build on their own, including encryption, redundancy, and disaster recovery.
That advantage shows up in how government contractors are already using the cloud to close compliance gaps.
"If I can leverage a partner like Deltek to take care of the security and availability of my ERP data, so my team can focus on more strategic tasks, it generally helps our team to think ahead rather than just kind of stay in the grind of what happens with maintaining servers. And that was one of the purposes of us going to the cloud."
- Saby Makkar, Sr. Director, Digital Nexus at KPMG
Cloud adoption also supports:
- Better collaboration, with real-time document access for distributed teams
- Faster disaster recovery through built-in backups and redundancy
- Faster access to AI, machine learning, and big data tools without new infrastructure
- Automatic updates that reduce IT workload
- Faster deployment of new applications and services
- Easier global expansion without building new IT infrastructure
- Stronger, more consistent customer experiences across channels
- Greater mobility, supporting remote work and BYOD policies
Customer Story
How JSRa Gained Flexibility and Confidence with Deltek Ajera in the Cloud
For JSRa, moving Deltek Ajera to the Cloud wasn't about changing systems, it was about removing barriers. By eliminating IT delays, enabling true remote access, and strengthening security, the firm has positioned itself for greater flexibility and resilience.
Learn more about JSRaWhat Are the Disadvantages of Moving to the Cloud?
Moving to the cloud carries real risks, including downtime, security exposure, vendor lock-in, and unexpected costs. Weigh these five before you commit:
- Downtime and service disruptions: Cloud services depend on internet connectivity, so outages can halt operations and lead to financial losses.
- Security and privacy concerns: Storing sensitive data with a third-party provider introduces the risk of a data breach.
- Vendor lock-in and limited control: Proprietary technologies and migration costs can make it difficult to switch providers or customize infrastructure.
- Hidden or unexpected costs: Data transfer fees, overprovisioned resources, and long-term usage can erode projected savings.
- Compliance and visibility gaps: Data residency rules and limited insight into a provider's systems can complicate regulated industries.
These risks are real, but they are manageable with the right partner and planning.
How Fast Is Cloud Adoption Really Moving?
- 58% of A&E firms now run at least 60% of their infrastructure on cloud or SaaS
- 42% run 80% or more of their systems on the cloud
- Only 14% of firms remain in the earliest stages of cloud adoption
Source: 2026 Deltek Clarity A&E Report
Types of Cloud Migration
Migrating to the cloud does not have to happen all at once. Most companies choose a migration type based on how much control, cost, and disruption they can accept, moving between public cloud, private cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments as needs change.
Here are some of the most common ways of migrating to the cloud:
- In a data center migration, a company moves data and applications from its on-premises servers to a cloud provider's servers.
- Hybrid cloud migration involves moving some resources to the cloud while keeping others on premises.
- In a cloud-to-cloud migration, a business transfers resources between different cloud platforms or providers.
- When organizations move specific workloads such as Linux, SAP, SQL Server, Windows Server, or mainframe systems to the cloud, this is called an application, database, or mainframe migration.
- A rehost ("lift and shift") migration involves moving applications to the cloud with minimal changes. When a company moves applications to the cloud with some optimizations to help it work better in the cloud, that's a replatform ("lift and reshape") migration.
- In a refactor/re-architect migration, a company redesigns applications to use cloud-native features more fully.
- When a business buys a cloud-based SaaS solution to replace one of its existing applications, it's called a repurchase ("drop and shop") migration.
- A retain migration involves keeping certain applications on premises while migrating others to the cloud, while a retire migration is about decommissioning applications the business no longer needs.
- In a relocate ("hypervisor-level lift and shift") migration, a company moves a collection of servers from an on-premises platform to a cloud version of the same platform.
Steps in a Cloud Migration Timeline & Strategy
Every cloud migration benefits from a clear, staged strategy. While timelines vary by scale — ranging from one to two weeks for a few applications to six months or more for complex enterprise migrations — these seven steps cover the full migration process, providing a comprehensive roadmap from initial assessment to post-migration review.
