In today’s digital economy data is compared to oil. It requires the necessary tools for extracting, storing, and refining. Most SMEs rely on Microsoft Access and other applications that are not well supported now. The major drawback was that modern analytics could not work well with these applications. Three key issues are the root cause of these legacy systems. These applications store the data locally and lack the capability to be easily integrated. The traditional Access database is easy to set-up, but it isn’t easy to turn it into a competitive advantage. Nonetheless, there are several benefits of opting for MS Access to the cloud.

High Returns

Migrating the Access database to the cloud allows you to reuse a large portion of the existing application. It also means that the existing investments in technology are not going in the drain. When the existing applications are reused, it leads to better returns of technological investments.

Enhanced Security

The database that is hosted on the cloud offers enhanced security to the Access database files. They also offer a high level of redundancy and round-the-clock maintenance, which means any issue that crops up will be resolved at the earliest.

Lower Costs

Cloud database hosting can be very affordable. You can quickly get online database hosting at far fewer costs than upgrading the existing hardware. Online database hosting doesn’t need any additional hardware, license for the software, or maintenance costs.

Anywhere Connectivity

Once the database is hosted in the Cloud, the Access front end can connect anywhere in the world where you have internet connectivity. It means the existing Access based application can be used by the users sitting on the other side of the world.

Web Application

With most Access applications only a small part of the functionality has to be present online. After the database is hosted on the cloud, web pages, and smartphone applications can be created to access them.

How to Go About Migration?

• Even before doing the cloud migration, you should first establish the role of the migration architect to lead the effort. He is the person who will be responsible for planning and completing the aspect of migration. The primary responsibility includes doing the refactoring so that migration is a success. It includes designing the strategies for data migration, laying down the requirements, and deciding on the priorities and the production switchover mechanisms. During the course of the large project, there are several decisions and technical plans that have to be made. It is good to have a migration architect responsible for the various aspects of the migration and is important for the project’s success.

• Deciding on the KPI is what should be done next. These are the metrics that gather about the application or service to measure and how it is performing. You might have defined some KPIs for the application and the services, but it has to be made sure that they are still the right ones for an application or the service once it is in the cloud. KPIs show how cloud migration is doing. The various categories are user experience (page load time, response time, session duration), application component performance (error rates, throughput, availability), infrastructure (CPU usage, disk performance, memory usage), and also business engagement (cart add, conversions and engagement rates)

• Now is time to move the production system from the legacy on-premise solution to the new cloud version. You can do it all at once or do it a little bit at a time.

Finally,

Once you move MS access to the cloud, you can continue to use the legacy application, and it will also be available on the internet to cater to mobility.