Cloud migration is a strategic process that enables companies to move data, applications, and infrastructure to cloud environments for increased efficiency and scalability. More and more organizations are turning to cloud migration services to get expert support at every stage — from planning and assessment to implementation and optimization. Understanding how the cloud migration process works helps avoid critical errors, reduce costs, and ensure a smooth transition to cloud technologies.
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What Is Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration involves moving data, applications, and/or infrastructure from an on-premises environment, such as physical servers or data centers, to the cloud. Cloud solutions include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and others.
Moving to the cloud is becoming an increasingly common practice in businesses around the world. Some companies migrate part of their services, while others prefer to move entirely.
What Types of Cloud Migration Are There?
There are several types of cloud migration. It is impossible to choose one and call it the best, since each has its own pros and cons. The choice of one or another migration approach depends on the characteristics of the data and applications being moved to the cloud, the migration conditions, the needs of the company, and other factors. Below, we will consider some approaches in more detail.
Lift and Shift
This approach does not involve significant reworking or modification as part of the data migration. Lift and Shift allows organizations to preserve the logic and data located on-premises.
It is considered a fast and relatively inexpensive migration path, as it does not require extensive changes to the existing application. However, migration using Lift and Shift may make some native cloud functions unavailable. This creates the risk of additional operational costs.
Moving to Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS involves moving applications and data to a cloud platform, where they become available over the Internet. This approach allows organizations to reduce infrastructure management costs. The cloud provider is responsible for support, timely updates, security, and scalability of systems. This also helps reduce hardware and application management costs.
Application Refactoring
Application refactoring involves changing the internal structure and optimizing for the cloud. This type of migration involves reviewing the architecture, code, and functionality. This work can be performed by both the organization that owns the application and a hired integrator or cloud service provider.
Application refactoring can include changes to improve scalability, resource management, security, and performance. This often involves moving to a microservices architecture, leveraging cloud services and resources, and optimizing code for cloud-native use.
The primary goal of application refactoring is to better utilize cloud capabilities such as scalability, flexibility, and resource management. This approach can also improve the overall performance and reliability of applications in the cloud.
Replatforming
This is the process of migrating applications or infrastructure to a cloud environment with minimal changes to the architecture and configuration. These changes can include infrastructure reconfiguration, optimization, and adaptation to new cloud technologies and standards without changing the core application architecture.
Cloud-to-Cloud Migration Process
This is the transfer of data and applications from one cloud platform to another. For example, a company using virtual machines on the Hyper-V platform migrates its applications and data to the VMware platform in the cloud. This requires an application compatibility analysis, a migration plan, data migration, and networking between clouds.
What Tasks Can Migration to the Cloud Solve
Migration to the cloud can solve various tasks for a company. Let’s look at some of them below.
- Increased availability and reliability. Cloud providers can provide a higher level of availability for applications and data, which helps prevent downtime and ensure continuous business operation.
- Reduced IT costs. Migration to the cloud allows organizations to optimize resource use by reducing the cost of supporting and updating equipment.
- Increased flexibility and scalability. Cloud solutions provide rapid scaling of computing resources depending on business needs.
- Security. Cloud providers usually provide a high level of security and can provide protection against various threats, which allows for more reliable storage and processing of data.
- Simplification of management. More transparency and capabilities in IT infrastructure management, in particular with the help of a graphical interface.
Take advantage of cloud migration consultations from N-iX to learn more!
Cloud Migration Steps
To ensure a smooth and successful transition to the cloud, it is important to create a detailed migration plan. It may look like this:
- Analyze your current infrastructure.
Here, it is important to assess your existing resources and determine how suitable they are for migration to the cloud, as well as identify priority applications and data to migrate.
- Determine your migration goals.
The next step is to determine what exactly you want to achieve by moving to the cloud. Clear metrics for migration success should be defined before you begin.
- Choose a migration approach.
There are several different approaches, depending on your company’s needs. The best option for each application or resource may be different.
- Ensure data security.
When migrating data from on-premises storage to the cloud, it is worth considering what mechanisms will manage access and encryption.
- Plan employee training.
To ensure a smooth transition and minimize potential problems, it is necessary to develop a plan for training and supporting employees.
- Choose a cloud provider.
There are quite a few cloud platforms on the market today. When choosing one, it is worth relying on the reputation of the provider, the level of security offered, and compliance with standards.
- Conduct testing.
Before migrating applications and services to the cloud, it is worth conducting tests and making sure that downtime will be minimal and users will not face significant inconveniences. It is also important that all employees understand their role and responsibility in the migration process.
- Perform the migration and set up monitoring.
Once the company is sure that it can ensure business continuity during the move, it can begin the migration. Once it is complete, it is imperative to set up monitoring systems to track performance in the cloud.
Final Thoughts
A properly implemented cloud migration process can significantly increase the efficiency of a company, improve data security, and ensure infrastructure flexibility. To ensure the process is as fast and risk-free as possible, it is important to involve experienced specialists. N-iX offers cloud migration services, helping organizations of all sizes develop individual migration strategies, minimize downtime, and maximize the benefits of cloud technologies.
