What is Cloud Migration and the Benefit to Your Business?

With the world that is being more interconnected than ever, it is important for a business to also follow suit. One step business can take is to perform cloud migration – the moving of digital assets such as data, workload, or application – to cloud infrastructure. 

This migration will allow the business to provide broader access for their customer or their own employee to a certain degree. 

Here, we have compiled a discussion on the general look of “what is a cloud”, the planning and strategies that you could use, and the common challenge that you might face when performing cloud migration. 

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General Look of “What is Cloud” 

To understand why you might need to perform cloud migration in the current business environment, you first need to know about the cloud. 

Cloud computing – often being shortened into “cloud” – refers to the pool of computer services that you can access through the connection of the internet. 

The advantage of this pool of computers is its ability to be accessed instantly without the need for the user to set it up themselves. Cloud also allows businesses to move away from on-premise storage. 

Instead, the cloud provider will have dedicated massive data centers around the world to fill all of their clients' needs. These data centers allow the cloud provider to better maintain and secure the infrastructure. 

Why Move to Cloud? 

You then might ask, why should you perform cloud migration or why even use the cloud at all? So, let us make it clear the two biggest advantages of using the cloud today. 

1. No More On-Premise Server – This means no more dedicated IT specialists. You can focus more on what is your business need, rather than performing maintenance of your IT infrastructure. 

2. Virtually Limitless Computer Resources – You can have as many computer resources as you need. High workloads, add more resources. Not much going on, reduce the resources. That simple. 

If you are still unsure about the feasibility of using the cloud for your business, here are some reports and surveys regarding what the future is like. 

According to Flexera, by the end of 2020, 60% of small and medium businesses moved their workload to clouds and will continue to use the cloud for the foreseeable future. 

Another survey conducted by Venture Beat conclude that 50% of the Fortune 500 companies have undergone a digital transformation in the Q3 of 2021. 

These two surveys should have shown that modern business is putting great attention to the use of the cloud and slowly moving away from an on-premise server to cloud setups. 

Planning What You are Moving 

So, let’s say that you are willing to move your business model from on-premise to cloud, what should you do first in this case. The first thing you need to do is to plan what you are moving into the cloud. 

The fundamental planning when you want to perform cloud migration are the following: 

3. Why you are moving it, 

4. What you are moving, and 

5. How you are going to do it. 

First, evaluate “why” you want to move into the cloud. The business environment often became the biggest reason perform the migration. 

Try to set aggressive goals to drive the migration forward. This includes creating a baseline of your IT performance and cloud migration key performance indicators (KPI). 

Second, find out what you want to move into the cloud. Preferably, workloads or applications that can be moved as they are will be the first ones to be migrated. Meanwhile, with the one that needs a lot of reworking as the last one to be migrated. 

Third, choose how you are going to do perform the migration. The use of tools to simplify migrations and choosing the correct cloud deployment model will be your focus on the last step of planning. We will discuss this more in-depth in the strategies section down below. 

Strategies You Can Use to Perform Cloud Migration 

There are three most common strategies that you can use when performing cloud migration from on-premise storage. Below are the strategies in the order of the quickest and easiest set up to the most difficult one. 

1.    Rehosting (Lift and Shift) 

Rehosting is the quickest and easiest choice you can choose when performing a cloud migration. This strategy is recommended to be used for simple and low-impact workloads. 

As the name implies, this strategy is only moving your data to the cloud. Thus, you might not receive the full benefit when compared to fully going cloud-native. 

2.    Replatforming (Move and Improve) 

The replatforming strategy is used if you are looking to have some of the benefits of what a cloud environment can provide to you. Usually, it involves modernization or updates to the workload or application that will be moved to the cloud. 

This strategy is often preferred when compared to rehosting due to the benefit that businesses could receive from the cloud infrastructure. 

3.    Refactoring (Rip and Replace) 

Refactoring or re-architecting strategy is only preferable for those who wish to fully embrace the cloud. This strategy will force businesses to perform total redesign of workloads or applications to receive the full potential of the cloud infrastructure. 

Common Challenges When Performing Cloud Migration 

There is nothing in the world that can work smoothly without a problem and the same can be said with performing cloud migration. 

Here are some common challenges that you might want to know before performing a cloud migration. 

• Complexity – Different types of cloud require different types of maintenance and can fulfill different types of needs. Understanding your need for the cloud will be the utmost important thing. 
• Dependencies – Workload and application dependencies might bring cloud migration to a grinding halt. 
• Legacy Application – There are times when workload or applications are too complicated and costly to be migrated into the cloud. This is why proper planning is necessary. 
• Databases – While not that big of a challenge, a large amount of data requires time to complete the migration into the cloud. 
• Managing Cost – Proper management of cloud resources can deliver cost-saving. Thus, business needs to consider all of the required cost before and after moving to the cloud. 

Wowrack is Here to Help

Moving to a new environment can be a daunting task for business, especially when we are talking about IT needs. This is why proper survey and analysis are better conducted before making any decision. 

If you are not sure what is the best compute environment for your application, you can always consult us by clicking the link down bellow. We will help you find the best-fit solutions for your needs.