Cloud Migration, not to be confused with virtualization, is a major project in the digital transformation of companies. Its deployment must be carefully considered before being initiated.
Different approaches are possible, each having distinct considerations in terms of budget, speed, or even simplicity. During Cloud migration also keep an eye on cloud security.
To help you choose the one that will be best suited for your migration project, it is important to know the considerations to implement it, as well as the 6 different strategies commonly used to migrate to the cloud.
The challenges of Cloud Migration:
Cost reduction, the flexibility of business applications, solutions adapted to hybrid work… The advantages of the Cloud are numerous, there is no longer any doubt for you. The question is how to make your migration project a success.
To start, clearly defining the objectives of your project is essential. Is the priority to reduce data storage costs?
To gain the flexibility to adopt a hybrid work organization and allow employees to work from any place and any device?
Or to increase application performance? The definition of your objectives will be decisive for the success of your migration project.
Second challenge: determining the scope of applications and data to be migrated to the Cloud. This mapping will make it possible to assess the complexity of the project and to calculate the server costs to be expected.
To direct your company’s IS towards an “as a service” model, several technological choices are available to you.
An IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) technology often allows you to quickly make your transition to the Cloud while controlling your costs.
On the other hand, the choice of a PaaS (Platform-as-a-service) technology complicates the migration but generates more return in the long term, with a reduction in operating costs and increased technical flexibility.
Security is another important aspect of your migration. This is to not lose or damage the datasets to be migrated. It will therefore be vital to provide backups and train employees to avoid human error.
Depending on their complexity, some migration projects may require companies to provide additional human resources.
It is, therefore, necessary to anticipate the possible recruitments to be made.
Finally, it is essential to budget the migration project as a whole: prices of the service providers accompanying you in your project, costs of storage, applications, HR reinforcements, etc. to be sure of its viability.
Top 6 Cloud Migration Strategies
Rehosting:
This approach is the simplest and fastest way to successfully migrate to the Cloud. It consists of moving data and applications from a server to the cloud, without making major changes.
Cloud Migration can therefore be largely automated, in order to significantly reduce its cost and quickly generate a return on investment (ROI).
Be careful though: this strategy does not plan to take advantage of the advanced features offered by the Cloud migration.
The change of platform:
This strategy is like that of rehosting but adds a few modifications aimed at taking advantage of certain Cloud functionalities without rethinking the entire application architecture.
This intermediate approach, therefore, seeks to find the best compromise between performance, cost, and speed of execution of the cloud migration.
Redevelopment (refactoring):
This approach consists of overhauling the architecture of the applications. The goal is clear: to benefit from all the opportunities and functionalities offered by the Cloud.
This is the most expensive strategy, but also the one that offers the most flexibility and performance. It is also very future-proof, allowing automatic cloud scalability.
Repurchase:
This strategy aims to migrate the company’s applications to SaaS platforms. The company can for example move its CRM to Salesforce.
This cost-effective approach, however, requires employees to be trained in the SaaS platforms in question.
Withdrawal (withdraws):
Retirement consists of identifying unnecessary applications and data so that they are not migrated to the cloud.
This retirement approach deactivates all obsolete elements and excludes them from migration… which also saves money.
Preservation (retaining):
No question of migrating to the Cloud at all costs: sometimes, during the feasibility study of a migration project, it can be called into question.
Internal reluctance, lack of budget, objectives that are too unclear… some applications or all of them may continue to be hosted locally.
The company can then take the time necessary to bring together all the favorable conditions for cloud migration.
There are different strategies for migrating your data and applications to the cloud, each catering to different goals and budgets.
Faced with these 6 approaches for cloud migration, it is necessary to carry out a thorough reflection and a feasibility study which will allow you to choose the one which will be the most suitable for your company.
