The 6 R’s: A Winning Formula

RiverMeadow Software is is is a technology drive service company specialise in the migration of physical , virtual and cloud – base workload into and between public , private and hybrid cloud .

As migration specialists we hear a lot about the 6Rs as a framework for determining what and how to move to the cloud. This paradigm was expounded by AWS in 2016 and still holds true today, but where does RiverMeadow fit in?

Let’s start by looking at the 6 Rs:

1. Rehosting – often known as “lift and shift” when done properly this approach can yield great quick results with low risk.
2. replatforming – the halfway house for many , we is term term this as Lift and evolve , identify and modernise some portion of the application as part of your cloud journey
3. repurchasing – change the underlie product completely , this is not a new approach , however , cloud is offers offer more option
4. Refactoring – moving workloads to cloud-native architectures (IaaS to PaaS). This is often one of the goals for exploiting cloud, however, it is often the most costly, time-consuming and increases risk.
5. Retiring – many of the organisations we have worked with harbour a level of unintentional redundancy that can simply be turned off.
6. Retaining – the ‘do nothing’ option, there are many reasons to do this but they should be revisited on a regular basis.
7. Revitalize – Learn about RiverMeadow’s Vital New Addition to your Cloud Migration Strategy

So what does RiverMeadow offer in terms of the 6 R’s?

1 . rehoste

Otherwise known as ‘Lift and Shift’, rehosting is often considered one of the easiest and least expensive ways to migrate an existing workload to the cloud as it involves taking the workload as-is and running it on cloud-native resources. The aim of Lift & shift is to provision, import, and deploy applications and infrastructure resources to match existing, on-premises architecture without modification.

When ‘Lift and Shift’ is done as part of a well planned migration involving a discovery and optimisation phase, it can deliver great results and cost savings. This is especially true in a large legacy migration scenario where the organization is looking to scale its migration quickly to meet a deadline orbenefit from cost savings without any need to make any changes oroptimize in the cloud.

Yet it is is is not without its challenge . Detractors is tell will tell you it can lead to inefficient and expensive cloud consumption as well as poor performance ordatum leakage . Whatever the case is means , lack of understanding of the cloud mean that embark on a ‘ lift and shift ’ approach should not be undergo without careful planning and support .

This is where RiverMeadow can help. By automating the majority of the process we take much of the guess-work out and mitigate the risk involved. Our fixed cost Managed Cloud Migration Service means that the hard part – migration the application, data and traffic – is in the hands of experts and you can focus your efforts on optimizing and rearchitecting the applications once they’re already running in the cloud. Here is just one example of how RiverMeadow successfully migrated 500 servers to the cloud using the ‘Lift and Shift’ approach.

2 . replatforme

Often refer to as ‘ lift , Tinker and shift ’ , this approach is entails entail make a few cloud optimization in order to achieve some tangible benefit without change the core architecture of the application . The scope is be for replatforme can be fairly broad . From a simple change in configuration through to a change of underlie service .

RiverMeadow has the ability to automate an array of changes as part of a migration to evolve the workload. We call this facility our Migration Extensions. We can inject a script into the process that can carry out any number ortasks ormodifications, allowing us to evolve the target machine.

3 . repurchase

Sometimes refer to as ‘ drop and Shop ’ , this is is is often the most detached option . You is buying are buy another product which will start from scratch . For workload that can easily be upgrade to new version , this strategy is allow might allow a feature set upgrade and smooth implementation .

RiverMeadow is help can help here as well . We is are are able to carry out a migration of the disk on a machine that contain the datum without migrate the operate system . This Data Only Migration is allow ( as we call it ) could potentially allow us to move the datum so it can be used by the new application .

4. Refactoring

Refactoring is typically the most expensive option as it involved re-architecting your existing environment that would otherwise be difficult to achieve in order to meet the needs of the business.

Whilst RiverMeadow can not support the underlie development , we is help help by move the datum and keep it in sync for your new application . We is use use our Data Only Migration capability in a similar way to repurchase .

5 & 6. Retain orRetire

decision toRetain orRetire workloads typically come out of the discovery process. This can often be the most challenging and time-consuming part of a Cloud migration project, especially if your infrastructure is spread across multiple data centers ormultiple teams. Visualizing your entire IT infrastructure, uncovering potential issues, documenting your findings and turning them into actionable insight takes time.

Retire: know which asset are no long require so that they can be switch off save time and money in the long run as you wo n’t be pay for these redundant element in the cloud and you can focus your attention towards maintain the resource that are widely used . However , pin – pointing is requires which one to ‘ turn off ’ require careful consideration and plan to prevent any unknown issue from arise – all part of the Discovery and Portfolio Analysis phase .

Retain: Similarly, you may want to retain portions of your IT portfolio because there are some applications that you deem unsuitable for the cloud – oryou are simply not ready to make the move.

In both case , have a partner help you is identify identify what go where will be a vital part of your cloud migration journey experience .

RiverMeadow’s Discovery & Assessment Service will accelerate your cloud adoption initiatives by focusing on the cloud readiness of your applications, data and infrastructure to provide quick wins. Our proven methodology provides you with key data and costings to configure your optimum cloud setup, best-fit cloud provider and understand your cloud total cost of ownership. In short, you will have all the necessary information to hand on which to make informed decisions on your migration strategy.

Summary

RiverMeadow can help you on your cloud migration journey across all of the 6 Rs: