Top 10 Benefits of Migrating Your Traditional Databases to Google Cloud

Migrating traditional databases isn’t just about saving money and scaling resources. It’s about evolving your business to keep pace with technology, from boosting performance to modernizing applications to setting a foundation for innovation. Moving to the cloud can help you quickly respond and adapt to market changes and new opportunities.

Google Cloud is a leading platform for database migration. Not only does it give you the ability to run your database on a global scale, you can also leverage Google’s advanced capabilities and bring them into your own organization. It’s built with—and for—artificial intelligence in mind and can help you do more with your data, creating a foundation for innovation.

Here are 10 top benefits of migrating traditional databases to Google Cloud:

1. Improved scalability

Traditional databases typically aren’t easy to scale, since they require the addition of physical servers. In the cloud, however, you can spin up additional resources when you need them (or decommission them if you don’t). This elasticity allows you to meet fluctuating demand, so you can rapidly respond to market changes and make efficient use of your resources, without spending on resources you’re not using. With Google Cloud, auto-scaling can automatically handle increases and decreases in traffic, helping to control costs.

2. Enhanced performance

Improved scalability helps to enhance performance, since you can spin up cloud resources whenever you need them. But with Google Cloud, data can be split across multiple, highly secure regional data centers—so you can reach a global audience faster and easier than a traditional database in your facility, with less likelihood of downtime.

3. Cost efficiency

By moving to the cloud, you’ll also move from a CapEx to an OpEx model, so rather than paying to maintain on-premise hardware and keep the lights running in your server room, you only pay for the resources you use, when you use them. However, with Google Cloud, there are additional opportunities to find cost efficiencies. For example, committed use discounts (CUD) from Google, in which you make a commitment to a minimum level of resources over a one- or three-year period, provides a discounted price for savings up to 57 percent.

4. Advanced security

Moving to the cloud offers robust security features, from identity management and access control to data encryption. For example, Google Cloud is designed, built and operated with security in mind, with advanced endpoint security capabilities that can help you meet regulatory and compliance requirements (including digital sovereignty). And, this secure-by-design approach now features AI to enhance security even further. Chronicle is an AI-powered SecOps platform in Google Cloud that helps security teams defend against today’s and tomorrow’s threat landscape.

5. Greater flexibility and agility

A cloud-based database provides the flexibility required to quickly adapt to changing business needs and deploy or manage applications. With a legacy database, you deploy and pay for resources, even if you only need them for a certain period of time. In the cloud, you can use the resources you need, when you need them. And with Google Cloud, you also have a flexible infrastructure for innovation. It can run data anywhere, meaning you can leverage your data not just in the Google ecosystem, but across all clouds, including other hyper-scale clouds, private clouds and SaaS applications, as well as on-premise.

6. Improved data analytics and insights

Moving to the cloud sets a foundation for enhancing your data analytics capabilities. And data analytics is an area where Google Cloud excels, thanks to real-time data processing and advanced analytics tools. By migrating existing workloads to the cloud, you can get more value out of them—whether marketing databases or customer relational management (CRM) systems and even SAP applications. And with Google BigQuery, you can integrate real-time analytics into existing workflows to gain insights, identify trends and make data-driven decisions. 

7. Simplified database management

Traditional databases have a tendency to sprawl, making management complex and expensive. By moving to the cloud, you can simplify database management and stay on top of the latest updates and patches. Google Cloud can help you unify all of your workloads and manage the entire lifecycle of your data. Plus, it comes with automated backups, updates and maintenance that can be customized to your needs in-house or through a managed services partner. As a Google Cloud Premier Partner, Pythian provides a suite of support and managed services that can make database management even easier.

8. Enhanced collaboration

Cloud-based communication tools provide shared access to data and applications, helping to facilitate collaboration and boost team productivity. Google Cloud offers real-time communication tools that support BYOD (bring your own device), self-service analytic capabilities and secure access to data from anywhere. In combination with Google Workspace—a suite of powerful collaboration tools—your organization will be a collaboration powerhouse.

9. Disaster recovery and high availability

When it comes to traditional infrastructure, backup and disaster recovery can get expensive. In the cloud, you gain high availability and redundancy—not to mention ease of management. With Google Cloud, you get built-in disaster recovery options for business continuity. For example, Google Cloud Backup and DR allows for centralized backup management directly from the Google Cloud console, so it’s easy to set up, manage and restore backups spanning multiple workloads. You’ll also have a holistic view of your backups across workloads.

10. Futureproof your infrastructure

By migrating traditional databases into the cloud, you can modernize your infrastructure—whether you choose to rehost, re-platform or take a different migration approach. A modernized, cloud-based infrastructure is designed for today’s advanced capabilities, such as generative AI, allowing you to stay ahead of the curve with the latest technologies and updates while preparing for future growth and innovation.

 Ready to get started?

Migrating your traditional databases to Google Cloud can set a foundation for modernization, so you can boost productivity and unleash innovation. It also paves the way for leveraging Google’s built-in capabilities, like Vertex AI and Gemini, to innovate your business processes with the latest tools and technologies.

Thinking about migrating your legacy databases into the cloud, or want to get more out of your migration? Contact Pythian to find out how we can help.