Many organizations struggle to scale outdated tape-based backups and redundant capacity as the amount of enterprise data that needs protection skyrockets. In response, they adopt cloud-first strategies, moving from traditional solutions to cloud-native backup and recovery that can deliver significant cost reductions and performance benefits. But this requires thoughtful planning. This checklist outlines key strategies for CIOs to consider—and pitfalls to avoid—when transitioning data protection operations to the cloud.