"The sun always shines above the clouds," optimists enjoy telling us. What they fail to mention is that beneath the clouds there's often high winds, torrential downpours, lightning and the occasional golf-ball-size hail bombardment.

The same is true with cloud computing. On the sunny side, the cloud offers a variety of benefits, including the promise of enhanced reliability, flexibility, manageability and scalability. Look below, however, and you'll see the cloud's dark side — a place where a single error, oversight or miscalculation can lead to utter catastrophe.

If you want to ensure a cloud transition that showers your enterprise with benefits rather than red ink and lawsuits, avoid these 10 common mistakes.

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1. Moving to the cloud without a governance and planning strategy