- Assess, Plan, and Choose a Cloud Provider (3 weeks): Create a detailed inventory of current infrastructure and define business objectives for the migration, including security, compliance, and training needs. From there, select your cloud service provider based on compatibility, security, support, compliance, and cost.
- Design the New Cloud Architecture (3 weeks): Map infrastructure needs and plan a security setup using encryption, firewalls, and access management.
- Plan the Migration (2 weeks): Set the order for migrating applications and data, choose a migration strategy such as lift-and-shift or refactoring, and plan to minimize downtime.
- Execute the Migration (6-8 weeks): Migrate in phases, starting with less-critical systems, while monitoring the process and applying security measures as needed.
- Test and Optimize (3 weeks): Test all migrated applications and data, optimize for cost and performance, and set up ongoing monitoring and maintenance.
- Review and Iterate (3 weeks): Evaluate whether the migration met its objectives and refine the strategy for future migrations.
Cloud Maturity Correlates with Performance
- Top-performing organizations are 3.5x more likely to be fully cloud-native
- 93% of Top Performers run almost all business applications on the cloud, compared with 26% overall
Cost of Moving to the Cloud
Cloud migration costs vary widely based on the amount of data being moved and the project's complexity. Direct costs include provider fees, network connectivity, and labor; indirect costs can include lost productivity during outages or customer dissatisfaction from unreliable service. Working with an experienced partner and using provider estimation tools helps you budget realistically before you commit.
Cloud Migration with Deltek
The Deltek platform is built to grow and adapt with project-based businesses, bringing speed, clarity, and control to every stage of the project lifecycle: win, plan, execute, and analyze.
Moving to the Deltek platform gives you improved performance, stronger security, faster access to new features, and lower costs—the same benefits driving cloud adoption industry-wide. More than 30,000 organizations trust Deltek when the work has to work.
Battelle Memorial Institute made the move to see what a cloud-first ERP could do for a 3,800-person research organization built to do good at scale.
"Costpoint in the Cloud has really allowed the IT department to focus less on the backend support and more on enabling our advanced science and technology group by bringing more solutions to them."
— Josh Kliner, Director of Strategy Delivery and IT Finance, Battelle Memorial Institute
Cloud ERP
ERP Built for Project-Driven Work
Connect your financials, projects, and people in one platform, purpose-built for the industry you operate in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Moving to the cloud means shifting data, applications, and computing workloads from on-premises servers to a cloud provider's remote infrastructure. Instead of buying and maintaining physical hardware, you access computing resources over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. This shift can apply to an entire IT environment or to specific systems, depending on your migration strategy.
Companies move to the cloud primarily to reduce costs, since cloud services eliminate upfront hardware spending and charge only for resources used. Cloud infrastructure also gives businesses the flexibility to scale resources up or down as demand changes. Additional drivers include improved collaboration, stronger security, faster disaster recovery, and quicker access to new technologies like AI.
The biggest benefits of moving to the cloud are lower costs, easier scalability, and reduced IT maintenance burden. Teams also gain better collaboration tools, stronger disaster recovery, and faster access to emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning. For many organizations, cost savings from a pay-as-you-go model is the top motivator.
The main disadvantages of moving to the cloud include the risk of downtime due to internet outages, security and privacy concerns associated with storing data with a third party, and potential vendor lock-in. Companies may also face hidden costs, performance issues, and challenges in meeting compliance requirements, depending on where data is stored. Careful planning helps offset most of these risks.
Cloud migration timelines vary by project scope. Moving a single server or a few applications can take one to two weeks, while migrating email systems and digital assets typically takes two to four months. Large-scale migrations, such as an entire data center, can take six months to two years.
Common cloud migration types include rehosting (“lift and shift”), replatforming, refactoring, and repurchasing a SaaS solution to replace an existing application. Businesses can also choose a hybrid approach that keeps some systems on-premises, a cloud-to-cloud migration between providers, or workload-specific migrations for applications, databases, or mainframes.
The first step in a cloud migration strategy is to assess your current infrastructure and define clear business objectives for the move. This includes identifying security and compliance requirements and any team training needed. From there, you select a cloud provider and design the architecture before planning and executing the migration.
