Top 6 Strategy Migration Your Business To The Cloud
How to deal with a migration project to the cloud? One of the advantages of cloud migration is that it allows you to combine services to fit the needs of your business and your customers. In the cloud industry, the formula of ‘the 6 Rs’ is used to identify different migration strategies to be applied according to the characteristics of your project.
1. Rehost
It is the simplest cloud migration model, but also the one that is most likely to cause problems, increase costs and alienate key stakeholders. The rehosting (or also called “lift and shift”), is simply to replicate an existing system in cloud migration.
This approach has the advantage of being quick and easy, but also that inefficiencies and failures will be migrated equally to the cloud. Many of the negative experiences in reported cloud migration projects come from companies that chose this migration model without fully assessing the impact it would have.
2. Re-platform
The re-platforming is a model that involves a certain degree of business analysis to identify those processes and services that may be eliminated from your operations. If you do not have a team with experience in this type of project, it is advisable to go to expert partners who, in addition, will help us to take full advantage of the technologies that are not mastered.
Switching to managed services facilitates a relatively quick migration to the cloud without the need to redesign the architecture of the application/workload. Therefore, this “R” is sometimes called “Lift and Tweak”.
3. Re-purchase
As the name suggests, it is simply a matter of buying back the SaaS version of an application you already use. Microsoft Exchange? Switch to Office 365 and you will get the included Exchange functionality. Microsoft Dynamics ERP? Switch to Dynamics 365.
Initially, it is likely that financial management is not very willing to buy something that you already have, but there are good reasons to convince it that it is the best. First, the SaaS is usually licensed per user per month, so you go from the CapEx model to the OpEx model and you will never pay for what you do not use. Secondly, on-site applications are a source of expenditure on internal resources, but if you pass to SaaS the responsibility for hosting and maintaining the application falls on the provider. In other words, you can generate considerable savings without spending on infrastructure management.
4. Refactor
The most advanced approach, but more expensive, when it comes to migrating is refactoring, which involves re-engineering applications and processes to take advantage of cloud technologies. Instead of creating a virtual server to host the application, you can contain it and/or connect it to native cloud services.
Yes, you have to develop the application again (sometimes from scratch), but this approach ensures you minimize the use of cloud resources, providing greater control over billing. It also allows you to better scale application and support services, as well as data sets, without the expense of managing a virtualized server farm.
5. Retain
In some cases, there is no compelling reason to migrate a system to the cloud. This can happen through the existing licensing conditions (such as hardware license keys) or the general incompatibility with cloud platforms.
In these cases, the application is kept as it is. It does not mean that your migration strategy is a failure, but to understand that not everything fits in the cloud. There is always some improvement or saving to do in other planes.
6. Remove
Perhaps one of the most satisfying aspects of migration to the cloud. With this model, you finally turn off some of the systems that have been draining budget and resources because they are no longer needed.
The repurchased systems are the candidate’s par excellence to be retired. Basically, anything that is no longer used can be turned off and discarded.
Conclusions
In all likelihood, your company will need to use a combination of these approaches to begin the process of migrating to the cloud. The Migration rehosting model will put you to work, but in the long run, will not provide cost savings or efficiency. With the refactoring, you will have to make a considerable investment, which will surely be more convenient to distribute over the years in accordance with the available financing.
Which brings us back to the importance of understanding your current IT and how you use it. Only then will you be able to properly define the best way to migrate each application and service to achieve the maximum possible effect – or if migrating is even the best option.
Key ideas:
- The rehosting is the “fast and running” option. This approach is only appropriate in very specific cases.
- Re-platforming allows you to reduce the infrastructure and start the transition to an OpEx financial model.
- In some cases, the re-purchasing of cloud versions of systems that you already use has all the business sense, although initially, you may have the opposite of the financial management.
- The refactoring of applications is expensive initially, but its redesign will bring significant benefits in the long term.
- Sometimes you have to keep legacy systems and, in reality, it may be for the best.
- The ultimate purpose of cloud reengineering is to remove unnecessary systems and applications. Keep your focus on achieving it.