7 Vital Steps for Your Cloud Migration Strategy
In the rapidly evolving landscape of modern business, the cloud has become a game-changer. With organizations increasingly recognizing the importance of strategic imperatives, this transformative technology has become more of a necessity than a choice.
Cloud migration is not just a trend, it’s the future. Whether it be start-ups or large-based organizations, the cloud is the answer to staying ahead of the curve. However, navigating the cloudscape isn’t always smooth, as many businesses find themselves lost in the sea of confusion. Multiple questions arise- what cloud migration strategy to opt for? How to make the best of cloud investments? However, the below blog is the answer to all your doubts. Consider it the key that is opening the lock of all the answers by helping you navigate towards cloud success.
What is a Cloud Migration Strategy?
Think of your business as a busy hive full of stuff like data, services, and applications. Now, imagine moving all of it to your cloud. That’s what a cloud migration strategy is all about; it’s like making a safe and secure plan to transport all your data, services, and applications from your old computer room to a safe and better cloud.
Cloud technology has become a need and a future of today’s time since big names like Salesforce and Amazon introduced it in the early 2000s. Then, later when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, businesses started relying more on cloud services for remote work. Can you believe in the report shared by Flexera that in today’s time, 90% of big companies are using cloud stuff for their daily tasks?
Whether you are a beginner in the cloud world or a company that’s already there and wants to make the most of it, having a good cloud migration strategy is the answer. It’s like having a plan to navigate for your future growth.
Benefits of Cloud Migration Strategy
Moving to the cloud isn’t just about switching servers, but is a transformative journey unlocking the list of advantages. A perfect cloud migration strategy offers big rewards, like saving money and keeping things running smoothly and efficiently. Well, the list is big and endless, so let’s dive into a few of the benefits in detail.
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Cost and Time Savings:
Implementing a cloud migration strategy can help businesses save a lot of money by reducing the need for physical infrastructure and linked maintenance costs. The process also saves time by streamlining processes and automating tasks.
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Reduced Downtime and Risks:
Cloud migration can help businesses by minimizing the downtime associated with system updates and maintenance, which later results in better productivity and efficiency. Additionally, it reduces the risks of data loss and system failures.
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Improved Scalability:
Cloud businesses offer scalability by allowing businesses to adjust resources according to the needs and requirements of the current projects. The easy-to-handle feature makes it easy for new users to understand and work efficiently.
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Enhanced Security and Compliance
Cloud safety becomes a guarantee when is linked to the cloud. Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures and compliance certifications. Migration to the cloud strengthens data protection and helps businesses to work with ease.
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A Better Understanding of Business:
Cloud migration often gives a chance to access and re-evaluate the existing processes and workflows. This provides businesses with insights into their business operations, data helping them to identify the improvement areas, and make the changes as per the need.
Key Factors Influencing Cloud Migration Strategy
Numerous factors come into play when considering the cloud migration strategy. The list of the factors includes:
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Keeping Up With The Future:
In today’s fast-changing tech world, it has become important for businesses to be flexible and to stay ahead in the market-competitive world. While, opting for cloud migration, help businesses to prepare them for the future by using flexible and scalable technology. It allows businesses to adopt emerging innovations such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT), to meet evolving customer needs and requirements with the upcoming trend.
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Cutting Down Costs:
One major reason why businesses consider switching to cloud services is because of its cost reduction feature. Instead of using the expensive equipment in their building, opting for the cloud technology option acts as a better and pocket-friendly option. Cloud services allow businesses to only pay for the services that they use, making it a better deal for the future.
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Providing Better Interoperability:
Interoperability refers to the different systems or applications that can communicate with each other. Cloud migration makes it easier to work with different data when they are all in one place. It allows different parts of businesses, or maybe teams to access and share information with ease.
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Ensuring Security And Compliance:
When businesses think about cloud migration, the thought that disturbs them is the safety and rules. While the answer is to not worry. Cloud companies put a lot of effort into making sure that data is secure and safe by opting for robust safety measures like secret codes, managing who can access it, and identifying early threats.
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Considering The Financial Model:
When planning for a cloud migration strategy, considering financial models offered by cloud providers acts as one important aspect for a secure future. These models include numerous options like- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS), each having its cost structure and benefits. Selecting the best depends upon your budget and project needs and requirements.
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A Real-World Example Of Cloud Migration:
A great example of successful cloud migration is Netflix. In early 2008, Netflix updated its video streaming service from traditional data to the Amazon Web Service (AWS) platform.
This migration enabled Netflix to handle scalability by allowing a lot of people to watch at once, providing an increment in viewers and delivering a smooth experience to millions of users worldwide. By using AWS, Netflix got to earn multiple benefits like- cost efficiency, improved reliability and accelerated innovations.
The 7 Cloud Migration Strategies in Detail
Exploring cloud migration strategies is crucial for businesses to unlock the potential of cloud migration. With the variety of strategies available, it becomes important to understand the needs and requirements of each to grasp these options with ease for effective migration.
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Rehost (Lift & Shift)
The Rehost strategy also known as the lift and shift strategy is all about moving applications from on-premises servers to the cloud without making any changes to the application architecture. It can be simplified by saying- that rehost involves picking up the application and then putting it into a safer place known as Cloud. Indeed, the strategy offers benefits like being quick and straightforward, yet it might not use the full advantages of the cloud technology.
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Relocate (Hypervisor-level lift and shift)
This strategy can be claimed as an advanced version of the Rehost strategy. Similarly, to the Rehost strategy, the relocation strategy involves moving virtual machines from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, while the only difference is, that instead of simply copying the virtual machines, it converts to the format compatible with the cloud provider’s hypervisor. This strategy proves to be the best when businesses want to maintain the existing virtualized infrastructure but offload it to the cloud for scalability and flexibility.
