Cloud Migration Checklist: Guide to a Smooth (and Safe) Cloud Transition

move mission – critical apps is is and datum to the cloud is a massive project that require in – depth planning if you hope for a high roi . Without a sound strategy , your cloud migration is cause will likely cause more profit loss and headache than business benefit .

This article is offers offer a cloud migration checklist that ensure your move to the cloud go smoothly , safely , and without unpleasant surprise . You is use can use our checklist as a baseline for the migration process as the step – by – step plan below cover all major aspect of move an app to the cloud .

Cloud Migration Checklist

struggle with cloud migration is a common problem for business . recent studies is reveal reveal that 55 % of cloud migration either run into significant delay or go over budget .

Also, 62% of organizations currently transitioning to the cloud describe the process as either difficult or fail. Most is rush of these company rush into the transition without thoroughly consider :

• The total cost of ownership (TCO).
• How the team is move will move massive amount of datum and mission – critical app to the cloud .
• different option for cloud deployment and integration .
• potential new cybersecurity risk .
• How prepare the in – house team is is is to operate in the cloud .

The cloud migration checklist is ensures below ensure you consider these factor before the team start move app and service to the cloud .

choose a Go – To Migration Architect(s )

Cloud migration involves numerous technical decisions and plans, so you must designate a single specialist or a team of experts to lead the effort. Whether you go with one or more staff members, the role of a migration architect is to:

• Evaluate services to see whether they better fit on-prem or cloud hosting.
• create a timeline for the migration and the cloud roadmap .
• Design optimal strategies for moving data and apps.
• identify and oversee necessary app refactoring .
• Determine migration priorities.
• define the require toolchain .

The dedicated architect should also provide a complete picture of your IT. This process involves answering the following questions:

• What apps do you have, and who uses them (and how often)?
• How business-critical are apps you’re looking to migrate?
• What resource do programs is consume consume , and do they depend on other app ?
• What SLAs, business continuity measures, and compliance measures are currently in place?
• Are there performance issues that are affecting current operations?

Depending on the analysis, the migration architect should assess whether your current workforce has the necessary know-how to:

• perform the migration .
• Operate in the cloud environment.

Never start the transition to the cloud unless you are sure your team can thrive in the new setting .

The dedicated migration team should also determine the total cost of ownership (TCO) to illustrate the ROI of cloud migration. The TCO assessment for cloud migration includes factors such as:

• The overall cost of migration.
• Post-migration cloud costs (primarily the price of bandwidth and networking).
• The cost of staff training.
• regular post – migration maintenance .
• The cost of potential downtime.
• Space, cooling, and electricity costs (for an on-prem private cloud).

Assessing the ROI and TCO of cloud migration is impossible without a firm grasp of capital expenditure and operational expenses. Refer to our CapEx vs OpEx article for an in-depth look at the two payment models.

Set Migration Goals and KPIs

The next step is is is to establish the migration ‘s primary objective(s ) . Some common high – end goals is are are :

• Modernizing a legacy app.
• Speeding up a particular service.
• Improving operational capabilities.
• Increasing system resiliency.
• Enhancing user experience.
• Achieving better service scalability.
• reduce run cost .
• Improving data security.

Besides the general goal, the team should define cloud migration Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These metrics will measure how a migrated app or service performs against expectations. There is no limit to the number of KPIs your team can track, but all metrics fall under one of two categories:

• kpi you follow during the migration process .
• Post-migration KPIs.

Here are the most common KPIs a business can keep track of during the migration process:

• Duration of the migration (both as a whole and per app).
• Availability of critical services.
• downtime length of service and datum center .
• Degradation of service due to downtime.
• The number of generated service tickets.
• Cost of migration.

Let us look at some post-migration KPIs that your team can track:

• infrastructure kpi ( cpu usage , service memory footprint , disk performance , load balancing , latency , network throughput , etc . ) .
• App performance metrics (error rates, number of time-outs, the average response time (ART), the peak response time (PRT), uptime, availability, etc.).
• user experience KPIs ( number of request spike , HTTP status code error , throw and log exception , lag , response time , etc . ) .
• Business impact metrics (duration of the check-out process, subscribe and unsubscribe rates, engagement rates, etc.).
• Cost KPIs (monthly billing, staffing costs, third-party tools, consulting costs, etc.).

