How to Ensure Regulatory Compliance During Cloud Migration?

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So, after several brainstorming sessions, stakeholder meetings, and sleepless nights, you have finally decided to move to the cloud. Excellent choice! The cloud (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud) delivers significant benefits in terms of agility, cost savings, and innovation. In fact, the worldwide market for cloud computing is projected to reach $2,321 billion by 2032. The stats are in your favor. But there’s a catch.

When you move your company’s data, you’re not just moving files. You are moving sensitive information such as customer names, credit card details, patient records, and more. And that information is governed by rules known as regulatory compliance. These are the laws that protect data. If you break these rules, you might have to face hefty fines and lose customer trust.

In this blog, we will walk through practical ways to ensure necessary compliance during the cloud migration process and provide technical know-how. Let’s talk about how to do it right.

Why Regulatory Compliance Matters in Cloud Migration

When you migrate your apps, services, or data to a cloud infrastructure, you’re not just changing environments. You’re modifying how data is stored, processed, and accessed. That matters for regulation. For example:

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) checks how personal data is used and where it’s stored for EU citizens.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is for healthcare providers in the U.S. with whom you may need to comply.
If you handle credit cards, you must follow PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requirements.

The Big Cloud Mistake That Many Get Trapped In

Many businesses get trapped in shared responsibility and end up making mistakes. Let’s take the example of Amazon. They think that we’re moving to AWS. It is a vast and secure company. They will handle compliance for me. That perspective is completely wrong.

The cloud works on the shared responsibility model. It is a simple concept that you must understand. The cloud provider (like Amazon) is responsible for the security OF the cloud.

They secure the physical IT infrastructure.
They secure the hardware.
They secure the core network.

You are responsible for the security IN the cloud.

Your data and applications.
Who has access to your data?
How your data is configured.

Amazon won't stop you from leaving a database full of patient records open to cyberattacks. That’s your job. Not knowing who does what is where compliance failures happen.

These rules are not optional. They are laws, and ignoring these rules can lead to penalties, business disruption, and damage to reputation.

Step-by-Step Cloud Migration Process

The moment you think of migrating to the cloud, start thinking about compliance. It should not be an afterthought. You just need an end-to-end cloud migration plan.

Here’s what to do to ensure regulatory compliance is met during cloud migration.

1. Know Your Data

You can not protect what you do not know you have. Therefore, before you migrate anything to the cloud, you need to inventory your data and applications. This is called data classification. As a decision-maker, you have to sit down with your team and tag all your data. For tagging, you must ask these questions:

Is this public (like a blog post)?
Is this internal-only (like a company memo)?
Is this confidential (like employee salaries)?
Is this restricted (like customer credit cards or patient SSNs)?

Once you know what you have and how sensitive it is, you know what needs the most protection.

2. Map Data to Compliance

Now, connect step 1 to the regulatory compliance we discussed in the section above. This is known as compliance mapping. It’s a simple “if-then” rule. For example:

If the data is a patient record, then the HIPAA compliance rule applies
If the data is credit card details, then the PCI-DSS rule applies.

Now you have a clear roadmap. You know which data belongs to which law. This mapping will serve as your guide throughout the entire cloud migration.

3. Pick the Right Cloud Partner

There are many cloud partners available. Therefore, it is necessary to choose a cloud migration services provider that supports compliance needs. Before hiring them, you must ask the questions:

Ask them for their compliance certifications.
Ask for the SOC 2 report, which demonstrates that a third-party auditor has reviewed their security controls.
They should also offer a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) if you handle health data.

If a cloud service provider won't sign a BAA, you cannot (and must not) put patient data on their servers.

4. Execute Technical Controls

In this phase, cloud experts will implement necessary technical controls for migration. Here are the non-negotiables:

Data Encryption In Transit: When data is moving from your office to the cloud. This is basically done with TLS (Transport Layer Security). It is a cryptographic protocol that encrypts data to ensure no third party can see or tamper with the messages.

Data Encryption At Rest: When data is just sitting on a server in the data center. Cloud providers use Azure Key Vault or other key management systems to safeguard data. Even if the hackers steal the data, they cannot do any damage without the key.

Identity and Access Management (IAM): Never use one admin account for all your tasks. That’s a massive risk. Rather, you can follow the Principle of Least Privilege. It means you give every person and every app the minimum access they need to do their job. This stops an attacker from causing a massive disaster.

5. Audit and Test the Cloud

After moving your data to the cloud, you need to test how it works and its security.

Run Audits: You should hire a third-party auditor to check your security against the compliance map.
Run Penetration Tests: Hire ethical hackers to attempt to breach your new cloud setup. They will find weaknesses you missed and suggest necessary measures.
Log Everything: Turn on logging for everything. AWS CloudTrail or Azure Monitor can record every single action taken in your account. If something goes wrong, this log is your only way to find out what happened.

Conclusion

Regulatory compliance is not a project you finish. It is a continuous process that requires maintenance. The cloud environment changes every day, and new threats emerge. Therefore, you need continuous compliance. That means you need to scan the loud setup so that they can alert you instantly if a breach occurs. An end-to-end cloud migration services provider can access your data, implement key regulations, and audit your infrastructure effectively.

About the Author

Aliona

Tech Content Strategist

Aliona is a tech content strategist passionate about cloud computing, digital transformation, and cybersecurity. She simplifies complex technology topics into clear, engaging insights for businesses and decision-makers.

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