Cloud Migration Strategy - From Assessment & Planning to Migration

Most of the companies have either migrated most of their operations to the cloud or are planning to shift some of their applications to a public cloud. Are you also planning to do the same? If yes, then you are one of those 50% of the companies who are planning to move towards an off-center system. This number is expected to rise at an exponential rate in the coming years. The main factors which are driving organizations to go for cloud migration are reduced time to market, improved availability of cloud platforms, opportunity to generate new revenue streams, etc.

However, before a company shifts towards a cloud-based solution, it is important that they should understand the entire process and how things need to be executed. They also need to compare various cloud migration strategies and then zero down on the most feasible method for cloud migration. In this article, we have explained the entire process in detail, which can be helpful for organizations during cloud migration.

The Need for Cloud Migration

Migrating to the cloud has become the need of the hour for companies across numerous industry sectors and this trend is only expected to continue and grow exponentially. Its popularity has sky-rocketed in the past few years and is driven by the series of benefits it offers. Some of the benefits are listed here -

• Easy scalability and reuse of the application components when there is an increase in the demand
• Reduced overhead costs and improved operational efficiency
• As there is no investment of time and costs on infrastructure, businesses can provide quicker application deployment and implementation to their clients
• Easy expansion and setting up of the business at any geographical location, without the hassle of time constraints, infrastructure costs, skilled resources, error-control efforts, etc.
• Handling increasing demand for storage also becomes easy
• Quickly build widely distributed development team by allowing employees in remote location to use Internet to access applications and work from their location
• Setting up a disaster recovery system using cloud DR systems is half the cost of implementing complex disaster recovery plans. Besides, cloud DR systems are quick and simple to implement, providing better control over the resources
• Quicker tracking and upgrading of the existing software, which is often taken care by the cloud service provider
• Some cloud computing models also handle tasks such as periodic maintenance and database backup

Cloud Migration Strategy: Assessment, Planning, Migration & Validation

Cloud migration lifecycle is a four-stage process which needs to be carried out in a streamlined manner. It is important to compare cloud migration strategies, understand the process to introduce cloud services into your IT portfolio, and then migrate your applications to the cloud. Here is a cloud migration checklist guide one has to follow for a successful cloud migration process -

1. Assessment

   

   The first step in the strategy is to assess all the business requirements, as cloud providers do not follow the "one-size-fits-all" strategy. Companies need to find the most appropriate cloud platform after identifying their organizational culture and application portfolio. Here are some of the factors to consider in the assessment stage -

   • Check if your organization is the correct fit for the cloud platform selected
   • Analyze the type of workloads you are planning to move to the cloud
   • The cost of moving to cloud is often not easily calculated, so it is important to look out for some extra charges based on geographical location, bandwidth consumed, backup and storage requirements, etc.
   • Check if there are any gaps in the platform and discuss with the prospective cloud vendors about viable workaround plans to bridge this gap
   • Often organizations get accustomed to certain tools, which might not get adopted in the cloud environment. In such situations it is important to get comfortable with replacing these tools with those supported by the cloud environment

2. Planning

   

   Once you have addressed all the questions during the assessment stage and finally made a choice of the cloud platform you will be using, the next stage is planning the cloud migration. This is one of the most important stages in the entire process as this will determine how smoothly cloud migration will be carried out. Aspects to take care during this stage are -

   • Analyzing different apps, cloud environments, and the type of workload to be migrated
   • Checking the application's architecture and topology
   • Foreseeing any performance issues related to cloud migration
   • Checking different hybrid integration plans
   • Identifying early adopters and seeking their guidance for smooth transition to cloud
   • Looking at the Single Sign-On (SSO) mechanisms provided by the cloud vendor and making this as the first step in any project to leverage the cloud service
   • Ensuring that the team gets familiar with the services by tailoring onboarding materials to help the staff get comfortable with the cloud
   • Checking whether any internal changes should be made for the new environment
   • Deciding how the updated code, data, and configurations will be deployed in the new cloud environment
   • Analyzing how the service can be operated after migration
   • Minimizing the transition downtime by setting up the new environment and keeping it synced with primary environment till the transition is
   • Planning the entire process of making payments to the cloud provider
   • Checking and implementing a small-scale project and doing trial runs before completely migrating to check whether the services addresses all the above concerns

3. Migration

   

   After proper planning is done, it seems like the actual migration should be an easy task, but it is not so. The actual cloud migration may spring many surprises and hence utmost care should be taken during this process. Some of the key aspects to be looked into include -

   • Deciding on how the applications and data will be distributed in the cloud environment
   • Checking whether there are any security measures to be taken during the transfer process
   • Carefully migrating virtual machines to the cloud environment
   • Migrating all the required data and other important applications
   • Recreating the metadata by setting up supporting configurations for your cloud destination

4. Validation

   

   After the entire process of cloud migration is completed, it is important to check and verify all the applications to know whether they are performing well. Some of the key things that need to be checked include -

   • Checking whether the application migrated is reachable and can be accessed by the user
   • Checking whether all the required data is transferred to the cloud environment
   • Checking whether the administrative tools can access the applications and data in the cloud environment

Avail the Cloud Advantage with Our Custom Software Development Solutions

Outsource2india is a leading software development service providing company based in India serving global clients. We have an experience of over 24 years, and have served clients from different industry domains. With cloud migration going mainstream, we have updated ourselves with all the latest technology trends to serve our clients better. Therefore, we can provide you with the consultations on cloud migration strategies to ensure smooth and hassle-free transition. Our software development team is updated with various cloud migration tools, methods for cloud migration and has the software expertise to assist companies with their cloud migration needs at highly cost-effective prices.

If you are planning to migrate your business to cloud then feel free to discuss your requirements with us today.