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Migrating From On-Premises To Cloud: A Comprehensive Guide
Migrating From On-Premises To Cloud: A Comprehensive Guide

Migrating From On-Premises To Cloud: A Comprehensive Guide

  • Updated on July 20, 2024
  • /
  • 5 min read

While on-premises infrastructure still has its uses, many businesses have compelling reasons for using the cloud. That being so, here is a straightforward guide to on-premises to cloud migration.

Planning your cloud migration

Following these five steps will get your on-premises to cloud migration off to a strong start.

Assess current infrastructure

Conduct a thorough evaluation of your existing infrastructure, identifying applications, workloads, and data for migration. Understand dependencies, performance needs, and resource usage to pinpoint suitable migration candidates and potential challenges.

Define migration goals and strategy

Set clear migration objectives like scalability, cost reduction, or performance enhancement. Choose a migration strategy that aligns with these goals to ensure the migration meets both business and technical requirements.

Plan for security and compliance

Develop a security plan covering data protection, access management, and regulatory compliance. Implement encryption, secure access controls, and continuous monitoring to protect data throughout the migration, ensuring adherence to security best practices and legal standards.

Design the cloud architecture

Outline your cloud environment, detailing network topology, storage solutions, and compute resources. Prioritize scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery. Leverage cloud-native services to optimize performance and cost efficiency, providing a robust deployment blueprint.

Execute migration and testing

Transfer data and applications in stages, starting with non-critical components. Utilize migration tools to automate the process. Perform thorough testing after each phase to ensure functionality, performance, and security. Address issues promptly to ensure a smooth, disruption-free transition.

Migrating data

A successful on-premises to cloud migration requires a robust plan for migrating data safely. Here are five key steps to follow.

Data assessment and inventory

Conduct a thorough assessment of your data assets, categorizing them by type, volume, and importance. Identify dependencies, formats, and storage locations to determine what data should be migrated, archived, or discarded, ensuring efficient planning.

Data cleanup and validation

Cleanse your data to remove redundancies and inaccuracies. Validate the remaining data to ensure it meets quality standards. This step reduces the data volume for migration and improves quality, facilitating a smoother transition.

Data security and compliance planning

Develop a security plan to protect data during migration. Implement encryption for data in transit and at rest, ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA. This step safeguards sensitive information and meets legal requirements.

Data mapping and transformation

Map current data structures to the target cloud environment, planning necessary transformations. Use migration tools to automate these processes, ensuring compatibility with cloud storage formats and schemas.

Pilot migration and testing

Execute a pilot migration with a data subset to test the process. Validate the migrated data’s accuracy, performance, and security. Address any issues before full-scale migration to ensure a reliable transition with minimal data loss or disruption.

Migrating apps

It’s also crucial to plan the migration of your apps. Here are the five main steps you should follow.

Application assessment and inventory

Start by conducting a comprehensive assessment of your applications. Identify each application’s dependencies, performance requirements, and current architecture. Categorize them based on complexity, criticality, and cloud readiness. This step helps determine which applications can be moved as-is, need modification, or should be replaced with cloud-native solutions.

Dependency mapping

Map out all dependencies for each application, including databases, services, and third-party integrations. Understanding these dependencies ensures that all necessary components are migrated together and function correctly in the new environment. This step is crucial for maintaining application performance and avoiding downtime.

Performance and resource planning

Evaluate the resource requirements of your applications, such as CPU, memory, storage, and network bandwidth. Plan for equivalent or improved resources in the cloud to maintain or enhance performance. This step ensures that the cloud environment is properly configured to support your applications efficiently.

Security and compliance planning

Develop a security plan to protect applications during and after migration. Implement necessary security measures, such as encryption, access controls, and monitoring. Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards, like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS. This step secures your applications and meets legal requirements.

Pilot testing and validation

Conduct a pilot migration for critical applications to test the process. Validate functionality, performance, and security in the cloud environment. Address any issues identified during testing before proceeding with a full-scale migration. This step minimizes risk, ensuring a smooth and successful migration with minimal disruption.

Post-migration optimization

Implementing ongoing post-migration optimization will help you to get the most from your investment in the cloud. Here are three points to consider.

Performance monitoring and tuning

Continuously monitor application performance using cloud-native tools. Analyze metrics like CPU and memory usage to identify bottlenecks, and adjust resources as needed. This ensures optimal performance and resource efficiency.

Cost management

Track cloud usage with cost management tools to identify savings. Optimize resources by resizing instances or using reserved and spot instances. This helps control expenses and maximize ROI.

Security auditing

Perform regular security audits to review access controls, encryption, and compliance. Implement necessary patches and updates to maintain security and regulatory compliance.

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