Cloud Migration strategies

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Challenges with Application, Data, and Infrastructure Migration to the Cloud

Migrating to the cloud is no cakewalk. You need a professional cloud management partner to make the transition seamless, and easy. We can handle all your cloud migration challenges with our customized cloud migration services. Migrate your legacy, on-prem applications, data, or infrastructure from any platform to the Azure/AWS cloud. We help enterprises smoothly transition their business towards digital transformation.

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud Migration is a path to digital transformation. It is a strategy to move legacy applications/services/data/infrastructure from on-premises to the cloud. Cloud Migration is an important practice among organizations that are facing challenges with an excess of legacy applications, that aren’t aligned with business process, strategy, vision and high cost of ownership that comes with the maintenance of its infrastructure and security. You can partner with a cloud migration service provider to ensure an efficient and cost-effective transition to the cloud.

The Cloud Migration consists of four phases. These include:

  • Discovery Phase (Applications assessment).
  • Analysis Phase (Analyze & Determine Action).
  • Recommendation/ Strategy Phase (Choose respective R strategy).
  • Migration Phase (Migrate by using the chosen strategy).

When choosing the Cloud Migration strategy, the following 2 factors are important

  • Cloud Deployment Model (Public/Private/Hybrid/Multi-Cloud).
  • Cloud Computing model (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS).

Advantages of Cloud Migration

  • Digital Transformation
  • IT Simplification and Standardization
  • Enhanced security and compliance
  • Faster access to infrastructure
  • Faster time to market
  • Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery
  • Optimize cost by moving from Capex to Opex model or Lower Operational Costs
  • Improved IT productivity and operational efficiency
  • Minimum Possible downtime
  • Global reach
  • Greater availability and unlimited scalability
  • Higher performance
  • Rationalize applications portfolio
  • Operate from anywhere

The cloud journey is unique for every business. There is no straight formula that fits all migration plans. Every application/ data/infrastructure to be migrated is associated with different cost, compute, security, complexity and performance requirements.

The complexity of migrating these legacy applications varies based on existing architecture, vendor locking, existing licensing, investments made on on-premises, etc.

To address the cloud migration challenges, there are 6 application migration strategies commonly known as The 6Rs

The 6Rs are

These are the essential ways to handle the cloud adoption strategy or cloud migration:

Cloud Migration infographic
Cloud Migration infographic Mobile

Rehost- Lift and Shift

Move as -is to cloud

Rehosting is also known as a “lift and shift” process. It is one of the easiest and quickest cloud migration strategies where an application and data are moved to the selected cloud provider without change in code and architecture.

Replatform -Lift, tinker and shift

In Replatform, we might make a few cloud optimizations to achieve some tangible benefit without any changes to application architecture. It makes optimizations to the application during the cloud migration phase.

Example: Move On-prem SQL to Azure SQL/ AWS RDS to reduce the amount of time in managing the database instances.

Refactor/Re-architect- On-premises to serverless:

Refactoring or Rearchitecting is reimagining how the application is architected and developed typically using cloud-native features. In this, we mostly rewrite applications from scratch to make their cloud-native applications. (For example, microservices architecture, containers, Kubernetes, etc). These refactored applications are scalable, agile and efficient. When an existing application is not compatible with cloud services, we use refactoring.

Repurchase- Drop and Shop-Replace

On-prem to SaaS with the same capabilities

Repurchase means dropping the existing application and moving to a different product with similar capabilities.

Example: Moving CRM application to Salesforce.com

Retain- Do nothing (for now)

Keep Them as it is

Retain applications due to heavy investment made/regulatory/security fears/ latency/compliance/ not many benefits of migrating/ application need refactoring before moving to cloud (Upgrade on-prem tools to latest versions to make them compatible for cloud migration).

Retire- Get rid of

Get rid of unwanted or no longer useful applications for cost and effort savings.

