Business and IT leaders worldwide are replacing legacy, on-premise technology with scalable, flexible, and cost-effective cloud computing power. From reducing IT costs to operational agility & accelerating innovation, the move to the cloud is becoming a pressing requirement.
A cloud migration strategy helps an organization to move its data and applications from an on-premise architecture to the cloud. However, making the transition is not easy without a rock-solid plan, strategy & expertise. And for that a systematic & documented strategy is crucial.
Through this article, we’ll walk you through the right path on how to migrate your existing applications and operations to the cloud. You’ll learn the basics about migration as well as how to still get value out of your existing investments. Read on to get one step closer to transforming your business.
Did you know?
Gartner predicts that by 2024, 45% of IT spending will shift from the traditional solution approach to cloud infrastructure.
It is the process of moving an organization’s digital assets including IT resources, data, workloads, or applications either partially, or wholly to the cloud. Though beyond the movement, it is also an iterative optimization process to reduce costs and utilize the full potential of the technology. This has an impact on all the aspects of the organization including people, processes & technology.
The strategy for cloud migration helps identify and execute the fastest, lowest cost, least disruption transition from on-premises to the cloud.
Each implementation provides different advantages. Here are some most common benefits:
Every migration is different depending on various factors such as application maturity, level of infrastructure complexity, and skill level of the IT resources.
Here are some essential cloud migration steps to include in your checklist.
Before getting started, you should be clear on the business KPIs and which strategy would prove to be the best fit.
It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get your hands messy.
Team up with us to make your migration & adoption seamless to maximize value and mitigate risks.
Popularly known as the 6 R’s of migration, the listed below strategies would essentially answer all your questions around how to move your IT assets to the cloud.
Most commonly referred to as lift and shift pattern, the rehosting involves using the infrastructure. It transfers data assets from on-premises to cloud infrastructure. Further, it can be automated using tools like CloudEndure Migration and AWS VM Import/Export, but also works with manual implementation to gain maturity.
When to consider;
Also called as Lift, Tinker, and Shift strategy, it helps to make configurational changes to the apps that better suit the cloud environment without changing its core architecture. The development teams apply this approach to change the way apps interact with the database to run effectively on managed platforms like Amazon RDS.
When to consider;
Popular as a drop and shop strategy, it replaces the existing on-premise application with a cloud-native vendor-packaged software. This can be referred to as moving to SaaS (Software as a Service) application with the same capabilities. It entails making licensing changes – you can start a new license agreement with the cloud provider for their solution and discard the existing on-premise license. For instance, moving from the in-house CRM system to Salesforce or Hubspot. The newer, upgraded version would offer a better value coupled with higher efficiency, savings (on app storage) & even maintenance costs.
When to consider;
Rearchitect or refactor strategy involves rewriting the applications from scratch to make them compatible with the cloud environment. It is usually for the apps that demand thorough modernization including – features, scalability, performance, and cannot be achieved through minor changes to the existing architecture. It allows you to leverage the full potential of cloud-native technologies such as serverless, microservices architecture, function-as-a-service, containers, and load balancers. This approach is the most expensive, resource-intensive, and time-consuming compared to the others in the list yet would prove the most worthy in the long run.
When to consider;
Can be considered as a rather passive strategy as there’s no real movement. With this approach, you get rid of applications that are; 1) no longer needed, 2) are not productive for the organization’s IT portfolio. For instance, if an application is considered not worthy of migration, it can either be eliminated or downsized. This further, allows assessing all the applications in terms of their uses, dependencies & their cost to the company.
When to consider;
With this strategy, the focus is on revisiting critical applications or sections of your digital assets that need a significant amount of refactoring before the migration. This is because some apps aren’t ready for cloud shifting due to technical, compliance, security, or cost-effective reasons. So, enterprises might decide to implement a hybrid or part migration strategy to retain the assets.
When to consider;
Each project has a unique set of drivers and requirements. Though, based on our experience, there exist common steps that work as a pre-requisite for any project. As part of it, there are several factors & parameters to consider including workload prioritization, determining the accurate plan for each workload, developing a pilot, testing, and strategy alignment (based on pilot outcomes).
Here are some of the best practices;
At Rishabh Software, we’ve extensive experience in moving data & applications using Amazon Web Services (AWS) & Microsoft Azure. One should understand thoroughly the essentials of app migration readiness with defining items & priorities on the checklist, before making the move towards any cloud platform.
Selecting the right partner plays a vital role in your organization’s success. And, we can work with you every step of the way.
As a trusted global partner, we support you throughout the migration lifecycle, beginning with an as-is system/server analysis to complete the movement of apps, data & services. With proven methodologies and approaches, our team has a strong & full range of maintenance services portfolios. Do visit to learn about our cloud development capability.
Cloud migration is a difficult journey, but it doesn’t have to be with the right knowledge and direction. These strategies aren’t definitive but surefire ways to get started with migration planning. The selection of approaches also depends on which model you choose or have in place for your organization. Your plan can be a combination of some of these strategies or include all of them.
By working with a cloud migration services provider, decide what suits your needs, create a structured framework, and execute your plan of action. They can help you account for the challenges before developing your plan to migrate with confidence.
We can copilot your journey with the right architecture in place and solutions that meet your strategic business needs.