As more organizations move to the cloud, it has become increasingly important to understand the differences between the main cloud migration strategies. Choosing the right cloud migration strategy is critical to ensuring a successful migration. That means one that not only meets an organization’s goals but also stays on time and within budget.
The term “cloud migration strategies” refers to the different approaches that organizations can use to move their applications and data from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. These strategies can vary depending on the organization’s goals, the complexity of the migration, and the type of cloud deployment model (public, private, or hybrid) that they are moving to. Here is a guide to the five, main cloud migration strategies currently in use.
Rehosting, sometimes referred to as “lift and shift,” is a cloud migration strategy that involves transferring an application from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud without making any substantial alterations to the application’s architecture or code. Essentially, the application is moved as it is to a cloud-based virtual machine or container and continues to function using the same resources and configurations as it did before.
Rehosting is a relatively straightforward and quick migration strategy that allows organizations to move their applications to the cloud with minimal disruption. It can also provide cost savings, as organizations can take advantage of cloud providers’ economies of scale and pay only for the resources they use. Additionally, rehosting can help organizations to avoid the costs and complexities of refactoring or redesigning their applications for the cloud.
On the other hand, rehosting does not take full advantage of the cloud’s benefits. Organizations that rehost their applications may miss out on the cloud’s scalability, flexibility, and agility, as well as the ability to leverage cloud-native services and tools.
The refactoring strategy involves making significant changes to the application code and architecture to optimize it for the cloud environment. In this approach, the application is re-designed and rewritten using cloud-native features and services such as containers, microservices, and serverless computing. This strategy aims to improve the performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of the application in the cloud.
The refactoring strategy involves analyzing the existing application code and identifying the parts that need to be re-designed or rewritten. This process may involve breaking the application into smaller, independent components or services that can be deployed and scaled independently in the cloud. The new application architecture may also include the use of cloud-native databases, messaging systems, and other services that are optimized for the cloud environment.
The refactoring strategy can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it offers significant benefits such as improved performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. It can also enable organizations to take advantage of the latest cloud technologies and services and to modernize their application architecture to be more flexible and adaptable to changing business needs.
The rearchitect strategy involves redesigning the application’s architecture from a deep level to take full advantage of the cloud’s capabilities, such as scalability and elasticity. This involves modifying the application’s code and architecture to work natively in the cloud environment. The focus is on optimizing the application for the cloud, which can involve breaking down monolithic applications into microservices, adopting cloud-native services, and using DevOps practices for continuous deployment.
Rearchitecting requires a significant investment of time and resources, as it involves re-engineering the application’s architecture, data structures, and other components. It may also involve retraining development teams and updating development processes.
This investment can, however, be worthwhile for some applications (usually mission-critical ones). It enables them to take advantage of features that are not available in on-premises environments. This might include global availability, high-performance computing, and real-time data processing.
The rebuild strategy is a cloud migration approach that involves rebuilding an application from scratch in the cloud. Unlike the rehosting and refactoring strategies, which involve migrating an existing application, the rebuild strategy starts from scratch with a new application architecture optimized for the cloud environment.
The rebuild strategy can be beneficial in situations where an existing application is outdated, and it would be too complicated or time-consuming to refactor it to work in the cloud. It also allows organizations to take advantage of the latest cloud technologies and services to create a more efficient and scalable application.
The main advantage of the replace strategy is that it allows organizations to take full advantage of everything cloud computing has to offer.
The rebuild strategy can, however, be time-consuming and expensive since it involves starting from scratch with a new application architecture. It also requires a team with expertise in developing cloud-native applications.
The replace strategy is a cloud migration approach that involves completely replacing an existing application with a new cloud-native application. Unlike the other migration strategies, which involve modifying and transferring existing applications to the cloud, the replace strategy requires developing a new application that takes advantage of cloud technologies and architecture.
The main advantage of the replace strategy is that it allows organizations to take full advantage of everything cloud computing has to offer. The replace strategy can, however, also be risky as well as time-consuming.
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