More businesses are deciding to move out to their workload over to the cloud as working from home becomes the norm and companies need a way for all employees to have easy access to software. However, you’ll need to look at cloud migration strategies to ensure you stop any potential problems from arising. To help you guarantee a seamless transition, take a look below for a step-by-step guide on cloud migration strategies.
What Is Being Migrated
Firstly, you’ll want to decide what is being migrated. After so many years as a business, you’ll most likely have accumulated a whole lot of applications, some of which can be removed before migration. There’s no point bringing across files that are now no longer needed or relevant. This will show you how much data you actually need to migrate.
Set An End Goal
Plan this migration as you would for any other project. Decide what you want cloud migration to do for you and create a target for the results.
Choose Your Provider
Before migration, you’ll need to choose a provider. There are lots of options available and you’ll want to be sure you’re choosing one that reflects your budget and targeted results.
The Six R’s
When you’ve chosen your provide and are ready to migrate, you’ll want a clear strategy on how this will happen. There are automation tools out there which can assist in migration and can make it faster, so you might want to consider these too. But when it comes to strategy, there are 6 common ones a smooth transition.
- Rehost
This is one of the quickest ways to migrate your workload. Simply put, you move all your applications exactly as they are onto your cloud platform of choice. However, if you haven’t gone through what data is being migrated beforehand, you may incur problems if corrupted files for example are moved over.
- Repurchase
Unlike rehosting, repurchasing is when you end the license you have on an application and move over to the cloud alternative. This can be beneficial if you find some applications don’t want to be manually moved over. As with any change, you’ll want to make sure your employees are trained on how to use the new cloud version as there could be differences between the two.
- Replatform
Replatforming combines the first two strategies as you’ll move your data over when it’s just a case of migration, and then replace some of your applications to make them more efficient while using the cloud.
- Retain
Retaining an application can sometimes be the best choice too. This means you don’t move it over to the cloud but instead keep it as it is. You may find that it’s not supported by the cloud, or there could be strict data compliance you have to adhere to, so the right option for your business would be to retain it.
- Retire
You may want to retire some software that now no longer has use to you as a business. By carefully planning your migration, you’ll soon realise if this is the case, and the application can be retired.
- Refactor
To refactor an application for the cloud means to completely change and adapt it so that it become suitable for migration. This could be because the software is high performance but doesn’t have a cloud alternative. This strategy can also be the most expensive option when it comes to migration too. A lot of software is eventually refactored into the cloud, so you may want to either look at retaining or retiring if you’re unable to refactor it.
By following a cloud migration strategy, you’ll be able to ensure you give your business the best opportunity for success after it’s completed.