Cloud Migration

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of relocating an organization’s on-premises data, applications, and IT processes into a cloud or from one cloud to another. Cloud migrations are often driven by inefficient hardware, aging infrastructure, and legacy systems that are costly to maintain, challenging to configure for the best performance, and difficult to secure for privacy and resiliency. 

Cloud migration gives organizations the opportunity to expand beyond the hard limits often imposed by their legacy on-premises data centers and the applications, services, and data housed within them. 

How does Cloud Migration work?

Moving to the cloud must extend beyond the technical exercise of spinning up new and shutting down old systems. Rather, the strategy and subsequent plan must be rooted in clear and concise operational outcomes that are driven by well-defined business objectives. Many that perform this exercise as they embark on their journey to modernize their business will find these 3 common cloud migration types to be most common: 

• • Rehosting: this type of cloud migration involves the lifting and shifting an application from an on-premises data center to a cloud service 
  • Replatforming: this type of migration requires the application to be rebuilt from scratch to address shortcomings and incompatibilities that would otherwise exist if the application was simply moved over to the cloud, making it one of the most expensive options, if not the most compatible for long-term sustainability
  • Refactoring: also referred to as rearchitecting, involves changing an application’s code or architecture to support new business requirements by leveraging the capabilities found in its new home on a more scalable, elastic, and flexible cloud service 

There are 3 additional, less active, options to complete the “6 R’s” of cloud migration, these include: 

• • Repurchase: also referred to as the “drop and shop” strategy, this type of migration is less of a transition to an existing application being updated to run in the cloud and more of a complete replacement using a like product or service that runs in the cloud 
  • Retain: in this situation, a decision can’t be easily made in the timeframe desired, so the team will need to revisit it later 
  • Retire: this type of cloud migration is also less of a migration as it essentially means that existing applications or services are no longer needed and therefore don’t need to be migrated 

Why is Cloud Migration important?

While not every application warrants a move to the cloud, there are plenty of situations where a cloud migration is the only feasible and fiscally-sound option. 

Many organizations migrate their on-premises applications and data from their on-premises data center to the cloud to take advantage of benefits such as self-service provisioning, operating elasticity, on-demand redundancy, and a flexible pay-per-use model. 

Benefits of Kubernetes 

Many of the benefits of moving an existing application land squarely on top of the same benefits of running on the cloud in the first place: 

• • Scalability and Agility: Support larger workloads for more users, automatically scaling capacity to match the fluctuating user and system demand without waiting for hardware requisition and software licensing approvals and installations. Once the application is in the cloud, teams can collaborate from anywhere to keep the application running at peak performance while remaining agile to innovate and bring new features and functions to market more quickly. 
  • Cost and Flexibility: Cloud providers will provide the always-on availability and take on the traditional maintenance tasks for the infrastructure, freeing up engineering and IT operations staff to devote more resources to innovation and quick-to-market delivery. With a focus on application performance, usage, and stability over mundane operational maintenance, teams can develop and deploy new product versions and updates faster than ever before. Don’t forget that the subscription-based model with the cloud often cuts out capital expenditure as well. 
  • Performance and Elasticity: Migrating to the cloud tends to improve performance and provides better consumption management which can have a direct and positive impact on the end-user experience. Cloud-based applications can be deployed to provide more service, reach new markets and regions, and connect with more customers, all of which are made possible by the cloud’s ability to serve more users and offer higher throughput with reduced network latency.
  • Security and Resiliency: What was once a question regarding the feasibility of safely moving your applications to the cloud has long since been debunked. The cloud can offer greater security than the traditional on-premises data center as it centrally hosts and stored the applications and data. Cloud providers help keep systems protected from exposure and compromise by keeping unwanted traffic. With the flexibility and ease with which new environments can be deployed, organizations can also benefit from elastic and scalable redundancy and disaster recovery. 

Many of the benefits of moving an existing application land squarely on top of the same benefits of running on the cloud in the first place: 

The common scenarios for a Cloud Migration 

While the drivers can be many to support the migration to the cloud, the scenarios for the path forward typically fall into one of these 3 categories: 

• • Rehost: use this type of migration when the primary need is to be on the cloud (off-premises) and migration has a hard deadline; also good when there’s little room for error that often comes with complex code changes 
  • Replatform: use this type of migration when you not only want to move the application to the cloud, but you also want to ensure it makes the most out of the cloud services available
  • Refactor (Rearchitect): use this type of migration when there is a clear need for dramatic increases in scalability, performance, and speed and where the business needs the application to extract the most value from the cloud as possible; this type is also the only active option if the legacy application is unable to handle a simple port and move to the cloud due to cloud incompatibility issues 

Does Taos help with Cloud Migration?  

Yes! We have 30 years of experience helping enterprises adopt new technologies! 

Taos can guide you through the transformation journey using a proven strategy that accelerates the digital transformation imperatives. Taos Cloud Advisory Services is a suite of outcome-driven strategic consulting services that enable customers to maximize opportunities presented by the cloud while reducing implementation risks. 

Taos Cloud Advisory Services presents customers with a plan for their transformation that forms the basis of engagement with Taos Professional Services to rapidly design and build corresponding offerings. This can then be run and continuously optimized by leveraging Taos Managed Services. 

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