Cloud computing is the epicenter for modern business services driven by Big Data, AI and IoT connectivity, and more. All of these technologies require access to scalable infrastructure resources that can be provisioned to meet dynamic usage demands with high scalability and flexibility.
Cloud vendors such as AWS offer a variety of cost-effective solutions for use cases including low-cost high volume storage; high-performance specialized workloads such as big data and AI; and high availability compute power for mission-critical and customer-facing applications, among others.
This is a compelling cloud migration use case for businesses that want to expand their service to a growing user base globally, but are limited by the resources available on existing in-house data centers or cloud vendors.
In this blog, we will discuss the fundamental strategies for cloud migration and how you as an organization need to consider them.
Rehosting – Lift and Shift
Rehosting strategy refers to simply shifting the infrastructure services to the cloud network as-is, without redesigning the application architecture. The Lift and Shift strategy works as a rapid migration strategy for application components that do not have complex dependencies and integrations. This assumes that the application can indeed run in a cloud environment without the need for refactoring, code changes, and vast configuration modifications.
Replatforming – Lift Thinker and Shift
Replatforming maintains the core architecture of application components, and makes some optimizations before it is migrated to a cloud environment. Replatforming is often seen as an acceptable tradeoff between a complex migration process and optimum changes necessary to scale the service in a cloud environment. These changes are typically related to the way the application interacts with the underlying cloud infrastructure and takes advantage of the cloud-native capabilities.
Repurchasing – Switch to a Different Product
Instead of migrating your application to a cloud computing environment, you can simply purchase an alternative cloud (SaaS) application. Repurchasing strategy is suitable for use cases where an existing SaaS offering adequately serves all functional requirements of the application, without having to modify, optimize, migrate and maintain your existing application on a cloud system. This gives you all of the advantages of the SaaS offering – trading high CapEx with ongoing OpEx of the subscription based service where the cloud vendor is entirely responsible for maintaining service dependability, performance and security.
Refactoring – Re-Architecting as Cloud Native
Refactoring involves a large proportion of the application components to be modified to better suit a specific cloud environment. The changes are necessary when an existing legacy application is too complex or incompatible with the cloud infrastructure. The application is modernized to take full advantage of cloud capabilities. It is a gradual process where application components are iteratively re-architected until the service in its entirety can function as a cloud-native application. Refactoring and modernization of the legacy software becomes necessary when an alternative SaaS or commercial software is not available, while the existing data center infrastructure fails to meet the growing usage demands.
Retire – Getting Rid of Some
Cloud migration is part of a long-term digital transformation strategy that needs to be done right – the choice between a simple Lift and Shift or a complicated Refactoring process ultimately governs the long-term ROI of your cloud migration investments. Application components or service functions that are no longer in use or necessary for business operations, may be simply retired. You may retire part of the software system that would be redundant following the cloud migration.
Retain – Revisiting for Later
Retaining refers to the strategic delay to wait and prepare for the right time for migrating specific or all application components. In cases when your business is not entirely ready to begin the cloud migration process, it needs to be reserved and revisited at a later stage. The waiting period may be subject to the changing compliance and cloud technology landscape – and given the current market conditions where the cloud market is growing rapidly, the landscape is indeed evolving at unprecedented rates.
Strategy that best fits your Cloud Migration business needs
In order to select the right cloud migration strategy, evaluate the current state of your software application and the readiness of the cloud computing landscape to motivate your cloud migration project.
For large scale migrations where your apps can simply transfer and run on a different cloud environment while operating on existing workflows, the Rehosting strategy is the most cost-effective option. The Replatform strategy suits applications that require minimal changes to align application performance in the cloud with your business objectives. For legacy workloads or workloads that are tightly coupled with the cloud vendor, the application components may need rearchitecting before it is ready to run on the alternative cloud environment. This complicated process is followed as part of the Refactoring strategy and may require external expertise to realize the end-to-end transformation process.
Directeam serves a key role in planning and execution of the right cloud migration strategy, which begins with a thorough planning and assessment of your application readiness. In order to align the migration process with your business goals, Directeam creates a migration roadmap for individual workloads and application components as part of a long-term cloud strategy, taking the organization maturity into consideration. The result is an effective tailor-made cloud migration project with minimal disruptions to your business operations, future-proofing for scalability in the cloud and accelerating the cloud migration journey in line with your strategic business objectives.