How do you choose the right cloud migration strategy for your organization?
Whether you handle it in-house or work with a cloud managed services provider, this question is crucial. The wrong answer can cost you—while the right answer can pave the way for improved operational efficiency, better customer experience, and revenue growth.
Before you dive into a migration, here’s everything you need to know. We’ll start with the 7 Rs of cloud migration, then provide a little nuance to help you choose the right strategy.
The 7 R’s of cloud migration strategy
AWS provides a helpful framework for understanding cloud migration strategies (and choosing the right one). It’s known as the “7 R’s,” building on Gartner’s original “5 R’s.” Those 7 strategies are:
- Retire. When an application is outdated, unsupportable, and not worth maintaining or migrating, the best thing is to retire it. While this technically isn’t a cloud migration strategy, AWS provides this option to help identify systems that shouldn’t be migrated.
- Retain. You may choose to retain an application in its current delivery model if it’s still useful, but a cloud migration doesn’t make sense. This may happen if there isn’t a strong business case, or if a migration would introduce unacceptable risks.
- Rehost. Also known as “forklifting” or “lift and shift,” this strategy involves rebuilding an entire system in a cloud environment, preserving the same architecture as the on-premises version. This is rarely a good idea for midmarket companies, as hosting servers in the cloud (rather than services) gets expensive fast.
- Relocate. If you need to move a system to a different cloud environment with the same provider, you may choose to relocate it.
- Repurchase. In some cases, it makes sense to license the cloud version of an on-premises application that you already have, retire the on-premises version, and shift users to the cloud version.
- Replatform. Sometimes, migrating an application gives you the opportunity to optimize it for the cloud without totally refactoring it. This strategy works if a cloud migration offers certain advantages, like more robust cybersecurity controls, and you can get there with only minor changes to the application.
- Refactor or re-architect. Some applications really shouldn’t migrate to the cloud without significant changes. In these cases, refactoring or rearchitecting the application allows you to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities, making the application cloud-native from day one.
4 principles to help you choose the right migration strategy
While there are no solutions in IT, only tradeoffs, it’s worth keeping these principles in mind as you determine your migration strategy.
1. Retire as much as you can
Some applications shouldn’t be migrated to the cloud under any circumstances. The two most common examples here are homebrew solutions and purchased applications that are no longer supported by the original vendor. There’s just too much risk and complexity in migrating these systems to the cloud—and the support burden will be too great.
2. Rather than retaining or rehosting, can you replatform or repurchase?
In some cases, retaining an on-premises application really is the best choice.
In others, it may appear that the only option is to rehost (or “lift and shift”) that legacy application into the cloud.
In both cases, you should analyze the possibilities of replatforming or repurchasing before you decide to retain or rehost the application. Replatforming in particular offers an efficient way to leverage the benefits of the cloud without assuming the massive cost of an “always-on” cloud server—which is what happens when you rehost an entire application in the cloud.
3. Prioritize cloud services over cloud servers
The legacy mindset views an application as a monolith. The application and its database can’t be decoupled, and the database requirements drive operating system dependences on your hardware.
If you bring that mindset to your cloud migration strategy, you’ll end up paying for cloud servers that run 24/7/365—which is too expensive for most use cases.
Look for ways to leverage cloud services rather than servers. This may require refactoring (or rearchitecting) the application to make it cloud-native, but it also allows you to pay for cloud processing power on an as-needed basis—rather than bankrolling an entire server in the cloud.
4. Don’t just look at the cost of repurchasing—look at benefits too
It’s no secret that the SaaS version of an application will cost more than on-premises in the long run—when you look at hosting and licensing costs. However, those aren’t the only costs to consider. Support and upgrades may be more efficient in a cloud scenario.
That said, cost alone isn’t the only factor to consider. You’ll want to look at the benefits too. If switching to SaaS allows you to get out of the server maintenance business, maybe that’s better for your organization. (Hint: An expert cloud consultant can help you conduct this analysis, which gets pretty complex.)
Handling the soft side of cloud migration
If your cloud migration strategy accounts only for technical concerns, you run the risk of introducing new operational challenges in your organization. You have to consider the soft side too. How are real people going to respond to the migration process—and the results?
Having guided many clients through this process, we’ve come to stand by these principles.
- IT can’t make these decisions alone. Without checks and balances from the business side, IT may focus on the bells and whistles—the “what,” rather than the “why.”
- You need C-suite involvement. Without a C-level project champion who “gets” cloud migration from a business perspective, it’s challenging to marshal the resources and processes you need for success.
- You need to communicate widely and consistently about the coming migration. The people who will work with the new cloud system every day need to understand exactly what’s coming—and when. Be sure to communicate the benefits and the fact that training will be available. Speaking of which…
- You need a training plan alongside the migration plan. Again, this isn’t just a technical exercise. It’s important to train the future users of the cloud system as you go. This way, they can hit the ground running after launch, with no interruption to productivity.
- You should start communication and training 3 months out. You don’t want any surprises. The organization needs time to build consensus, get excited, and understand the migration fully.
Consider the operational impact of migration
Every cloud migration impacts operations, whether in a big way or a small way.
In the “lift and shift” model, i.e. rehosting, the end user will experience very little change to their operational use of the application. Things look and behave the same, while the big changes have happened behind the scenes.
If you choose to repurchase an application, the end user’s experience could change slightly. Maybe they used the application on their computer, and now they have to log in from a browser.
Sometimes a migration will give you the opportunity to improve an internal process. Whether that opportunity exists—and what it looks like—will depend on the specific system.
But for any migration, you should ask yourself some pointed questions.
- If we’re going to buy a new system, will it create new opportunities to integrate with other systems?
- If we retire this system, is it truly useless to us?
- If we reshape an application, is it worth the investment?
The takeaway: Analyze fully (and engage an expert if you need help)
It’s a complex undertaking to determine the right cloud migration strategy. You have to consider all costs, support models, and the benefits of different approaches. If you don’t have the cloud expertise on staff to do this, you may benefit from engaging a consultant. An experienced cloud strategist can advise on the right migration strategy for your system—saving you from the painful lessons of experience. That’s what we’re all about here at Corsica Technologies. With over 1,000 clients, we know what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to cloud migrations.
Want to learn more about cloud migration strategies?
Reach out to schedule a consultation with our cloud specialists.