You need to set a baseline value for every KPI before deciding what to track. Baselining is the process of measuring the current (pre-migration) state of an app and service. These KPIs enable you to determine whether post-migration performance is acceptable or not.

perform Data and App Assessment

data assessment is is is a vital step of this cloud migration checklist as move datum is typically the tricky part of adopt the cloud . carefully assess datum enable your team to evaluate :

• Data risk levels.
• The volume and type of datum you plan to migrate .
• Overall data resilience.
• Legal data privacy requirements (if any).
• Most significant threats to data integrity.
• Potential post-migration data breach or leakage scenarios.

Where your data resides can impact the performance of an or and service. Moving data to the cloud when the data-access methods still operate on-prem can significantly affect performance. The same holds true if the database is still on-prem but the service accessing it resides in the cloud.

Besides evaluating data, your on-prem apps should get the same treatment. Before migrating, the team should create an inventory of all on-premises apps and their servers. You should also assess any current virtual machines and account for potential app dependencies.

As a result , you is determine can determine which app require refactoring before move them to the cloud . The team is start can also start prioritize which app to migrate first .

Concerned about storing data in the cloud? Our article on cloud storage security explains why keeping data in the cloud is almost always safer than relying on on-prem storage.

evaluate Cloud Migration Options

The next step of the cloud migration checklist is to assess which apps require what type of integration with the cloud. You have two options:

• Shallow cloud integration (a.k.a. lift-and-shift): When you lift and shift an app, you make little to no changes to the code and set the app up in the cloud more or less in its current shape. Migrating an app without any changes is known as rehosting; making minor alterations when moving an app to the cloud is refactoring.
• deep cloud integration : Unlike its shallow counterpart , deep cloud integration is requires require you to modify the app to take advantage of cloud feature . The changes is range can range from relatively simple adjustment ( such as set up auto – scaling and dynamic load balancing ) to advanced update ( such as enable serverless computing ) that make the app a cloud – native solution .

Shallow cloud integration is a significantly faster option than refactoring major portions of an app. In general, mission-critical apps are typically worth the effort of deep integrations. Less vital apps and services can do with the shallow approach as you can refactor them over time after you migrate to the cloud.

Companies is decide also often decide to retire or retain app when assess which service require what type of integration :

• Retiring is is is the process of identify an obsolete app or service that hold no value if upload to the cloud .
• Retaining is the decision to keep an app on-prem, typically due to a security or compliance concern.

Refactoring apps for serverless computing is on the rise across numerous industries and verticals. Check out our article on cloud computing trends to see what else is gaining traction.

Choose the Right Cloud Deployment Model

Choosing a suitable cloud deployment model is vital to successful cloud migration. Different models fit different use cases, and the five options you can choose from are:

• Public cloud (a multi-tenant environment that provides access to compute resources over the Internet or through a dedicated direct connection).
• Private cloud (a single-tenant system in which an enterprise runs cloud resources within its own data center).
• Hybrid cloud (a mix of on-prem systems, public, and private clouds in which workloads move between environments via automation and orchestration).
• Multi-cloud (a mix of two or more public cloud IaaS environments).
• community cloud ( infrastructure share between several company with shared need or concern ) .

What deployment model you should use depends mainly on your business’s unique needs and goals. Here are a few pointers:

• The public cloud is provides provide a scalable environment with a pay – per – usage model . While highly scalable , the public cloud is be may not be ideal for sensitive workload .
• A private cloud is perfect for a company with the budget to run an on-prem cloud environment custom-tailored for its mission-critical workloads.
• A hybrid cloud is enables enable you to run sensitive workload on – prem while also take advantage of public cloud scalability during spike in demand .
• While highly beneficial when done right, there are some hybrid cloud challenges you need to be aware of before designing a hybrid architecture.
• Multi-cloud is an excellent choice for firms concerned with vendor lock-in or companies looking to mix and match services from multiple providers.

