The Ultimate Guide to a Successful Cloud Migration Strategy

Migrating to the cloud can open the door for your business to achieve innovation, improved performance, a better user experience, and significant cost savings. However, it’s not without its complexities. We’ll talk about what it takes to build a cloud migration strategy, including best practices, common challenges, and the types of strategies you may want to consider.

What Is a Cloud Migration Strategy?

A cloud migration strategy is a plan that outlines the process of moving digital assets, applications, and services from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud computing environment.

When it’s time to complete an on-prem to cloud migration, a cloud migration strategy can help your organization make the leap. This plan should be tailored to your particular business and current IT environment, taking into account any dependencies or potential risks to minimize disruption.

What Are the Benefits of an Effective Cloud Migration Strategy?

An effective strategy can help your organization enjoy the vast benefits of cloud migration. These include:

• Reduced costs: The cost of hardware, software, and IT personnel can quickly add up with on-premises data centers. A cloud migration plan can help you cut down on all of these expenses, especially when paired with strong cost optimization strategies.
• Scalability: On-premises infrastructure can be limiting and rigid. Moving to a public cloud provider can help your business scale up or down resources as needed.
• Performance: Legacy systems can cause performance to take a hit. With cloud computing, organizations can take advantage of current technology and more modern equipment. This unlocks faster performance and greater reliability.
• Compliance: Major cloud service providers are compliant with regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR. They can help businesses maintain adequate data protections, stay compliant, and avoid regulatory fines when hosting their workloads in the cloud.
• Agility: Moving to more flexible, cloud-based infrastructure can also help a business become more agile and responsive when facing changes in the market. This cloud agility can open the door to faster innovation.
• Security: Managing security can be a full-time effort. However, in-house IT teams are often bogged down with other daily tasks. Cloud migration helps you avoid overloading your staff by leveraging cloud-native security tools, as well as providers who secure your underlying infrastructure.
• Disaster recovery: A public cloud environment can provide a backup data storage location, improving the ability of your organization to recover when faced with a disaster.

Why Is a Cloud Migration Strategy Important?

Your particular business scenario won’t look like anyone else’s. Creating and following a tailored cloud migration strategy will help you avoid pitfalls as you move to the cloud. Without a solid strategy, you could wind up with unnecessary downtime or complications, which can cost money, productivity, and even trust in your organization.

What Are the 7 Strategies of Cloud Migration?

The seven types of cloud migration, also known as the seven Rs of cloud migration, are rehost, replatform, refactor, repurchase, relocate, retain, and retire. Whether you’re working with your internal IT team or a cloud migration expert, you’ll need to decide which strategy is the right fit for your organization:

• Rehost (Lift and Shift): A lift and shift strategy involves moving workloads to the cloud as they are, without making any changes. While it’s the fastest option, some workloads may not operate the same in the cloud, which can lead to pieces not working correctly or at all.
• Replatform: When replatforming, your applications will mostly use the same architecture and code as they did in on-premises frameworks. But now, minor adjustments may be needed to move to a cloud-based platform like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS). This can work well if the applications can be translated to a cloud environment with minimal changes.
• Refactor: A slightly more time-intensive option is refactoring, in which more extensive changes are made to the current workloads so they can be hosted in the cloud more effectively. Refactoring can include restructuring some data, rewriting code, or changing the architecture of certain applications.
• Repurchase: When repurchasing, businesses generally choose to move to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. This could look like moving an on-premises practice management system to a cloud-hosted ERP or CRM.
• Relocate: Relocating is “hypervisor-level lift and shift” that involves migrating a collection of servers from an on-premises platform (like VMware) to a cloud version of the same platform.
• Retain: Some legacy applications may require a complete rebuild to function in the cloud. When your business doesn’t have the resources to build from scratch, or even refactor, keeping applications and workloads in their current environment could be a good option for the time being.
• Retire: During the migration process, you may find that some applications are not needed in your source environment anymore and can be removed.

Choosing the Right Cloud Migration Strategy

All of the cloud migration approaches above can be effective, but the three most common strategies are rehosting, replatforming, and refactoring.

Rehosting requires few or no changes to the code. Your applications just need to run on a cloud version of its operating system, which ensures lower upfront costs and a faster migration. However, this approach can lead to costly technical debt and a lack of cloud optimization.

Replatforming involves adapting applications to the chosen cloud platform. This can involve targeted changes to the code to make use of some common cloud services, such as load balancing, but doesn’t require extensive changes. This approach can address immediate infrastructure concerns to achieve better performance and cost-efficiency.

Refactoring, also known as rearchitecting, involves rewriting and containerizing applications so they can interact with the full range of cloud services. For instance, Microsoft Azure cloud services include mobile development tools, content delivery services, digital rights protection, disaster recovery, and AI services for developing AI-based applications. This approach can be ideal for legacy application migration projects aimed at future-proofing IT systems and improving maintainability.

How to Execute a Successful Cloud Migration Strategy: 13 Best Practices

Identifying the right type of cloud migration for your business needs is only the first step to a seamless transition. A successful migration also requires careful planning, monitoring, testing, and optimization.

