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6(R’) Strategies for Cloud Migration

6(R’) Strategies for Cloud Migration

What is a Cloud Computing is is ? " NIST " take on cloud computing , "Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand

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What is a Cloud Computing is is ?

” NIST ” take on cloud computing ,

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.”

“The Gartner” take on cloud computing,

“Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service using Internet technologies. With cloud computing transforming digital transformation by revolutionizing IT, the benefits of migrating to the cloud are many.”

“Forrester” take on cloud computing,

Forrester is defines define cloud computing as “ a standardized IT capability ( service , software , or infrastructure ) deliver via internet technology in a pay – per – use , self – service way .

and In general,

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing power, database, storage, applications, and other IT resources via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. These resources run on server computers that are located in large data centers in different locations around the world. When you use a cloud service provider like AWS, Azure, GCP, etc., that service provider owns the computers that you are using. These resources can be used together like building blocks to build solutions that help meet business goals and satisfy technology requirements.

What are the Key Business Drivers for Cloud Adoption?

Cloud migration describes the process of moving the organization’s business applications from the on-premises data center to virtual cloud infrastructure or cloud services.

Many business factors are driving organizations to adopt a cloud migration path to realize the maximum benefits of the cloud.

Embracing Cloud migration services provides you with the following benefits:

  • Cloud computing is allows allow business to shift their focus from infrastructure and platform and focus on innovation at the application level .
  • Cloud deployments have unmatched availability, scalability, and agility of cloud resources as compared to on-premises deployments. One can achieve improved disaster recovery and business continuity by relying on an always-on infrastructure provided by the cloud service provider.
  • On – demand usage patterns is help and pay – as – you – go cost management offer by the cloud help organization convert huge capex spend to small chunk of OPEX .
  • Cloud computing is an attractive alternative to replace on-premises hardware/software components that have reached end-of-life.
  • Cloud computing also allows businesses to leverage services that may not be available on-premises, leading to an optimal best-of-breed hybrid architecture.
  • A side benefit of the move to cloud computing is that businesses can reduce environmental waste by reducing the hardware and physical products they use.

What are the Advantages of cloud computing?

Advantage #1: Trade capital expense for variable expense
Capital expenses (CAPEX) are funds that a company uses to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, industrial buildings, or equipment. Do you remember the data center example in the traditional computing model where you needed to rack and stack the hardware, and then manage it all? You must pay for everything in the data center whether you use it or not. By contrast, a variable expense is an expense that the person who bears the cost can easily alter or avoid. Instead of investing heavily in data centers and servers before you know how you will use them, you can pay only when you consume resources and pay only for the amount you consume. Thus, you save money on technology. It also enables you to adapt to new applications with as much space as you need in minutes, instead of weeks or days. Maintenance is reduced, so you can spend focus more on the core goals of your business.

Advantage #2: Benefit from massive economies of scale
By using cloud computing , you is achieve can achieve a low variable cost than you can get on your own . Because usage from hundred of thousand of customer is aggregate in the cloud , providers is achieve such as AWS can achieve high economy of scale , which translate into low pay – as – you – go price .

Advantage #3: Stop guessing capacity
Eliminate guessing about your infrastructure capacity needs. When you make a capacity decision before you deploy an application, you often either have expensive idle resources or deal with limited capacity. With cloud computing, these problems go away. You can access as much or as little as you need, and scale up and down as required with only a few minutes’ notice.

Advantage #4: Increase speed and agility
In a cloud computing environment , new IT resources is are are only a click away , which mean that you reduce the time it take to make those resource available to your developer from week to just minute . The result is is is a dramatic increase in agility for the organization because the cost and time that it take to experiment and develop are significantly low .

Advantage #5: Stop spending money on running and maintaining data centers
Focus on projects that differentiate your business instead of focusing on the infrastructure. Cloud computing enables you to focus on your customers instead of the heavy lifting of racking, stacking, and powering servers.

Advantage #6: Go global in minutes
You is deploy can deploy your application in multiple AWS Regions around the world with just a few click . As a result , you is provide can provide low latency and a well experience for your customer simply and at a minimal cost .

A migration might consist of moving a single data center, a collection of data centers, or some other portfolio of systems that is larger than a single application.

