Cloud Migration Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide in 5 Points

Introduction 

A cloud migration strategy is a plan which a company forms in order to move its applications and data from its on-premise architecture to cloud.

1. What is CMS
2. Benefits
3. Process
4. Challenges
5. Steps

1) What is CMS

The truth about cloud migration strategy is that not all workloads will benefit significantly from running on a cloud-based infrastructure. It is thus important to validate the best way that is efficient and migrates and prioritizes the applications before it goes live. This is why it is important to have a cloud-managed strategy that is systematic as well as well documented.

2) Benefits 

Now that we know what is cloud migration let us understand its benefits. The main strength of the cloud lies in the elastic infrastructure that it offers. This is a major advantage that gets manifested in many ways which include the following.

• Decreases the cost of hosting

In the cloud, you do not have to worry about the condition and cost of keeping the physical servers from running. The third-party data center manages the servers which are mostly on a subscription-based model which saves on capital expenditure.

• More agile and stable

The cloud-based services do not just scale the capacity to grow and cater to the functioning demand but also lets the team collaborate on applications from anywhere. This connectivity gives the business a competitive edge.

• Decreases footprint

The server capacity can be scaled up or down to fit the business needs. You thus use the resources that you require.

• Disaster recovery

This is a major advantage for most businesses especially the small scale companies. Cloud today is helping organizations to implement recovery and backup solutions that save on upfront costs and huge investments.

• Security

Cloud gives a lot of security than the data centers as it stores the sensitive data and the apps in a central location. The cloud also protects any unwanted traffic from gaining access to your data as the cloud provider rolls out security updates that leave you free from any security threats.

3) Process 

The migration in cloud computing strategy process is broadly classified as the six R’s of migration.

1.Rehosting (“lift and shift”)

The Rehosting in cloud migration process implies to lift the stack and shift it from the on-premise hosting to the cloud. You make an exact copy of the current environment and transport it without making any extensive change to gain the quickest ROI. Companies that follow a conservative structure and do not have any long term strategy to harness the advanced capacity of cloud benefit from rehosting.

2.Replatforming

Replatforming makes adjustments to optimize the landscape of the cloud. The core application architecture stays the same which is a good strategy for the conservative organizations that wish to build trust in the cloud as they achieve the benefits of an increase in system performance.

3.Repurchasing

It means to move the application to a new cloud or a cloud-native product. This is mostly a SaaS platform. There are chances of losing the existing code and training the team to work on the new platform. And repurchasing is cost-effective.

4.Refactoring

Also known as rearchitecting, it means to rebuild the application from scratch. This is driven by the need of the business to leverage the capabilities of the cloud that are not available in the environment that is existing like in the cloud auto-scaling and serverless computing. Refactoring is expensive but it is compatible with future versions.

5.Retiring

Once the application has been assessed for the readiness of cloud you may feel that the application is no more of use. In such cases, all that you have to do is to turn it off. 

6.Retaining

Cloud adoption may not make sense for some organizations which could be because you are not able to take the data off-premise because of compliance reasons. You may not be ready to priorities the app that was upgraded recently. In such a case you may plan to revisit the cloud computing sometimes at a later date and when you think it makes sense for your business.

4) Challenges 

Even after you find the right cloud provider there could be some challenges that you may face.

• Downtime

You may need to take the in-house servers temporarily offline. The outage may be disastrous to the performance of the application if it is not supported with proper backup.

• Data loss

When moving to the cloud the company data is highly vulnerable. Care should be taken to minimize the risk of a breach.

• Resource management

The employees who have never used the cloud may need training on the new infrastructure. New IT management roles or transforming the backbone of the business operations are other needs of incorporating cloud.

• Interoperability

The existing application may not be able to communicate well with the new cloud environment. To ensure this you need to adapt your processes to that of the cloud provider.

5) Steps

The exact cloud migration steps that you need to take to migrate to the cloud are dependent on the complexity and the size of the environment. Here are the steps.

• Plan the migration – You need to be clear on the reason for the move to cloud and which strategy can best support it is.

• Choose the cloud environment – You need to know the kind of cloud model that you wish to adopt. The cloud should be able to meet your present and future needs.
• Migrating the apps and data – Plan well to migrate the apps and data. You however need to keep the cloud security concerns in mind here.
• Validating post-move success – The cloud migration cannot be declared to be successful without evidence that is working as it is expected to.

Conclusion

You need to incorporate some significant changes in the organization to migrate to the cloud. The people, technology, and the process have to be spanned. It is important to take a holistic approach that will not just help to navigate to the cloud successfully but also help the organization to realize the benefits. This includes agility, efficiency, and scalability once the workload starts to run on the cloud.

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