Cloud Migration Services – What They Are and Why You Need Them
Even though companies used to swear that on-premise infrastructure was the way to go, that has changed quite a bit in recent years. By limiting yourself to the same architecture that’s been used for years, you’re missing out on the ability to grow and improve productivity, which is a big deal when you’re trying to stay afloat and remain competitive. If you want to get ahead of the competition, it’s about time you and your company consider cloud migration services.
That being said, a lot of companies in various industries aren’t aware of what cloud migration is, how things work, what the stages and strategy are, and which tools you need to be using to manage everything. So, let’s discuss these topics briefly, and see why you and your company need them as a managed service.
What Are Cloud Migration Services?
At the most basic form, cloud migration is all about moving the database and all the applications your company uses from your current, on-premise infrastructure, to a cloud computing environment. Or, it could also involve moving your business from one cloud provider to another, such as moving from Microsoft’s Azure to Amazon’s AWS services or Google’s platform. On-premise infrastructure tends to be outdated very often, and it is also sometimes unreliable, not secure, difficult to manage, and takes up more space than you’d want it to. These things, along with the fact that such infrastructure is very difficult and expensive to scale and grow, make it a not-so-ideal choice for modern companies and industries that want to innovate, and affect how they run their business. A thing to note is that most of the cloud service providers themselves, like Google, Azure, and AWS, will oftentimes give you the tools to move your database and apps yourself. But the thing is, that’s a time-consuming process, and unless you’re technically very well prepared, chances are you’ll manage to get something wrong. The right solution is to hire an IT company that specializes in cloud migration services. Most of those companies, unlike big providers like Google and AWS, will offer you a tailored, managed service solution that is crafted for your specific situation. It doesn’t matter how complex your current infrastructure and database is, as a good provider will handle the move while minimizing any downtime for your company.Why Should You Consider Moving to the Cloud?
You shouldn’t be surprised that about 31% of enterprises across various industries consider moving to the cloud their top priority. We aren’t surprised either – cloud storage offers some benefits that you won’t find elsewhere, and almost any industry can benefit from them and innovate products more easily. Here are a few notable examples. Cost reduction is one of the driving forces when it comes to the switch towards cloud technology. IT-related costs can easily drop by 30 to 50 percent if you opt for cloud architecture. To add to this, you’ll be able to predict your spending better, because your company pays for the service as it needs it, and doesn’t need to invest in on-premise hardware in order to innovate products. The other big thing is scalability. Scalability is crucial if you want your company to grow, and constantly adding resources to an on-premise infrastructure isn’t the right call. With cloud computing, in many scenarios, you have unlimited resources – all you need to do is use them. Of course, this might be pricey, but the price you pay is still nothing compared to the price of investing in on-premise hardware that you need to manage. And when you don’t need the additional resources, just stop paying for them. Then, there is the flexibility of working in a cloud environment. Companies change how they do business quite often, and the expectations of their employees change as well. Whether you’ve got a business that wants to hire new employees, or you want to make sure that your current employees can access company assets wherever they are, cloud computing ensures the flexibility they need. Last but not least, there is the question of security. It’s a hot topic and one that you must always approach with care if you want your company to thrive. Legacy infrastructure isn’t all that secure, and it requires you to constantly keep it up to date and fix any potential security flaws to ensure customer (and company) data is protected. When it comes to the cloud, cloud computing providers put a massive focus on being secure, making sure that no data can be accessed from the outside. But to make things even better, even if the unthinkable happens, they have well-trained teams of experts who will hop in to make sure no damage is caused to your company.The Cloud Migration Strategy You Need
Depending on your company, and how big and complex your environment and database is there are a few basic steps that every quality cloud migration services provider will go through with you when offering this kind of managed service. The first step is to plan the migration out. We’ll get to the specific strategies in a moment, but during planning, you want to be clear on why you’re moving, so you can select the right strategy to support that movement. Assessing your current infrastructure is where you want to begin, and you’ll want a specialist who can calculate just how many resources you need and how things should go. Next, you need to choose which cloud environment you’re moving to. Your current infrastructure will have a huge impact on which cloud environment is right for you, and you’ll want to make the right assessment. Again, the help of a specialist who has hands-on experience with this goes a long way towards making everything move smoothly and efficiently. Then comes the actual move. You should always expect the unexpected here, with things like security policies and data backup being key points towards making sure everything is smooth sailing. Preparation is key, and if you’ve done the planning phase right, you shouldn’t have any issues here. Last but not least, there’s the performance comparison and validation. Your cloud migration isn’t successful until you know that it works as you intended it to. Here, a comparison between the pre-move and post-move application performance will show you how successful things are, and whether or not the cloud migration had the intended effect. Keep in mind that testing should be done in a low-risk environment, so it doesn’t affect your business. There are six cloud migration strategies you need to know about, known as the “six R’s of migration”, and they’re all suitable for different situations and industries.- Rehosting is all about transferring an exact copy of your on-premise infrastructure without any extensive changes. If your company doesn’t need to implement advanced cloud capabilities down the line, this is the ideal solution.
- Replatforming is similar to rehosting, but it involves making some minimal changes that will optimize your environment for the new cloud infrastructure. Here, the core remains the same, but you’ll get benefits such as increased overall performance, and you’ll be setting yourself up for easier upgrades down the line should you choose to better take advantage of cloud computing.
- Refactoring includes completely rebuilding the applications you use from scratch. If your existing environment and architecture are old and you find that you need to use features and capabilities that the architecture doesn’t support, this is the way to go. Even though this is arguably the most expensive option, it offers the best futureproofing and compatibility.
- Repurchasing is moving your applications and data to products that are primarily built for the cloud. If you’d rather avoid refactoring, and you can find suitable, cloud-native apps that will completely satisfy your company’s needs and requirements, repurchasing is a good option. Yes, you will lose some familiarity, and you’ll need to train your team and employees on how to use the new products. But if you need a cost-effective solution, this is your best bet.
- Retiring comes when you’ve found that some of the applications you’ve used with your old architecture no longer make sense. You can now simply stop using them (and paying for them), and repurpose the savings towards boosting your performance.
- Retaining is the one strategy that happens the least because it’s actually about companies that can’t move to the cloud yet. There aren’t too many of them, but whether it’s compliance reasons or anything else for that matter, sometimes you should just leave things be, and come back to cloud computing at a later date. Don’t force things that don’t make sense.