Why businesses migrate to the cloud?

The cloud has become a must-have for businesses in today’s fast-changing world. It helps companies work smarter, save money, and grow faster by offering easy access to tools and data from anywhere. Many businesses are moving to the cloud to improve teamwork, cut IT costs, and stay competitive. However, the process isn’t always simple, and mistakes like poor planning or not being clear about goals can cause problems.

In this article I will share the 6 proven strategies to help you avoid these common issues. By the end you will know exactly how to plan your cloud adoption with confidence.

Rehosting

Rehosting — “Lift and Shift” is the simplest approach requiring minimal to no changes to migrate your legacy services to the cloud. It is ideal for organizations looking to quickly reduce hardware costs or prepare for further modernization.

How it works:

First, the organization creates a virtual machine (VM) image of the existing application, including its operating system, software, and configurations, as it runs on-premises. This VM image is then uploaded to the cloud provider’s platform. A corresponding VM is provisioned in the cloud environment, replicating the on-premises setup. The application is started on the cloud VM and runs as it did before, without significant changes. Networking and storage configurations are adjusted in the cloud to match the original environment, ensuring smooth operation. This approach allows the application to function as if it were still on-premises while taking advantage of the scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of the cloud. This can also serve as the starting point for further cloud adoption, enabling gradual optimization and modernization of the application to fully leverage cloud-native services.

Replatforming

Replatforming — “Lift, Tinker and Shift” involves moving applications to the cloud with slight modifications to optimize performance, scalability, or cost-efficiency. It differs from Rehosting by making some changes to better utilize cloud features, but without completely redesigning the application.

How it works:

An organization migrates its application to the cloud by making a small change to how it handles the database. Instead of running the database on a virtual machine (e.g. self-hosted MySQL), they switch to a managed database service provided by the cloud provider (e.g. MySQL cluster on AWS RDS). The application is updated to connect to this managed service, while the rest of the application setup remains the same. This change reduces the need for database maintenance and benefits from the cloud’s scalability and reliability.

Repurchase

Repurchase — “Drop and Shop” involves moving a service to a new, cloud-native, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, typically bought on a subscription model.

How it works:

An organization moves its web application to a SaaS platform (e.g. Vercel), where the platform handles the application lifecycle. Simply the application code or Docker image is pushed to the platform, which optimizes performance, scales with traffic, and uses a global CDN to deliver content faster. This happens seamlessly and eliminates the need for manual server management, allowing the organization to focus on development.

Refactor

Refactor involves making significant changes to an application’s code or architecture to optimize it for the cloud. This strategy is typically used to fully leverage cloud-native features, such as microservices, serverless computing, and automated scaling, which often requires reworking the application’s structure.

How it works:

An organization decides to refactor its monolithic application into a microservices architecture. The existing application is broken down into smaller, independently deployable services, each with its own database and API. These services are then moved to the cloud, where they can be managed and scaled individually using cloud-native tools. This enables the organization to take full advantage of the cloud’s flexibility, scalability, and efficiency while improving the application’s maintainability and performance.

Relocate

Relocate involves distributing applications or services across multiple cloud providers to leverage the unique strengths and services each offers. This strategy allows an organization to optimize performance, availability, and scalability while avoiding vendor lock-in.

How it works:

An organization migrating from on-premises hosts its web application on AWS for scalability, uses Microsoft Azure for OpenAI model endpoints, and leverages Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for data analytics and machine learning services. This multi-cloud approach optimizes performance, flexibility, and redundancy.

Retire

Retire — “Relocate” involves shutting down or decommissioning applications or services that are no longer needed or relevant. This strategy is used when an application or system becomes obsolete or is replaced by a more efficient solution.

How it works:

An organization decides to retire its legacy on-premises inventory management system after implementing a new cloud-based solution. The old system is decommissioned, and its infrastructure is shut down, reducing maintenance costs and freeing up resources for other initiatives.

Summary

Organizations may sometimes choose to keep legacy services on-premises due to regulatory requirements, cost considerations, or lack of suitable cloud-native solutions.

Cloud adoption is a strategic decision. Selecting the right migration approach is important for smooth transition. Often, a combination of strategies the strategies above works best, helping organizations achieve their goals more effectively and with less critical steps.

I hope this post has helped you learn something new about cloud operations. State tuned for more cool articles and engineering tips by subscribing to my blog.