Verdant TCS

How to Pick the Right Cloud Migration Strategy for Your Company

By Mike Shollack,
CEO & President

The popularity of cloud computing continues to rise, as the flexibility of cloud technology offers businesses new and better solutions. If you are considering cloud computing for your business, but you aren’t sure how to take the plunge, Verdant TCS can help you navigate that transition with the appropriate cloud migration strategy.

With a variety of cloud migration methods available, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. It can be difficult to determine the type of cloud migration plan best suited for your business.

The right cloud migration partner will help you design a strategy that suits your business needs with maximum return-on-investment (ROI) and minimal downtime. Verdant TCS has the expert team to guide you through this transformation.

How to Start the Process

Cloud computing is still a new concept for many people. It can feel like a foreign language, especially if you’re not particularly tech-savvy. Let’s demystify the process!

A best practice is to start with a holistic approach, looking at your business comprehensively before breaking it down into the individual parts. Identify your critical data, applications, and infrastructure.

Finding the right cloud provider partner is essential to a successful migration. They can advise you on the best strategies for your business and reduce the disruption to your day-to-day operations.

Prepping your internal team for the transformation is also an important step to making the transition as seamless as possible. Identifying new training requirements will prevent roadblocks before they arise.

The transition itself will depend on what types of cloud migration are implemented.

RELATED: THE CLOUD IS CONFUSING ENOUGH. DON’T FALL FOR THESE COMMON MYTHS

The Four Most Common Migration Strategies

When it comes to cloud migration, there are a few considerations to take into account. For instance, how fast does the transition need to happen? How complex are the applications that need to migrate?

There are several approaches to migrating to the cloud, and knowing the pros and cons of each one can help you make informed decisions for your business.

The most common migration strategies provide options ranging from a fast, easy transition to much more custom transformations. The trade-off for low cost and speed is often a compromise in flexibility and longevity, whereas more complex and costly solutions can provide a greater long-term ROI since they will be custom-built for the cloud.

The Four Rs of Cloud Migration

  • Rehost (Lift and Shift): The simplest and fastest strategy, but also the least flexible. Lift-and-shift migration refers to taking existing applications and moving them from an on-premises system to a cloud environment with almost no changes. This makes it easy, fast, and cheap! However, this generally has the lowest return in value, because it has low potential for upgrades in the future. Rehosting can be a cost-effective short-term solution if fast migration is needed, but you should consider re-architecting afterward for a more complete transition to utilize the full benefits of the cloud (cloud hosting, disaster recovery, security monitoring).
  • Refactor: This can be thought of as “lift, tinker and shift.” Minimal configurational changes are made for cloud adaptation, but no changes are made to the core architecture of the application. These changes allow the software to take advantage of cloud benefits without changing its core functionality. And by doing the work before migration, there is no need to go back and make the changes later. Refactoring requires a little more time up front, but saves time later.
  • Re-architect: This technique includes replacing the underlying architecture of an application. This takes some time and effort, but now the application has increased scalability and is easier to optimize to suit your business needs. Re-architecting involves bigger modifications, but not a complete rewrite of the code. It may sound complex, but often has a very high ROI since fewer future modifications will be needed – it is built for the cloud.
  • Rebuild: The most complex option, this involves rebuilding the software from the ground up so that it’s “cloud native.” This is peak cloud utilization, taking advantage of the full array of cloud benefits. Custom applications and services provide maximum agility and efficiency, all with cloud hosting! Since this is the most expensive and resource-intensive option, it can also make sense to look at purchasing existing software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, which can reduce the migration effort, but will also require new training for employees.

 

As you can see, there are a lot of choices available for how your business moves to a cloud-based system. This is why it is important to work with an expert to choose the type of cloud migration that is best suited for your business!

RELATED: CUSTOM CLOUD COMPUTING SOLUTIONS THAT ARE SCALABLE AND SECURE

Let Verdant TCS Help You Develop the Right Cloud Migration Strategy

Our team will work with you to develop the right cloud migration process for your business. When correctly implemented, cloud solutions can increase efficiency, save money, and enhance security for your business.

The best strategy is the one that prepares your business for the future, with minimal downtime and maximum cost efficiency. Our team will guide you to the type of cloud migration that is the best solution for you.

To learn how Verdant TCS can help your business implement a cloud migration strategy, please call (616) 210-1760 or fill out this short form.

STAY INFORMED WITH IT TRENDS

Visit our blog to read how the latest news and trends may impact you.