Cloud Migration

Cloud Migration is the process by which organizations move some or all of their data infrastructure, applications, and IT processes from legacy data centers to the cloud. It can also mean the transition organizations undergo while moving from one cloud resource to another. Such a migration between different cloud providers is also called cloud-to-cloud migration.

Migrating to the cloud often results in greater flexibility and cost saving, which is why many organizations are making this shift. Benefits of cloud migration include:

Scalability
Compared to on-premise data storage, cloud storage can scale to accommodate massive volumes of data workloads and multiple users. This scalability removes the need to purchase additional servers, equipment, and licenses.

Cost-saving
Cloud providers usually handle infrastructure updates and maintenance, helping companies save costs on the same.

Performance
Migration to the cloud also enables businesses to improve their overall performance and customer experience.

Flexibility
Cloud provides users with the flexibility to access data from anywhere, at any time. This makes expansions easier, enabling businesses to venture into new territories, leverage remote working for employees, and cater to a larger international audience.

Strategies of Cloud Migration

While migrating to the cloud, the organization needs to understand the strategies available and select the best one that works for them. Cloud Migration strategies can be summed up into 5Rs as given by Gartner:

Rehost
Also called “lift and shift”, this strategy uses an infrastructure-as-a-service model where data and applications are kept intact and redeployed to the cloud server. This cloud migration strategy is best suited for organizations wanting to keep the migration simple, without modifying the code.

Refactor
In this strategy, the applications are modified a bit before deployment on the cloud. It is thus also called “lift, tinker, and shift”. Changes are made to the applications to leverage the cloud tools optimally while the core architecture remains intact. This uses a platform-as-a-service model.

Revise
In this cloud migration strategy, the architecture of the applications is revised significantly before movement to the cloud. This is done to fully leverage the cloud environment. This involves major changes to the code and requires advanced knowledge of the cloud resources.

Rebuild
This strategy focuses on the recreation of the applications’ code base. The existing codes are discarded and replaced with new ones. This is a time-consuming process and is suitable only for organizations whose current solutions do not meet their business requirements.

Replace
Adding to the previous strategy, replacement involves using a third-party, prebuilt application from the vendor and replacing it with the native application. This doesn’t include coding from scratch and hence saves time. Only the existing data gets migrated, and everything else is new.