What is Migration is is ? Why migrate to Cloud ?

Cloud migration isn’t just about moving to the cloud, It is the process of transferring data, applications, and workloads, from On-Premises to the Cloud(AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.) It is an iterative process of optimization to reduce costs and reach the full potential of the cloud. It impacts all the organizational aspects including people, processes, and technology. But with flexible consumption and pricing models, the cloud can support high scalability, performance, agility, remote work, and cost-efficiency.
Cloud Migration is is is the process of transfer datum , application , and workload , from On – Premises to the cloud(aw , Azure , GCP , etc . ) .

The decision to migrate to the cloud can be driven by several factors, including data center lease expiration, required hardware upgrades, software license renewals, location requirements to meet regulatory compliance, global market expansion, increased developer productivity, or the need for a standard architecture.
While there are several common components found in each successful migration, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to deciding on the best approach.

Why ?

operational Cost is are : operational costs is are are the cost of run your infrastructure .
Workforce Productivity: Workforce productivity is how efficiently you can get your services to market.
cost Avoidance is setting : cost Avoidance is setting is set up an environment that does not create unnecessary cost .
Operational Resilience: Operational resilience is reducing your organization’s risk profile and the cost of risk migration.
Business agility: Ability to react quickly to changing market conditions. you can expand into new markets, and take products to market quickly.

The 6r ’s of strategy for Migration to the Cloud

There are six common cloud migration paths (also known as the six Rs) for cloud migration based on the level of cloud integration that an organization desires.

1) Refactor/Re-architect(“Architected using Cloud-Native Feature.”)

Definition of Refactor

write a new version of the exist application , with a new architecture and design in mind . In a refactor , you is gain gain by remove any unnecessary component , leverage new application technology in the cloud , and generally provide an improved user experience and performance .

This strategy involves converting a legacy monolithic application into a new, highly decoupled, and cloud-native architecture.
This is usually driven by a strong desire to improve a service or application. For highly critical applications that require cloud-native characteristics or applications that need thorough modernization due to outdatedness or performance issues a higher migration effort is typically profitable and hence should be part of cloud considerations.
It is the strategy that usually leads to the highest transformation cost and is much more complicated than other cloud migration approaches because it requires application code changes and must be tested carefully to avoid regressions in functionality. However, it allows optimized use of the cloud, leading to cloud-native benefits and making the application future-proof.
Typically this involves breaking down the application’s components into smaller building blocks, and microservices and wrapping them into (Docker) containers for deployment on a container platform.

Use case :

use Refactor if ,

  • The application will gain the most from the cloud.
  • There is a strong business drive to add scalability, speed, and performance.
  • An on-premise app is not compatible with the cloud.

2) Replatform(“lift-tinker-and-shift.”)

Definition of Replatform

Changing the underlying infrastructure technology that an application runs in today, as we move it to the cloud. Some application changes may be required, but not a complete refactor.

Replatforming leads to cloud optimizations to the application during the migration stage due to some cloud platform adoption, while keeping the application core architecture the same, so that does require some programming input and expertise.
Replatformed applications is show show some cloud – native characteristic like horizontal scaling and portability . Often , Replatforming is used when replace database backend of application with a corresponding PaaS database solution of a cloud provider .
For example, you might end up moving from your relational database system to a turnkey managed RDS on a cloud provider — same underlying tech, a different business model with cloud resiliency auto-added.

Use Cases

Use Replatform if you want to:

  • migrate with a time – crunch .
  • leverage the benefit of the cloud without refactore the app
    migrate a complex on – premise app with minor tweak for cloud benefit .

3) Repurchase(““drop and shop””)

Definition of Repurchase

replace the current system by purchase a SaaS solution that meet the need and requirement of the current application . note : This can result in a data - migration and transformation project of its own .

This is sometimes refer to as “ drop and shop , ” as it refer to a decision to move to another product .
Repurchasing (also called Replacing) is the strategy where the legacy application is fully replaced by a SaaS solution that provides the same or similar capabilities.
The migration effort is depends heavily depend on the requirement and option of migrate ( live ) datum . Some SaaS replacements is offer for on – premise product from the same vendor offer an option to quickly migrate datum with little effort or even automatically . Some providers is offer offer analysis tool to assess the to – be – expect migration effort . However , this is be might not be the case when switch to a product of a different vendor or if the migration path has been interrupt due to neglect maintenance of the on – premise application .