1. Assess the Current Environment

First, take stock of your existing IT environment and resources, as well as your company’s goals for the migration by conducting a cloud readiness assessment. This will include:

• An inventory of your company’s software, hardware, data repositories, security solutions, cloud services, and IT employee skillsets
• An evaluation of your organization’s current IT needs and future business goals
• The security requirements for cloud and non-cloud applications, projected workload needs, and a map of the dependencies between applications

Understanding your organization’s IT assets, resources, and goals will greatly reduce problems during migration. During this assessment, it’s pertinent to identify your most suitable workloads and/or applications for migration, evaluating risk levels. This will help with prioritization as you build your detailed plan.

Many managed services providers offer pre-migration evaluations that offer expert insights. For example, TierPoint’s hybrid cloud consulting services equip customers with a customized cloud roadmap, an estimated total cost of ownership (TCO) and ROI, and a phased migration plan based on IT dependencies.

2. Identify Your Migration Goals and KPIs

What do you hope to achieve from a cloud migration? Are you aiming to improve response times for remote users or reduce IT operating costs?

Setting clear goals with specific key performance indicators (KPIs) helps measure the success of the migration. Tracking KPIs can also help prove the need for cloud migration to upper management and gain support and necessary resources for the project.

Some metrics that may be used to measure migration progress include:

• Network throughput
• Network latency
• Application response rates and availability
• Error rates
• Memory usage rates
• CPU usage
• Storage costs
• Monthly downtime

The key is to select metrics that are most important to your business and best illustrate the need for, and value of, cloud adoption.

3. Select the Right Cloud Provider and Model

Because IT environments are complex, no single cloud deployment model or environment fits every need. An effective cloud migration strategy requires a careful selection of cloud models and providers.

There are four basic cloud deployment models: public, private, and hybrid or multicloud. Hybrid environments can include cloud and non-cloud infrastructure, offering both flexibility and control, and multicloud environments leverage multiple clouds to optimize performance, cost, and resilience.

When deciding on a cloud environment and model of deployment, an IT manager may consider factors such as regulatory requirements, licensing issues, scalability, accessibility for distributed workers, the computing needs of the workloads, and the need to keep existing investments in hardware or software.

4. Create a Migration Business Case

Document the benefits and costs associated with a move to the cloud in a migration business case. Focus on factors such as increased agility, improved security, and cost savings from making the switch. The business case should also examine the technical feasibility of the migration project, any risks associated with the migration, and all reasons the migration is being recommended at this time.

Be realistic about the actual costs that will be incurred so there isn’t a mismatch between strategy and implementation, and make the recommendations in the business case clear.

5. Conduct a Cost Analysis

Most major cloud providers have pricing calculators that can help you add detail to your business case and strategy. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform have tools, such as the AWS Pricing Calculator and Azure Pricing Calculator, that allow you to estimate the cost of using the platform and the various cloud services.

Get specific on your expected cloud TCO and how it compares to your current on-premises TCO.

6. Ensure Data Interoperability

Data compatibility can be a key cloud migration challenge. The movement of data can be hindered by differences in data formats, which can cause delays, corruption, or information loss.

Standardizing data formats and protocols is key to a successful transition. Even after migration, you should be working to ensure easier data transfer between cloud providers. This cloud-agnostic approach can help prevent vendor lock-in if you decide to make a switch later. Selecting a cloud provider and migration tools that support portability are good places to start.

7. Implement Your Migration in Stages

Implementing your migration in stages allows organizations to reduce risk, maintain business continuity, and adapt. Rather than attempting a disruptive “big bang” move, you can break up your process into manageable phases, so you can identify and resolve challenges early while keeping critical systems online.

A key part of this staged approach is building a clear migration timeline with defined milestones, prioritizing low-risk workloads that could benefit most from the transition.

8. Monitor Performance

Before migration, establish a baseline for application performance. This can help you identify what changes, if anything, after cloud migration.

You can collect data on application performance using a variety of monitoring tools. At a minimum, focus on key metrics that are pertinent to your business, which might include error rates, response time, or throughput. Along the way, you may need to change parts of your applications or infrastructure to improve performance.

Continuous monitoring can also help you increase cloud visibility, so you can identify bottlenecks and opportunities for optimization. It can uncover problems that come up post-migration quickly. Monitoring can also help you spot potential vulnerabilities and threats that may become bigger problems over time if left unnoticed.

9. Have a Disaster Recovery Plan

Performing a cloud migration can be hugely beneficial for disaster recovery. It’s typically much easier to duplicate workloads and have a failover site in the event of a disaster when hosting with a public cloud provider. Still, you need to have a thorough disaster recovery plan in place that details the sequence of events that should occur in response to a disaster, assigns key roles to specific people, and provides guidance on the communication needed to share the news with internal and external contacts.

