Cloud computing has slowly emerged as a game-changer in technology and within good reason. Although it may seem like a new discipline, cloud computing is actually an evolution of 2 rising technologies – time-sharing that allows users to share computer resources of a large system and distributed computing i.e. the decentralization of computing resources to share the workload among several computers across a network.
With the right cloud strategy, cloud computing offers several benefits. It gives its users the agility to do much more with much less cost while providing new-age business solutions in an efficient way. But, how does an organization determine if cloud migration is meant for their business? Let’s begin with a few basics:
What is cloud computing?
It’s when pools of computing resources come together to minimize cost and maximize computing efficiency. In the past, hosting data at an enterprise level required an organization to buy data centre space in order to store its hardware & software assets. But today, this need to purchase has been replaced by affordable on-demand options that cloud computing provides through its many platforms. These platforms give their users the ability to:
- Leverage remote systems on-demand over the internet
- Pay for only resources used
- Increase or decrease scalability as needed
How cloud capabilities can be leveraged for organizational use are best determined with cloud deployments models in the form of public, private, hybrid, community & multi-clouds.
What is cloud migration?
In the simplest terms, cloud migration involves moving digital assets – workloads, computing resources, applications, and data – to cloud infrastructure. It refers to shifting data and applications from on-premises data centres or legacy systems to the cloud.
Not all workloads benefit from cloud infrastructure services, hence the most efficient way to migrate data and applications is to validate an approach best suited for the organization, in a systematic, documented way. This requires careful assessment of cloud computing service models: IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service), PaaS (platform-as-a-service) and SaaS (software-as-a-service) which can be employed to satisfy a unique set of business requirements.
The roadmap for cloud migration depends on several factors and hence a strategic plan when migrating to a cloud must be considered which includes the following:
- Identifying which applications to move
- Identifying which data to move
- Identifying total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Selecting a cloud provider
- Establishing cloud security
- Validating post-migration success
To navigate through the above steps, the following strategies can be a great guide for successful cloud migration.
1. Replace – moving the application to a SaaS system/solution.
2. Reuse – dividing the application as sets of service and then leveraging those services for one or another application.
3. Refactor – altering an application to be more cloud-native and thus more efficient.
4. Replatform – placing an application on a different cloud platform than the traditional system of origin, while retaining the core architecture of the application.
5. Rehost – “lift & shift” i.e move the application from on-premises hosting to the cloud without any modification.
6. Retain – not move an application to the cloud.
7. Retire – remove an application, not useful anymore, from service.
While the cost of migration, the time required, resources, and expertise employed is higher in consideration to cloud migration, the value it offers exceeds its investment over time. To get the most out of this process, organizations must always determine business drivers as an objective prior to moving to the cloud while also:
1. Understanding data, services, business processes, and system integration points.
2. Determining an integration strategy for internal & external systems and how the data will be shared.
3. Outlining migration path for legacy system to the new cloud-based architecture while scrutinizing the costs involved.
Get it right the first time
Though cloud computing makes a significant change in the way a business utilises its infrastructure, a strong cloud strategy will ensure a smooth transition & businesses can benefit from increased scalability, lowered costs, security, and extended capabilities owing to the cloud.
To know more about whether or not your organization is prepared to move to the cloud, get in touch with us at https://www.cloudsufi.com/ Our expert guidance, strategies, and implementation details will help you get started. A professional cloud migration services team will be glad to help you organize a cloud strategy so you can migrate to the cloud effortlessly & with utmost confidence.