In this blog, we share insight into cloud migrations, including strategies, benefits, and service models. Learn how moving to cloud environments like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud can save costs, improve scalability, and enhance security.
More and more organizations are embracing cloud migration, “the process of moving applications, data, infrastructure, security, and other objects to a cloud computing environment” like Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, or Amazon Web Services (AWS). Global cloud revenue is expected to reach $2 trillion by 2030, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), digital transformation, increasing cybersecurity needs, and more.
Cloud Migration Service Models
Cloud Migration Processes and Best Practices
Explore Cloud Migration Services
Companies report significant benefits, such as 20 percent infrastructure cost savings, increased scalability, improved security, enhanced regulatory compliance, safer backup and disaster recovery, and simpler IT management.
Cloud migration is on the rise, thanks to significant benefits in cost savings, scalability, resource management, and improved regulatory compliance. Businesses should choose their specific type of cloud migration strategy – from a simple re-hosting to a full rebuild – while using best practices like proper planning, execution, testing, and ongoing optimization.
What Are the Types of Cloud Migration
So, what exactly is cloud migration? It’s the process of moving private, on-premise data to a public cloud provider. Depending on your specific business needs and technical requirements, there are a few different options for cloud migration.
Data Center Migration
First, you might move a physical on-premise status center to a cloud server like AWS. Data center migration is ideal for organizations like hospital systems with large patient data files and significant medical imaging that might move from its physical data center to improve accessibility and security while reducing the risk of downtime in case of a natural disaster.
Hybrid Cloud Migration
Hybrid cloud migration is often touted as being the best of both worlds, combining secure on-premise data centers with more scalable and cost-efficient cloud resources. For example, utility companies might want to maintain control of usage analytics on-site while managing unexpected surges on a more cost-efficient public cloud.
It helps modernize IT infrastructure by improving cost efficiency, enhancing regulatory compliance, and offering better solutions for business continuity and disaster recovery.
Cloud-to-Cloud Migration
To avoid vendor lock-in, gain price advantages, or diversify your capabilities and functionality, you might migrate public cloud providers like moving from Microsoft Azure to AWS.
Once you’ve determined the type of cloud migration that best suits your needs, there are different strategies for migration depending on application complexity, overall architecture, business goals, technical requirements, and compliance needs. Let’s walk through those below.
Cloud Migration Strategies
From a complete ground-up rebuild to a simple lifting and shift, there are multiple cloud migration strategies.
Lift and Shift
The most straightforward option is to simply move applications without any existing code or structural modifications, also called re-hosting. This option is fast, cost-effective, and best for decades-old institutions that want to keep existing applications.
Refactor
Refactoring is more complex because it optimizes applications for cloud performance. For example, an online retailer struggling with performance bottlenecks, slow response times, and expensive hardware with its existing solution might want to optimize to be more cloud-friendly.
Refactoring involves optimizing code, embracing cloud-native tools like containerization, and building a microservice architecture.
Replatform
In comparison to re-factoring, platforming makes minimal code changes to improve performance in a cloud environment. It’s simply adjusting operations like moving SQL databases from on-premise to a cloud provider or updating operating environments.
Small changes like database migrations or switching to cloud-native storage solutions increase processing power, reduce latency, and use resources more efficiently.
Rebuild
Rebuilding is the extensive process of rewriting applications for cloud-native capabilities from the ground up, and it’s best for companies looking to completely transform legacy systems. This is popular with long-standing businesses like insurance, banking, or financial institutions that need to optimize decades of outdated infrastructure.
Replace
On the other hand, replacing is substituting outdated systems with cloud solutions, and it’s ideal when companies are willing to let go of existing infrastructure. Replacing offers faster deployment, lower costs, and reduced maintenance and integrations on merging legacy infrastructure; however, it’s also a major upfront cost and, logistically, one of the more complex options.
Once you align stakeholders, IT, and leadership on the right migration strategy, it’s time to choose a service model.
Cloud Migration Service Models
Whether your main focus is control or simplified development, different service models are tailored to distinct benefits, so choose one that’s best aligned with overall business goals.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Examples of IaaS include IBM Cloud, AWS, Rackspace, and other networking organizations that support web apps, storage, and application servers.
Benefits include fast deployment of IT resources, superior control, cost efficiency with pay-as-you-go models, and scalability. Especially for improved disaster recovery of critical systems or temporary production environments needed for software development, IaaS is a core component of a cloud strategy.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
PaaS supports software development by offering the underlying infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking. Examples include AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Google App Engine, which both speed up development time and reduce operational costs.
PaaS is helpful for larger enterprise development teams launching microservices, developing MVP products, and executing large data processing and analysis.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is the most popular and well-known service model with cost-effective, scalable, and user-friendly applications access over the internet. SaaS platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Slack, or Google Workspace improve collaboration, productivity, accessibility and project management for distributed teams. These are especially popular with technology businesses, startups and e-commerce organizations.
Once you’re familiar with the different service models, you can start building your own migration process based on best practices.
