Cloud Migration Strategies

In today’s world, we can confidently say that Cloud services have become one of the key accelerators in transforming organizational goals and long-term business needs. Moving to the cloud has created several benefits for businesses, including reduced IT costs, more flexibility, increased efficiency, improved security, flexible billing models, and the potential for innovation and developing new capabilities.

Though organisations are keen to migrate to the cloud, there is also a fear of failure or any disruptions caused due to it. Below are some of the ways to overcome these challenges.

How to approach cloud migration:

Moving to the cloud is a long and intense journey, and walking this path without a plan will lead to unexpected twists and turns. Hence, it is necessary to understand some key factors before planning cloud migration.

• Why?
  Organizations need to be clear on the purpose of migration and evaluate why there is a need to move to the cloud. This involves defining business or technical goals that are required to be accomplished, which will benefit the long-term growth of the organizations. It includes establishing objectives like cloud KPIs and performance baselines that will make it possible to measure the success of Cloud migration.
• What?
  Once organizations have that north star that they want to accomplish, they should start building the catalogue of all the applications and workloads which need migration to the cloud. This includes noting down any interdependencies, network and security requirements associated with it, and a simplification in case of tricky workloads.
• How?
  As soon as the ‘why’s and the ‘what’s are defined, it is easier to decide which cloud migration strategy will be most suitable. Picking a cloud model (private, public, or hybrid), choosing the right cloud service provider, and selecting the correct tools are some of the ways which will help in the successful migration.

Types of Cloud Migration Strategies:

There are commonly four types of patterns used for Cloud migration, let’s understand and explore them together:

1. Rehosting:
   It is also known as the “Lift & Shift” mechanism, where customers take their applications on the cloud and run similarly as on-prem. Mainly Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) capabilities are widely used here, which enable the replication of virtual machines to the cloud simply and effectively. The rehosting model is typically a simple and low friction move for workloads. One of the key benefits of this approach is that once the workload gets moved to the cloud, it can be easily reworked & optimized at later stages.
2. Replatforming:
   It is an upgraded version of rehosting, where apart from just migration, it also involves the modification of the applications to take advantage of the new cloud infrastructure. It enables the integration of the applications with native cloud features, while keeping the code modifications to a minimum. It is a cost-effective, scalable, and automated approach. The downside with re-platforming is that the project scope can change and grow during the migration phase, and turn it into a complete refactor. Hence, it is essential to stick to the plan and avoid any changes to mitigate the risks.
3. Refactoring:
   Also termed re-architecting, this means updating the applications/workloads in a way that it can take the maximum benefit of the cloud-native solutions. It involves modifying a large chunk of the code-base or updating the existing software, which helps in modernizing the app architecture and taking advantage of cloud-based features. Though this approach is much more complex than others as it requires careful testing of the changes in the code and the software, it can provide the highest return in the investment once it is running on the cloud.
4. Rebuilding:
   As the name suggests, it is building the workloads from scratch to be a pure cloud-native solution. This approach is adopted when re-platforming or refactoring is not an option. Some of the benefits of rebuilding the workloads in the cloud are: High mobility; flexibility, tighter; modern security models, and all the advantages that come with the power of the cloud. Although there are many benefits of having a fresh new application/workload in the cloud, there are also disadvantages that require attention such as heavy resourcing, larger time scales, and potentially increased complexity associated with the DevOps environment.

Finally, we can understand that moving to the cloud can be approached from different directions based on the company goals and long-term objectives. It involves understanding how your new environment will operate once you get your data to the cloud and it requires careful preparations both on the technical and business end. Compliance with the basic checklist, usage of correct tools and services, paired with experienced professionals on your side will ensure a smooth transition.

Contact Details

If you would like any more information on how Net Reply can help you with cloud adoption and migration, please get in touch with the author of this article .