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Replatform (Lift and Reshape)
In the re-platforming strategy, applications are migrated to the cloud with minor modifications to optimize them for the cloud environment. The minor modifications may include anything that can be helpful in the cloud services process such as upgradation of dependencies, configuration adjustments, or a few code changes. It maintains a balance between speed and optimization, allowing businesses to utilize the full potential of cloud benefits without rearchitecting their applications.
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Refactor (Re-architect)
Refactor or known as rearchitecting, this process involves significant modifications to the application architecture allowing it to fully utilize the cloud-native features. The modifications may include breaking monolithic applications into microservices, adopting serverless computing or maybe redesigning databases for cloud scalability.
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Repurchase (Drop and Shape)
As the name suggests, in this strategy organizations replace the existing applications with cloud-based software such as service (SaaS) solutions. With this repurchase strategy, instead of managing the applications in-house, businesses are often opting for cloud-based services offering similar benefits.
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Retire
The retirement strategy involves getting rid of all the legacy applications or services that are no longer needed. The process works by identifying and retiring the unwanted data, by letting their organizations streamline their IT infrastructure, reduce maintenance costs, and more focus on critical initiatives.
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Retain (Revisit)
The retain strategy allows the user to decide which applications or services need to be kept in the same place and which need to be migrated to the cloud. This strategy is best for applications that might have strict regulatory requirements, complex dependencies, or workloads that are not cost-effective to migrate.
Best Practices for a Successful Cloud Migration Strategy
A successful cloud migration process requires careful planning and the correct execution. Defining clear goals and identifying migration priorities can result in a smooth migration process. A few below best practices options can be considered for a successful cloud migration strategy-
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Define Goals:
Before beginning the cloud migration process, defining the correct goals is important to achieve what you want. Set specific goals such as cost reduction, scalability, or improved performance.
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Identify Migration Priorities:
Look for the applications or services that are most important to migrate. Consider the most important factors first like business criticality, complexity, and potential benefits.
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Use Pricing Calculators:
Use the pricing calculators provided by cloud service providers to estimate the costs accurately. This process is considered important in budgeting and making informed decisions.
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Have a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) with You:
Remember to keep a disaster recovery plan with you to ensure complete data protection and business guarantee in case of any emergencies or system failures.
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Train All Employees:
Keep all your employees trained well that may get involved in the migration process to ensure they are well aware of the changes and can later effectively utilize the new cloud environment.
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Avoid Vendor Lock-in:
Instead of being tied to a single vendor, opt for cloud services and cloud migration tools that offer maximum flexibility and benefits. It reduces the dependency issues and thus allows for easier and smoother migration.
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Test and Measure Migration Success:
Perform detailed testing before and after the migration process to identify any issues that may occur. This process ensures a smooth transition. Measure the success of the migration process based on the metrics and testing results.
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Monitor Performance and Security:
Continuous monitoring of the performance and security of the cloud migration process acts as a great idea to identify and address any potential issues that may occur later and may harm the performance of the application or system.
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Stay Updated:
Regularly keep yourself updated and your cloud environment optimized to utilize the new features and by providing better cloud security.
Challenges of Cloud Migration Strategy
It offers a vast list of benefits, but with numerous benefits, a few challenges in cloud migration occur. From promising data security to reducing cost management and technical complexities, there are numerous hurdles to overcome. Let’s explore a few of the key challenges in detail below:
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Data Security and Compliance:
Promising the security of data and compliance with maintaining all the regulations often lead to a few challenges in the process of cloud migration. It is indeed important to implement major security measures to ensure the complete protection of the data.
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Application Compatibility:
Migrating applications to the cloud is a complicated task and thus often leads to compatibility issues due to the differences in the infrastructure and dependencies. Ensuring that applications are compatible with the chosen cloud environment, is important to maintain the performance and functionality.
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Downtime and Service Disruption:
Minimizing downtime and service disruption is considered as a critical challenge during the cloud migration process if your business is linked with 24/7 operations. Thorough testing and planning can promise ease in migration tasks by reducing downtime risks and minimizing the disruption to the users.
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Cost Management:
Managing cost-effectively throughout the cloud migration process can be challenging as the need for extra budget can occur anytime. It is essential to accurately estimate costs, resources, and usage in the process to deliver the correct budget analysis.
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Technical Complexity:
The technical complexities can be a significant challenge in the process of keeping the data safe and secure. Dealing with diverse technologies, legacy systems, planning, and expertise can be quite complicated if not done with the correct planning and guidance.
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Cultural Resistance:
There is always a chance, that the people in the organization might not like the idea of opting for cloud technologies. Thus, it becomes a big challenge to talk to people and make them understand the need and importance of cloud technology. Having a decent office culture, effective communication, training, and the correct management strategies can lead to a successful cloud future.
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Integration Issues:
Integrating cloud services with the existing systems and workflows can be quite complicated and challenging due to major differences in the architecture and protocols. In the process of navigating through these challenges required thorough planning, testing, and collaboration between different teams to ensure a seamless migration.
Concluding Remarks!
Cloud migration offers endless benefits, but it also presents challenges that need to be considered in the process to resolve. By defining clear goals, prioritizing the migration tasks, and addressing the issues that can guarantee data security and compatibility.
While the finest organization like AAHENT can be your helping hand it can promise to overcome the challenges that might occur in the process of the cloud migration process. AAHENT’s expertise in assessing your current cloud infrastructure ensures security and compliance offering training and change environment support. Navigate to the cloud technologies with ease, because AAHENT is standing strong supporting your back.