Insights

Cloud Migration: what is it?

Cloud Migration: what is it?

The current pandemic has accelerated the shift to the cloud for many businesses. This enables a more efficient way of working, especially important in today’s competitive climate and increasingly remote working environments.

Cloud computing is now vital to achieving end-to-end digital transformation and helps businesses now, more than ever, through reinventing and outmanoeuvring uncertainty.

What is cloud migration?

Cloud migration is the process of moving a company’s digital assets, services, databases, IT resources and applications into the cloud, this can be done partially or wholly. Migration can also be moving from one cloud environment to another.

Many companies are now moving from outdated and increasingly inefficient legacy infrastructures, such as ageing servers or hardware solutions that are no longer operating at optimum capacity.

Moving to the cloud is often a precursor to a successful business continuity and disaster recovery plan, as it enables workforces to work flexibly and remotely from anywhere

In 2020, 51% of UK business leaders said their shift to a cloud-computing based business model saved their company from collapse during the pandemic. This led to a huge increase in businesses adopting the cloud and it is predicted by the end of 2021 that cloud data centres will process 94% of workloads.

Other benefits include a reduction in operational overheads normally required to keep on-premises infrastructure running. This includes providing power, appropriate cooling, physical security and scalability. All of which are taken care of within the cloud, meaning your organisation can focus on what it does best.

The cloud migration process is critical and requires careful analysis, planning and execution to ensure the solution is compatible with your business requirements. Regardless of size or sector, businesses need assistance and support with their cloud journey. Consequently, here at razorblue we have many different cloud migration options available and modernisation services to suit your specific business requirements.

What are the types of cloud migration?

It is important to understand that it’s just not about getting there, but also about what your options are once you are there. Consider what it is that you want out of your cloud environment, for example, will applications require changes to perform optimally within cloud?

The main types of migration are as follows:

Re-host (lift and shift)

This process begins with migrating items with the lowest dependencies that have the least impact on business and no regulatory constraints. As maturity increases, the more complex items are migrated to the cloud.

Re-platform

Build a new purpose-built architecture in the cloud to suit your chosen business application. This works well for businesses who don’t want a new application but need a cloud solution to work well with their chosen application(s).

Re-purchase

We commonly see this within the manufacturing sector, where line-of-business (LOB) applications need to function on-premises and remain independent from the cloud. We often combine each method into the overall project, as we understand that different businesses have individual requirements and don’t believe in a “one size fits all” approach.

How does the cloud migration process work?

The process of cloud migration is making companies ask the question: what is modernisation?

Moving to the cloud can be a transformative shift for your entire business, so it is vital to look at each step of the journey to truly understand what is involved.

Below are the key steps:

  1. Defining a strategy: what’s the goal?

It’s important to answer the question: “what business value will be gained by moving to the cloud?” Cloud migration is far from just a technology exercise. It needs to be rooted by business outcomes and specific goals your company wants to achieve.

Based on these goals, you can begin to develop a cloud migration strategy. This will involve determining what applications will be moved, as well as what the infrastructure ultimately should look like.

  1. Assessment: what to move, where to move it, when to move it?

Whilst the cloud does improve flexibility and make costs more efficient, you must anticipate how your applications might perform due to major infrastructure changes, this is where an experienced MSP like razorblue comes in…

This is achieved through discovery and assessment- scanning and assessing your existing infrastructure, application, and data landscape to determine the most appropriate applications and data to migrate to the cloud.

  1. Cloud Migration

This involves modernising existing applications for the cloud, developing new cloud applications and/ or transforming architecture and infrastructure to eventually create an entirely new culture on the cloud that enables you to innovate more quickly and effectively.

At razorblue our approach ensures a smooth migration. Our experts are well experienced in cloud migration and ensure a speedy process, whilst delivering high quality, consistent and repeatable results.

Why razorblue?

We provide a wide-ranging portfolio of end-to-end cloud services, from strategy to execution.

Our cloud migration process provides detailed, robust methods for migrating large application portfolios on our own private cloud network. We offer fully scalable solutions and exclusively own our own network, putting us in complete control and allowing for proactive monitoring 24/7, 365 days of the year.

Our team of technical experts are well-experienced in helping businesses on their cloud migration journey to support sustainable business growth.

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