Cloud migration is understood as the process of moving digital assets such as data, workloads, applications or other IT resources from local data centers to cloud computing environments. Although there may be other assumptions.
Benefits of migrating to the cloud
Organizations that decide to migrate to the cloud do so in pursuit of a number of benefits or objectives, such as reducing operational and infrastructure costs; improving performance, scalability and availability; accessing innovative technologies and upgrades; freeing resources from routine tasks; or optimizing security and data management.
In the specific case of secure and efficient migration to public clouds there are a number of particularities in this regard, including defining the objectives of such migration, estimating the costs of both migration and operating in the cloud, mapping workloads, ensuring adequate access to the cloud, ensuring the security of the environment, testing, having a rollback plan, ensuring the integrity of services and data, monitoring performance or investing in training of technology teams.
Types of cloud migration
Cloud migration is a process that helps digital transformation and has different types. Let’s see what they are and their main characteristics:
- Data center migration. In this case, local servers and core systems are moved to a cloud provider, often housed in large, secure buildings.
- Hybrid cloud migration. In this type, some resources are kept in local centers while others are moved to the cloud, creating a hybrid cloud, one of the existing types of cloud computing .
- Migrate from one cloud to another. Unlike the previous assumptions, what is being migrated is already in a cloud. The reasons for wanting to move from one cloud to another can be varied: better security, more advanced technological tools or changes in service agreements.
Cloud migration strategies: the “7 R’s”.
Strategies for undertaking cloud migration processes are those that enable organizations to move data, applications and workloads, and depend on issues such as business needs, technical challenges or the expected outcome.
The so-called “7 R’s” of cloud migration are as follows:
- Relocation or re-hosting. Also known as lift and shift, it is the direct transfer of applications to the cloud without modification of their architecture. It is fast, has a low initial cost and minimal technical risk. However, in the case of older applications, this shift may not maximize the full benefits of the cloud.
- Replatform. In this case, migration occurs with minimal changes to the code base, allowing new features to be adopted, performance to be improved or scalability to be increased, while retaining most of the structure and without changes to the main functionalities or features.
- Repurchase. It is useful when current maintenance is complex or costly, since repurchase involves moving to a different product and thus abandoning or replacing existing licenses.
- Refactoring. It has a higher complexity and cost, but serves to maximize the benefits of cloud computing. It is developed with significant modification or rewriting of code to achieve the aforementioned goal of taking full advantage of the cloud.
- Retention. As can be deduced from its name, it involves keeping certain applications or data locally. Reconsideration and re-evaluation should be done periodically in case it is pertinent to change the decision and establish another strategy.
- Decommissioning. Unneeded or outdated assets can be deactivated in order to concentrate efforts and resources on what is most important. This withdrawal means both a saving in migration costs and a reduction in the complexity of the migration process.
- Relocation. Also known as lift and optimize, it is used to transfer applications to the cloud without significant changes. It usually occurs in the case of a change of cloud provider.
Stages for an efficient journey to the cloud
Telefónica Empresas indicates a series of steps or stages to carry out an efficient journey to the cloud, among which migration is the last step.
Previously, an analysis of the infrastructure must be developed to know the adjacent elements (such as equipment, capacities, assets, regulation, etc.) and thus assess the relevance of which type of cloud to go to, to know the cost-benefit or the optimal migration path.
Subsequently, and once studied and defined what to migrate, a model must be designed and built to support the needs of the company, both present and future. At this stage, the cloud environment will be configured in a regulation-dependent, monitored and secured manner.
