A cloud migration strategy is defined as a plan that an organization formulates to move all the resources in its infrastructures, such as data, services, and applications, to the cloud. Here’s a list of components that should be addressed when discussing cloud migration at different levels.
Types of Cloud Migration Strategies:
Relocating
- Commonly known as ‘lift and shift’
- Direct copy of existing infrastructure to cloud
- Good for smaller organizations with simple workloads
- Good for organizations whose infrastructure relies extensively on virtual machines
- Takes least amount of time
- Can be expensive over a long time
Re-platforming
- Commonly known as ‘move and improve’ strategy
- Involves bare minimum changes; the core application architecture remains untouched
- Good for organizations that want to move to cloud for performance improvement
Retaining
- On-prem retention of one or more applications that cannot be moved to cloud due compatibility issues, compliance requirements, etc.
- Also known as hybrid cloud environment
Repurchasing
- Sometimes, portions of legacy architecture may become difficult and expensive to maintain and prove impossible to scale up. In such cases, it makes sense to completely shift this capability to a SaaS platform such as Snowflake, Salesforce, etc.
- Requires retraining of staff
Retiring
- On-prem components that have become obsolete or likely to be retired soon can be retired
- An ideal way to retire such applications is to first disable all accesses for a couple of weeks before retiring them
Refactoring
- Essentially rebuilding the entire existing infrastructure from scratch
- For organizations that want to completely replace their data center with a cloud platform
- Results in big savings if the cloud environment is utilized appropriately and waste in terms of unused components is minimized
- The most expensive strategy in terms of time and money, but has potential for big savings
Cold Migration
- A type of cloud migration where applications are moved to the cloud after they have been shut down.
- Involves transferring data from an on-premises server to a cloud environment while the source server is offline, resulting in a temporary service interruption.
Live Migration
- Moving a running virtual machine (VM) from one physical host to another without disrupting service.
- It allows for maintenance, upgrades, and load balancing without downtime or disruption to users.
- Requires specialized hardware support, such as processor compatibility between hosts, shared storage, and fast network connections, resulting in increased system availability, improved resource utilization, and reduced downtime and maintenance costs.
Factors Influencing Cloud Migration Strategy:
Cutting down cost
- This is the most common reason for the majority of organizations.
- Cloud operates on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model and if the idle time of components can be minimized, overall cost is very low.
- There are a few upfront costs such as staff training, running in parallel on both on-prem and cloud infrastructure until full migration is completed, etc. If these costs are more than the savings due to migration, then, it may be better not to migrate to the cloud.
Keeping up with future
- It is very difficult and expensive to keep pace with fast-changing technology advancements to stay ahead of competitors in a legacy environment.
- Cloud providers keep upgrading their environment with the latest technologies.
Providing better interoperability
- The ability of various systems and applications to work together seamlessly during cloud migration is a crucial factor.
- Cloud migration strategies that provide better interoperability ensure that all the components of the migrated systems and applications are compatible, communicate effectively, and function together to achieve the desired outcome.
Ensuring security and compliance
- The migration process poses a security risk to enterprises because of the transfer of large volumes of data. Sensitive customer data is housed in a different environment. The data and applications must be secured through access control and effective use of firewalls, etc.
- Sometimes there may be compliance requirements that must be considered in the migration strategy.
Financial accounting model
- Cost involved for applications in the cloud environment is treated as operational cost, giving a distinct advantage.
Business Continuity
- Cloud migration strategies that prioritize business continuity ensure that systems and applications are migrated with minimal disruption, and that appropriate measures are in place to prevent data loss or downtime in the event of a disruption.
Geographically spread out business locations
- Geographically spread out business locations may benefit from cloud migration, which provides centralized management and accessibility to business applications and data, regardless of location, leading to improved collaboration, efficiency, and cost savings, while also reducing the complexity of managing on-premises IT infrastructure.
Cloud Migrations Steps:
- Secure leadership support
- Engage teams – IT admins, DevOps, business units, developers
- Develop plan
- Define goals and milestones
- Document existing applications
- Define, design and document target cloud architecture. Include the following:
- ROI calculation
- Include employee training
- Proof of concept, if client wants, especially to meet security and compliance requirements
- Opt for multiple vendors to avoid dependencies on one vendor
- Define testing and validation processes and success criteria
- Define SLA and maintenance window
- Focus on automation and use serverless technologies as much as possible
- Define steps for non-disruptive deployment (Blue Green and other options)
- Include retiring of on-prem applications
Cloud Migration Challenges to Address:
- Limited skilled resources
- Cost management
- Security
- Governance and compliance concerns
- Possible downtime of running applications required during cloud deployment
- Complexity
- Resource management – exponential cost if resources are not managed efficiently
- Interoperability concerns
- Lack of documentation of on-prem applications
- Vendor dependencies for on-prem applications
- Employee concerns about job security
What is unique about proSkale’s approach?
As your extended Solutions Center, we’re laser focused on scaling your digital transformation regardless of the delivery model, whether it’s an end-to-end solution, advisory or consulting. See how we can scale your cloud transformation, from filling skills gaps to deploying new capabilities or end-to-end solutions.
- proSkale has several cloud skilled and certified resources
- proSkale has experience with cloud migration
- proSkale is a Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure partner
- proSkale has expertise in building automated processes
- proSkale’s trained staff provides a turnkey solution, which also includes training and post-implementation support
- proSkale can create a customized serverless solution depending on customer needs
- proSkale engineers first do a thorough analysis of customer on-prem infrastructure prior to designing, developing and implementing a serverless process
- proSkale has a template-based requirement gathering process
- proSkale uses a script-based infrastructure setup, minimizing construction and setup time