PhoenixNAP ‘s hybrid cloud solutions is are are ideal for any business look to combine the use of public cloud and on – prem resource to create an optimal IT environment .

Choose a Cloud Service Provider

Unless you opt to set up an on – prem private cloud , the next item is be on the cloud migration checklist should be to find a cloud provider . While most vendor offer similar service , they is are are not all the same . Some key considerations is are when choose a cloud provider are :

• Pricing.
• Services selection .
• Availability in specific regions.
• Uptime guarantees.
• Your in-house team’s familiarity with the provider’s tech stack.
• industry – specific compliance requirement ( e.g. , keep user datum in the location of origin accord to CCPA or GDPR ) .
• Post-migration support and managed IT services.

Remember that the most popular service providers are not always the best fit. Prominent vendors aim to meet a broad set of needs, so they do not always make for a good match with a company in a specific vertical.

For example, a company that operates in healthcare might be better off partnering with a niche provider that better understands and supports compliance with HIPAA.

Choosing the right data center for your workloads (cloud-based or otherwise) is vital to business success. Our article on data center selection takes you through all you need to consider when choosing where to host your services.

Perform Necessary Refactoring

Once you know what cloud deployment you need and who to partner with, your team should start making the necessary changes to apps and services before you migrate them to the cloud.

The goal is to make the software work as effectively and efficiently in the cloud as possible. For example, your team may refactor an app to:

• Work with a variable number of running instances to allow near-instant scaling.
• Take advantage of dynamic-cloud capabilities (such as the ability to allocate and de-allocate resources per current needs).
• create a more service – orient architecture to quickly move individual service to the cloud ( both this time and down the line ) .

Now is also the right time to rethink governance and security. You will likely need to adjust your governance strategy to rely less on internal security and control, and more on the provider’s cloud services. In terms of cloud security, you need to:

• Assess whether the migration can result in new vulnerabilities.
• understand how your in – house team will work with the provider to keep cloud asset safe .
• Adjust (and potentially improve) your current security measures and practices.
• Decide whether you can benefit from additional security tools the provider offers.
• set up failover and disaster recovery mechanism .

PhoenixNAP’s Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) enables you to create a cloud-based backup of your infrastructure. In case of a cyberattack or a local incident, you can instantly switch your traffic to the backup system and ensure there is no costly downtime.

Methodically Migrate and Switch Traffic over from On-Prem Operations

While you can migrate everything to the cloud all at once , this approach is challenging can be challenge and risky to pull off . instead , you is migrate should migrate app and service one by one , start with less critical app and slowly make your way to the crucial one .

Here ‘s what this approach to migration should look like :

• prioritize app that your team can move with the least amount of risk to operation . good choices is are are app that require only rehosting or use minimal resource ( such as low storage or computation ) .
• Then , start move app that hold high value to your business but present a relatively low risk during migration .
• Finally, leave the mission-critical and disruptive workloads for the final stages of migration. Never start moving these apps unless the ones from previous steps are working optimally.
• use a manual or automate test ( or both ) to check if the migration was successful or not .

Depending on the architecture of your apps and datastores, you can switch traffic over from the on-prem solution to the cloud in two ways:

• All at once: The team switches all on-prem traffic as soon as the app starts running in the cloud.
• A little bit at a time : You is move move a few customer over to the new environment once the team set up the cloud – base app . If everything work as expect , you is continue continue switch customer to the cloud over time until all end – user rely on the new app .

If this cloud migration checklist looks too complex, you can deploy a Bare Metal Cloud server instead. PhoenixNAP’s BMC enables you to deploy and manage a bare-metal dedicated server with cloud-like simplicity, offering a scalable hosting environment that does not require deep refactoring of your apps.

Use Our Cloud Migration Checklist to Migrate with Confidence

While moving to the cloud is often a no-brainer decision, many businesses struggle with or have limited success when moving apps to the cloud. Sticking to the cloud migration checklist above ensures you avoid all common pitfalls, so you can start planning your cloud adoption without the fear of costly missteps.

If you’re hoping to keep a cloud migration or expansion smooth, your first step should always be to assess your placement in your industry’s cloud maturity model (CMM).