10. Validate and Strengthen Cloud Security

Part of disaster recovery and business continuity is validating and building your cloud security posture. You should have a strategy that:

• Records your current security policies, technologies, and procedures
• Provides an understanding of risks in the cloud
• Establishes an implementation plan for security controls in the cloud
• Addresses how you’ll monitor and alert your organization if threats are identified

11. Assure Compliance

Oftentimes, compliance is easy to achieve with public cloud providers. Many vendors meet basic compliance requirements. For example, AWS supports HIPAA/HITECH, GDPR, NIST 800-171, and PCI-DSS, to name a few. However, if your organization is required to meet compliance measures that are not as common, you may need to work with the cloud service provider and outside experts to ensure you are able to meet the requirements in this new environment.

12. Optimize Applications, Cloud Usage, and Costs

Optimizing without compromising is easier said than done. When you optimize workloads and applications in the cloud, you can improve productivity and the user experience, but this can also mean revising code or rebuilding altogether. Failing to optimize properly can mean compromises in the quality of your migration. A cloud migration strategy needs to balance the benefits of optimizing in the cloud with the amount of work that will go into these efforts.

Strengthening your cloud adoption plan also means establishing a thorough understanding of your expenses. Conducting a thorough cloud cost analysis that analyzes your cloud usage and pricing plans, then continuing to do so on a regular basis, can help you control your budget and increase cloud ROI.

13. Plan for Ongoing Management and Continuous Improvement

In order to ensure things go smoothly during a transition to the cloud, it’s important to include room for management and maintenance within your cloud migration strategy. This is a crucial step for avoiding unexpected downtime and keeping performance consistent as cloud technologies and business needs evolve.

Cloud Migration Strategy Tools

In addition to the cloud cost pricing tools mentioned earlier, there are many cloud migration tools available that can help you evaluate your environment and identify the right metrics to measure success, including:

• AWS Assessment Tool: A model that provides visability into where an organization is at during its cloud journey, and gives insight into gaps, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Azure Migrate: An assessment tool that explores on-premises resources and provides end-to-end tracking and insights within its interface.
• Cloudockit: A tool that helps businesses visualize their cloud environments by creating technical documentation and architecture diagrams.

What Are Common Cloud Migration Challenges Businesses Face?

While every migration project will be unique to the organization, there are a few common challenges businesses can encounter in the cloud migration process.

Lack of Strategy

This one might be obvious, but rushing into a cloud migration without an actual strategy can spell disaster. Taking the time upfront to uncover the problems that may arise when performing a cloud migration will save you a lot of trouble later.

Cost Management

It’s easy to overspend on cloud migration without a clear understanding of the costs and (sometimes) complex pricing models involved. Luckily, solving for the first challenge often removes this one as well.

In your strategy, and during the cloud migration itself, be sure you are documenting and analyzing the costs of development, cloud hosting, the change in costs from different hardware and software, as well as the cost of internal and external labor going into the project. In order to effectively manage cloud spend post-migration, it’s important to use cloud monitoring tools to capture resource and application usage so you can optimize cloud costs accordingly.

Compatibility

Ensuring compatibility between applications and the target cloud model can be a large hurdle to overcome. Legacy or custom-built applications may have been developed according to a specific operating system or network infrastructure and may have particular dependencies that can affect its performance in the cloud.

Before beginning a migration, it’s important to identify and address application dependencies and test integration with cloud-native services. Failing to do so before a cloud migration can result in poor performance and overall application failure which can hinder business operations, user experience, etc.

Vendor Lock-in

Developing an application to work with a particular vendor may cause problems later on if you want to move to a different public cloud provider. This can be avoided by using resources that are vendor-agnostic. If there are certain features that leave you beholden to a vendor, consider other ways you may have the leverage to negotiate, should you need to do so.

Security and Compliance

Cloud migration can introduce new security risks, but working with major cloud providers and bringing cybersecurity experts in to plan the strategy and implementation can keep security from becoming a major issue. A cloud migration strategy should consider data encryption, vulnerability scanning, access control, security monitoring, and compliance with all relevant regulations.

Migration Implementation

The complexities associated with the actual migration in itself can be enormous. Some of the challenging elements that need to be considered include:

• Pre-existing infrastructure and data: Successfully migrating these elements requires a deep understanding of the dependencies and interactions between various intertwined systems.
• Data security: As eluded to above, security in the cloud needs to be handled differently than it is in traditional settings. A migration requires an extensive security strategy to ensure sensitive data and applications are protected from unauthorized access, security threats, data breaches, and human error.
• Scheduled downtime: Migrations require downtime for testing and maintenance, as well as during the actual migration, which can affect operations, revenue generation, and user experience.

Get Expert Support for Your Cloud Migration Strategy

Are you ready to take your cloud migration strategy to the next level? At TierPoint, we understand that a successful cloud migration is more than just moving data. We help you develop a tailored plan to transform your IT infrastructure to drive growth and innovation.

Whether you’re looking to enhance operational efficiency, improve scalability, or ensure robust security, our expert team is here to support you every step of the way. Take the first step towards a more agile and resilient IT environment today.

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