Cloud Migration Process and Best Practices
Seventy percent of companies have accelerated their cloud migration plans in the last year, highlighting the importance of a speedy and successful migration. To ensure speed and success during the process, it’s important to clearly outline a comprehensive, end-to-end cloud migration process for your team. Take a look at the below 6-step process, or explore more in-depth strategies with the 5 Ws of planning cloud migration.
1. Assessment
First, assess your overall current infrastructure and readiness. Cloud migrations are time-consuming, intense, months-long initiatives. Make sure your business has the budget, team members, and resources available.
Best Practice: Develop a clear strategy and objectives for all team members to reference and follow.
2. Planning
If your organization is ready, create a detailed migration roadmap that includes goals, costs, application inventories, plans for security, and a migration timeline. Cover plans for training and enablement for current teams as well.
Best Practice: Create a comprehensive migration and risk management plan, and ensure all stakeholders have a final sign-off.
3. Preparation
Prepare and configure environments, ensure compatibility, and start working on any necessary security measures.
Best Practice: Version control systems help track changes and allow for easy reverting without losing progress.
4. Migration Execution
Once everyone is fully aligned and preparation is complete, it’s time to move applications and data to your cloud environment.
Best Practice: Using incremental dynamic migration helps reduce downtime, and it might even be worthwhile to alert customers that systems might be down for a few hours.
5. Testing
Perform a mix of functionality and performance testing to make sure all systems operate as expected. Complete processes end to end for full validation.
Best Practice: it’s almost impossible for humans to fully test every aspect of cloud migration, so use automation tools to streamline migration tasks and reduce human error.
6. Optimization
Continuous optimization fine-tunes for performance and cost efficiency. For example, maybe you discover auto-scaling would optimize costs during peak times and allow you to save money on slow overnight hours.
Best Practice: Commit to regular monitoring and optimization, knowing your team will need professional development, training, and continuous learning to optimize cloud infrastructure in the future.
Once you’ve laid out a thorough migration plan, harness the benefits of cloud migration to get the entire company onboard.
Benefits of Cloud Migration
The vast majority of businesses report significant benefits across costs, flexibility, security, and risk management after cloud migration.
Cost Optimization
Cloud migration services save money on networking, hardware, infrastructure, and staff resources — one of the biggest reasons businesses make the significant move. AWS reports a 68 percent reduction in networking costs, and 57 percent of IT professionals say it has reduced their overall IT costs. Cloud migration negates the need for expensive hardware, continuous equipment upgrades, and massive data centers and cooling units.
Scalability and Flexibility
Another way cloud migration saves money is through easy scalability and flexibility. Businesses can reduce cloud costs during slower times and pay for more bandwidth during busier seasons, ensuring efficient budget management. Plus, when major increases and services are needed, you don’t need to make a large upfront investment.
Enhanced Security
Cloud migration brings more sophisticated automated threat detection, data encryption, easier patch management, identity management, backup and disaster recovery, and tools like multifactor authentication and endpoint security. All of these are crucial components of a modern cybersecurity strategy, protecting the large and sensitive data loads housed in the cloud.
Improved Compliance
Cloud infrastructure also creates detailed user activity and audit trails, which helps improve compliance with industry regulations. For example, GDPR requires activity logs of changes to data, and HIPAA once equally detailed user activity trails around electronic health records to ensure authorized individuals are the only ones with access.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Cloud servers protect data from natural disasters like hurricanes, floods or fires, but they also provide automated tools for continuous backup management. Your business is less likely to experience significant downtime with proactive backups, and 24/7/365 monitoring quickly detects any outages.
Simplified Management
Overall, IT management is simpler and more streamlined in the cloud. For example, IT workers can automate backups for more reliable disaster recovery, eliminating tons of manual and repetitive tasks. They can also manage network performance, see an overview of security, and add and delete users within a single platform.
There are significant benefits to cloud migration, but it doesn’t come without its challenges.
Challenges of Cloud Migration
Looking to the next decade, cloud migration is important for businesses to stay competitive, integrate advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and reduce their overall time to market for new innovative products.
However, this major process isn’t without challenges, complexities, some security concerns, and the potential for short-term downtime. For example, building from scratch is costly and time-consuming, teams might need cloud-native skills development, and initial migration costs might be high.
Many cloud migration challenges are eliminated when you choose the right migration partner with decades of experience, specifically in your industry. Also, invest in organizational change management and training.
This also helps reduce downtime during the migration and makes your overall investment more successful.
Explore Cloud Migration Services
Cloud migration is an extremely popular IT solution with significant benefits in cost savings, efficiency, security, and innovation. However, it’s important to acknowledge that transitioning to the cloud is a major undertaking for any organization. It requires a well-thought-out, strategic migration plan tailored to meet unique needs and challenges that may arise.
Additionally, cloud migration’s complexity and critical nature highlight the benefits an expert migration partner offers. This partner can provide the necessary guidance, support and technical expertise to ensure success, minimizing potential disruptions to business operations while maximizing the benefits of moving to the cloud.
Our security engagement with Hilldrup turned into a cloud transformation project that lowered costs and freed up employee’s time.
Don’t let cloud complexity hold you back. Our specialists can help you navigate the cloud landscape and find the perfect fit for your organization. Contact us to discuss options around cloud migration services today.
