Why & How To Migrate Legacy Applications To Cloud

Business leaders are looking for more flexible ways to operate & accelerate innovation. And, across the world, there is a massive shift to cloud-based IT environments. With increased digital demand, remote working becoming popular, and scalability issues in the new normal –businesses are now looking at cloud migration as an option. With a majority of new applications deployed in the cloud, there is a growing interest in cloud transformation and migration of legacy applications.

Organizations typically move to the cloud to improve security, speed and reduce expenses. They are increasingly looking at cloud platforms to upgrade their slow, outdated applications and take advantage of the flexibility, cost savings and productivity of the cloud. Though this transition isn’t easy where a one-size-fits-all strategy might not the ultimate solution.

Through this article, we will discuss how you can successfully migrate your legacy applications to the cloud and why it is more important than ever. We will discuss:

• What is Cloud Migration?
• Why Migrate traditional applications to the cloud?
• Key steps in legacy application migration to the cloud

However, before we dive right in, let us try to understand what cloud migration exactly means & why it is important.

In simplistic terms, it is about moving data, applications, and other digital assets important to business from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud – a virtual computer server with shared resources.

Migration from legacy systems to the cloud involves virtual access to applications and data from any part of the world. Additionally, you can even remotely manage the entire IT infrastructure without worrying about the on-premise maintenance cost of hardware and security.

Legacy hardware & software pose several challenges for enterprises like high maintenance cost, limited access to support & difficulty in upgrades. Moving legacy applications to the cloud helps address multiple concerns businesses have for their data storage needs. You would agree today every business wants to be agile, flexible, up-to-date & adapt quickly to the market’s demand. And, cloud migration allows businesses to do just that and achieve that freedom.

So, what is it that drives organizations to migrate to the cloud?

1. Limited scope of scalability
2. Complex Data integration from one legacy system to another or from a legacy system to a modern system
3. Time-consuming upgrade of system hardware and software on each legacy system
4. Higher operational and security costs
5. Limited storage and bandwidth for their projects

Let’s now take a look at the considerations of moving business applications to the cloud for improving operational efficiency.

The right strategy for legacy data migration is critical to achieving the business goals. Additionally, the roadmap for cloud migration would depend on the size & complexity of your environment.

Before you jump on to start developing your strategy, here are a few questions you need to get answers to;

• Data migration strategy – all at once, or in batches
• Ensuring business continuity during the migration process
• Number of backups and disaster recovery plan

So, here are some steps for you to consider:

It is important to conduct an objective analysis of the benefits and disadvantages of moving to the cloud. A SWOT analysis helps with effective planning that is beyond your technical plan. The assessment should also include third-party software integrations and even costs related to employee training, security & compliance. This step would help identify potential operational, financial, technical and training obstacles and account for them in the broad planning process.

A crucial step to take an inside-out view of the existing infrastructure. It offers a comprehensive inventory of servers, devices with their performance metrics and profile information to build a cloud migration plan. It enables the business team to understand how ready both physical and virtual workspaces are while moving to the cloud platform of choice.

The broad elements from this assessment would include;

• Infrastructure
• Network architecture
• Performance requirements
• Availability
• Resilience requirements

Next, it’s time to select your migration strategy: As-is shift, application restructuring, or re-architecting.

• As-is Shift: It is a quick, relatively safe and easy migration option though with limited cloud-driven benefits. It require lot of resources and has a high cost.
• Application Restructuring: It offers you the option to identify pieces of the application that needs to transition to the cloud, rather than all at once. Though it might cost more to operate.
• Re-Architecturing: It breaks down the application and its components to rebuild them in a more scalable, modern design. Here it’s not about creating the app from scratch, but it eliminates the code that constrains the agility to enhance business-relevant functionality. It is best suited for legacy applications that are still business-relevant and provide differentiation.

It is essential to first deploy a pilot or test migration before preparing for the actual process. This step allows testing the application in simulated situations like your everyday operations. It helps assess the user interaction with the new environment and work out any challenges before actual migration.
Based on our experience, the pilots could be time-consuming because of actual user involvement for testing the application. Though despite the time investment, it is still a low-risk tactic to identify potential issues before performing the actual migration.

After the assessment and preparation of existing workloads and applications, it is time to migrate the legacy application to the cloud platform of your choice.

Here are a few best practices to highlight:

• Back up your data
• Post-migration Testing

Legacy application modernization may seem like a daunting task at first but has immense benefits for your business. Applications become obsolete over a period. With cloud migration, you can derive maximum value by serving existing customers with greater efficiency. Legacy application migration to the cloud contributes to reducing overhead costs & helps teams to focus on increasing productivity and improving performance.

You would agree a lot goes into an application migration that would require significant investment in time, tools, and resources. Detailed know-how of leading cloud platforms is crucial to ensure a successful transition. And, hiring a legacy migration expert might be more beneficial than trying to do everything yourself.

Selecting the right cloud migration partner plays a critical role in your business success. Team up with us to make your migration process simpler. We can help seamlessly manage your applications to help get the most out of your cloud investment. Our team has the required capability with experienced developers across both the leading cloud platforms – AWS and MS Azure.

Rishabh offers a range of cloud app development services that meet the customer’s unique requirements. As a trusted legacy application migration service provider, we support you throughout the migration lifecycle, beginning with an as-is system/server analysis to complete the movement of apps, data & services. It is with an ongoing and effective maintenance services portfolio.