Understanding the 6 Most Common Migration Strategies

Transitioning to the cloud has become increasingly crucial, especially for businesses seeking agility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Thus, companies need to choose the right cloud migration plan to guarantee a smooth transition and make the most of what the cloud has to offer.

This blog article examines the concept of cloud migration, explains alternative migration strategies, and explores common challenges that arise during the migration process.

Content

Understanding cloud migration
Types of cloud migration strategies
- 1. Rehosting (Lift and Shift)
- 2. Replatforming
- 3. Repurchasing
- 4. Refactoring
- 5. Retiring
- 6. Retaining
Which strategy is right for your organisation?

Understanding cloud migration

The process of migrating an organisation’s digital assets, applications, data, and infrastructure from on-premises or legacy systems to the cloud is known as cloud migration. Businesses may benefit from scalable resources, greater flexibility, and enhanced collaboration by leveraging the power of cloud computing, giving them a competitive edge in the market.

Important steps must be taken during the cloud migration to guarantee a smooth transfer. Firstly, thorough preparation is needed, including evaluating the present environment and choosing the most effective relocation method. Using an application performance management (APM) system and consulting a professional can offer real-time visibility and help create a thorough migration strategy.

The next important step is to choose the right cloud environment, whether it is public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud, to meet the company’s demands. Ensuring safeguards for data backup, recovery, and security in the cloud is also essential. Finally, pre- and post-migration application performance must be analysed to measure the migration’s success.

Types of cloud migration strategies

1. Rehosting (Lift and Shift)

Rehosting is the process of migrating existing infrastructure, databases, and applications from on-premises environments to the cloud without any changes. This approach might be suitable for traditional/ risk-averse companies, businesses without long-term cloud strategies, or businesses looking for a rapid return on investment (ROI).

Organisations can quickly migrate to the cloud by lifting and shifting programs, databases, and infrastructure without major adjustments. The approach may not enable organisations to experience the full advantages of the cloud, and there may be missed opportunities for optimisation.

2. Replatforming

Replatforming, sometimes referred to as lift-and-shift, involves migrating the required infrastructure and application to the cloud while introducing minor optimisations to enhance the infrastructure/application’s efficiency, reduce costs, or take advantage of cloud capabilities.

This strategy is suitable for businesses that want to preserve their foundational architecture while leveraging the benefits of the cloud.

With the re-platforming approach, organisations may gain from greater performance, higher scalability, and improved resilience. Applications and infrastructure may need to be adjusted throughout the transfer process to better align with cloud capabilities. However, further work is needed for optimisation, and some compatibility issues may need to be resolved.

3. Repurchasing

Repurchasing is also known as drop and shop. This strategy, in simple terms, involves dropping or replacing the business’ applications with a different, newer version or product that ultimately provides users with more value than the legacy, on-premise solutions.

For instance, adopting a multi-tenant SaaS financial management solution to leverage its flexibility to access relevant insights on the go, only paying for what users actually use through a subscription model, scaling upon demand, outsourcing maintenance and updates to vendors, and more.

The new application should deliver more business value than the existing on-premises application, including features such as accessibility from anywhere, no infrastructure to maintain, and pay-as-you-go pricing. Repurchasing the application typically reduces costs associated with maintenance, infrastructure, and licensing.

With this strategy, businesses can leverage the advanced capabilities of cloud-native alternatives while spending less on maintenance.

However, there is a learning curve for new systems, and data transfer issues might arise. Businesses must balance the advantages of improved functionality and cost-effectiveness with the requirement to train their personnel on the new platform.

4. Refactoring

Refactoring, also known as rearchitecting, entails completely rewriting programs to fully leverage the unique features of the cloud environment. This approach enables businesses to fully utilise the cloud’s capabilities, such as serverless computing and auto-scaling, leading to future compatibility and scalability.

Refactoring, however, is a time-consuming and costly procedure. Because of the potential for disruptions, strategic planning and resource allocation are required throughout the application rebuild.

5. Retiring

Certain applications may no longer be useful or relevant when application portfolios are being evaluated for cloud readiness. In these situations, retiring these programs by deactivating them can save costs, which can then be used towards other cloud migration initiatives.

The retirement method enables enterprises to simply turn down programs when they are no longer necessary or relevant, saving money. Businesses may optimise their application portfolio and concentrate on more important assets by identifying and deactivating programs that do not support cloud readiness. Programs that are no longer required might be retired, thereby significantly strengthening the business case for other apps that are ready for relocation.

Want a real example? Here’s a success story from one of our clients, Global Insurance Corporation (Vietnam)

How GIC Mitigates End-of-Life Systems Challenge? Find the Answer Here →

6. Retaining

Adoption of the cloud may not always be possible or viable for a company. Regulatory requirements, recent application improvements, or other priorities may delay the transfer. It is critical to assess the business case and revisit cloud computing later to ensure the migration aligns with the organisation’s preparedness.

The maintenance method is suitable for firms that are not yet ready to deploy cloud computing due to compliance restrictions, recent application modifications, or other priorities.

Organisations can prioritise other initiatives and reduce migration risks by delaying migration and reconsidering cloud adoption afterwards. This strategy, meanwhile, can lead to missed opportunities and a delay in reaping the cloud’s advantages. Evaluating the business case and choosing the best time to migrate to the cloud is crucial.

Which strategy is right for your organisation?

Selecting the optimal cloud migration plan is a crucial step in achieving a seamless transition to the cloud. The strategies discussed in this article each have their own advantages and considerations.

To fully leverage the benefits of cloud computing, organisations must align their decisions with their company objectives while understanding the pros and cons of each technique.

Determining the right cloud migration strategy requires careful evaluation of specific factors unique to each organisation. However, it is essential for companies to first have a deep understanding of their goals and objectives.

While digitally transforming your business processes through cloud solutions may not be the most suitable approach for you today, that does not mean it is completely ruled out for the future.

Undoubtedly, migrating to the cloud is a significant undertaking. Therefore, the process should be approached as a journey rather than a one-time project.