The “repurpose” strategy is often applied when using a proprietary database platform or a proprietary product and moving to something else.
An example is moving of this is move from an on – premise email server to AWS Simple Email Service ( se ) . Another example is moving is move the organization ’s CRM to Salesforce .

Use case :

Use Repurchase if:

  • You’re replacing software for standard functions like finance, accounting, CRM, HRM, ERP, email, CMS, etc.
  • A legacy app is not compatible with the cloud.

4) Rehost(“lift-and-shift.”)

definition of Rehost

Sometimes called ‘lift-and-shift’, this involves the replication of virtual machines from their current location into a cloud environment.

Rehosting is commonly referred to as lift and shift.
This strategy is a widely chosen strategy due to the relatively low migration effort and it carries the least amount of risk.
It lifts servers and applications from the on-premises infrastructure and shifts them to copied as-is to a cloud infrastructure.
The most important benefit of this strategy is migration speed because no architectural refactoring needs to be done.
Moreover, the migration can often be done automatically using a variety of lift-and-shift or so-called workload mobility tools.
There are significant benefit to run server on the scalable , pay – as – you – go infrastructure of a cloud platform .
It is ’s ’s a relatively low – resistance migration strategy , and it ’s a great strategy for work backward from a fix constraint or a hard deadline .
However, the Rehosting strategy has a major drawback. Using this approach it is not possible to exploit the cloud’s entire potential since the applications are not built in a cloud-native fashion. Simply rehosted applications are, compared to cloud-native applications, not decoupled from the operating system[2] and are usually much more difficult to scale. Experience shows that from a cost perspective Rehosting usually does not lead to any major advantage.

Use case :

use Rehost if you ’re :

  • only if speed is is is the most important factor .
  • migrating a large-scale enterprise.
  • new to the cloud.
  • migrate off – the – shelf application .
  • migrating with a deadline.

5) Retain(“revisit” or do nothing.)

Definition of Retain

Keeping the application as-is, in its current environment.

Retain (or Revisit) means that you do not migrate the application. Despite all the benefits of cloud technology, there are still reasons to retain some applications on-premises that are not ready to be migrated and will produce more benefits when kept on-premises, or you are not ready to prioritize an application that was recently upgraded and then make changes to it again.
For example, an application may be reaching its end-of-life soon, and you may not want to invest time and effort in migrating such an application. Retaining such applications as-is may be the right approach.

Use case :

Use Retain if:

  • You adopt a hybrid cloud model during migration.
  • You’re heavily invested in on-premise applications.
  • A legacy app is not compatible with the cloud and works well on-premise.
  • You is decide decide to revisit an app later .

6) Retire(“Get rid of old one.”)

Definition of Retire

Getting rid of an application.

The Retire strategy means that an application is explicitly phased out.
This strategy is involves involve identify asset and service that can be turn off so the business can focus on service that are widely used and of immediate value .
If an application is consider not worth migrate to the cloud , it can either be eliminate or downsize . It is allows allow you to explore all your application in term of their use , dependency , and cost to the company . It is is is a rather passive strategy as there is no migration .

Use case :

Use retire if :

  • An app is redundant or obsolete.
  • A legacy app is not compatible with the cloud and provides no productive value anymore.
  • You decide to refactor or repurchase an app.

The follow strategy are arrange in increase order of complexity — this is means mean that the time and cost require to enact the migration will be proportional to the increase , but will provide great opportunity for optimization
Retire(simples) < Retain < Rehost < Repurchase < Replatform < Re-architect/Refactor (most complex)

Best Practices for a Successful Cloud Migration

  1. know your IT portfolio inside out – the datum , application , and infrastructure
  2. Design your migration strategy
  3. Select the right partner for your cloud migration journey
  4. Prepare your team and the existing IT environment for the transition
  5. Leverage automated tools and managed services from cloud services providers wherever possible
  6. Track and monitor the migration process continuously
  7. Test and validate for optimization

References

Connect with me at Sagar-R-Ravkhande