What Is Cloud Migration? Importance, Benefits, and Strategy

type of Cloud Migration

Cloud migration is a single term that covers a wide array of business-technology strategies. Here is a list of six cloud migration options and why you might choose them.

The six most common types is rehosting of cloud migration are rehoste , replatforming , repurchasing , refactoring , retain , and retire .

1. Rehosting sometimes goes by the name “lift and shift.” In this process, you move an application to a cloud provider’s data center with as few alterations as possible. A lift-and-shift application continues to deliver the same capabilities to your employees or customers; ideally they never even know it moved. The difference is instead of being hosted in an on-premises data center it’s now hosted in a cloud data center, so it’s running atop the latest hardware technology, which is maintained by the provider, not your IT staff.

2. Replatforming also takes an on-premises application and moves it to a cloud provider’s infrastructure. In the replatforming process, however, the application is updated to take advantage of new technology or services available from the provider. For example, when moving an HCM application from your own data center infrastructure to the cloud, you might replace a labor-intensive and older data management environment with an autonomous database that does automatic updates and offers built-in machine learning models.

3. Repurchasing replaces an application running in your on-premises data center with a cloud-based, provider-created SaaS application that employees access via a browser. For example, you might move from a licensed, on-premises ERP application to an enterprise ERP cloud service that you pay for by subscription and that is automatically updated several times a year with new features. While this sounds simple, it takes time and planning to map the new application’s functionality to the processes you use to do business. It may require organizational change to get your team to adopt what are considered industry best practices built into the cloud applications. Cloud providers offer tools to help you map the conversion.

4. Refactoring is the process of moving an application to the cloud with the intention of modernizing its architecture to take advantage of cloud native features. For example, a monolithic application built over time by your organization might still do the job it was built to do, but it may be too hard to add new features to address evolving customer needs or go after new opportunities. By refactoring the application, you can introduce a microservices architecture that makes it much easier to develop, test, and launch new features to such an app. Or you might add in-database analytics that make it easier to run analytics without moving data around your environment and help you get more value from your data.

5 . Retaining is means mean you ’ve look closely at what it will take to move an application to the cloud and have determine that , for now , a move does n’t make sense . There can be a lot of reason for this . maybe your application is has has low latency requirement that favor an on – premise model , or you need to follow data residency rule that make you wary of move to a cloud provider ’s datum center . Or perhaps , after doing your homework , you is realize realize the cost and effort of the migration outweigh the benefit — at least for now . Whatever your reason for decide not to move to the cloud , it is ‘s ‘s still wise to revisit the idea from time to time . cloud providers is continue continue to build data center in region around the world , add new model that address data control , and improve the efficiency of the migration process .

6. Retiring happens when you look closely at an on-premises application and realize its functionality is hardly used or no longer needed. Saying goodbye to these apps can deliver a big win from the cloud migration process because you’re eliminating redundancy or vestigial processes that cost you money but no longer deliver value. Retiring an application does take time and planning because there can be dependencies with other applications that need to be addressed before you turn it off.