Cloud Migration Challenges

Legacy Applications Compatibility with Cloud

While migrating to the cloud there might be some crucial old/legacy version applications that may not be compatible with the cloud. For example, DigitalNZ faced compatibility issues. That’s why you need to implement a phased approach for your cloud migration process. This means moving apps that don’t require changes, aligning your virtual network to communicate with your on-premises infrastructure, and re-designing or re-architecting a couple of applications when withdrawing the outdated ones.

Choosing the Right Strategy

Many Organizations fail to define their cloud migration strategy due to which they run out of costs, strategies and long-term issues. To avoid this, they need to work with expert IT teams. The ideal way to employ the best strategy is by evaluating your business needs, examining various use cases, and then chalking out a cloud migration strategy.

Cloud Migration Costs

Migrating to the cloud will reduce the costs in the mid and long run, but when it comes to the initial migration process, there are implementation costs involved. Migration to the cloud involves costs depending on your project’s scalability and specific business requirements. Each cloud service comes with unique pricing, so you’ll need to think of a pre-migration estimation to avoid pricing or cost challenges.

Migrating Huge Applications

Applications with heavy customizations and integrations are a challenge due to their complexity. If you have huge applications to migrate to the cloud, choose one at a time.

Migrating Huge Databases

Databases with larger sizes are a challenge to migrate due to their data size. You can team up with us for help with your cloud migration strategy. Choose small periods to move your huge database to the cloud system. It will help you to complete specific tasks within that time. You need to prioritize according to your business needs.

Lack of Technical Skills

Inhouse IT teams might have limited skillsets, this will put your business data and security at risk. The perfect way to bridge the technical skill gap is by working with a cloud management partner. Work with a skilled engineering team to ensure zero disruption and high accessibility.

Training Employees on Cloud Solutions

Ability to become efficient with new systems and policies. Collaborate with a cloud migration service provider to train and upskill your employees on cloud technologies and migration strategies.

Korcomptenz Helped a Recycling Major with Cloud Migration

Did you know that Korcomptenz lend a helping hand to a recycling major to enhance its IT application management time by moving from NAV 2016 to Azure cloud? Our client owns a family business related to recycling management and is based out of Pine Brook, New Jersey, USA.

Client Pain Points

Before approaching us, the client faced some issues such as:

  • Failure to meet the demands or needs of the ERP.
  • Technological ineffectiveness.
  • Increasing operational costs like functional and technical support.
  • Lack of infrastructure.
  • Maintenance challenges.
  • Poor/unresponsive customer service.

How We Helped

  • Helped the client in simplifying and optimizing their cloud migration.
  • Helped the client to improve application management time.
  • The client modernized the applications with hybrid and highly flexible capabilities.
  • The client made the most of their investments with zero disruptions and delays.
  • Improved the performance of current applications.

Korcomptenz Helped an Education Non-Profit with Cloud Migration

Our client is an education non-profit and helps students with online information related to university study. The client was using the on-premises setup of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 together with a personalized reporting application and SQL Server Reporting Services.

Key Challenges

  • Issues with the User Interface (UI).
  • Multiple clicks needed to access information.
  • More time taken to manage common tasks.
  • Issues related to data integrity.

How We Helped

  • Helped in migrating from CRM 2016 to the very latest Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE – cloud version.
  • Cleaning data.
  • Taking user experience to the next level.
  • Employing new marketing as well as management tools.

Wrapping Up

Migrating to the cloud has no single, template-based solution for any business. The one-size-fits-all concept will not simply work. By effectively embracing the cloud, businesses may enhance operational efficiency, improve security, cut IT costs, and improve the efficiency of their services. However, if cloud migration is not done professionally, and the right skills and expertise are not leveraged, the difficulties may exceed the benefits. Choosing the right cloud migration partner is critical for developing a personalized cloud strategy customized to your specific business needs.

Korcomptenz is a Microsoft Cloud Services Partner and to help you to configure, migrate and support your cloud infrastructure for all your critical business applications.

Contact KORCOMPTENZ for a free consultation to find out about your unique cloud journey to understand the advantages of cloud adoption.

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