Depending on suitability & application activity, the organization can deploy any cloud migration strategy among-
- Lift-shift & building new applications as cloud-native
- Lift-shift followed by clean & shine
- New applications as cloud-native & transition of older applications to newer platforms.
The process of migrating to the cloud is a multi-fold one. The best way to do so is to follow a four-step migration road map to ensure the best results. The first step to cloud migration is assessment & planning.
The need for Cloud Migration Assessment
Where on one hand, migrating to the cloud means several benefits including increased flexibility, lesser cost & greater control; migrating to the cloud can bring with it many performance problems as well. As prompted by McKinsey, ‘Being smart about the use of cloud platforms and services can make the difference between gaining a competitive edge and falling behind rivals.’
These problems majorly arise due to infrastructure changes with migrating to the cloud. Cloud Migration assessment helps in minimizing risk while migrating & avoiding business disruption along with performance troubles. It helps migration planners make better decisions & maintain service level agreements. This is done via application discovery, risk assessment, pre-migration prediction analysis & dependency mapping based on current data usage.
How to navigate migration to the cloud??
Cloud Migration Assessment starts with selecting the most suitable cloud service provider for your organization.
Once you have decided on the right service provider for yourself, the following steps need to be followed,
- Identify & plan the execution sequence of the applications to migrate to the cloud.
- DR migration is a choice that needs to be pondered over before migrating to the cloud.
- You need to design & choose the pilots for migration. Without pilots, you can not tailor your roll-out model. The pilots must be such that they maximize your probability of success.
- List out your application portfolio along with the technology stack & cloud readiness qualifiers.
- Another rather important step is to prioritize & sequence the application migration by scoring on the following dimensions.
- Dependencies
- Cloud Leverage
- Feasibility
- Cloud Readiness
- Migration item know-how
- Business risks
- Define the proper delivery cadence & governance for pilots & migrations.
- You need to communicate your requirements from the application owners & what they should expect in return.
- Lastly, build a plan for your in-house talent availability & upskilling. Pilots build the lead transformation capability & help the teams develop skills to support peers.
Cloud Migration Assessment & Planning is the first step of moving towards Cloud Adoption. It is important to take the assistance of experts in this. They can help you with several tasks for assessment.
Stop risking your enterprise business continuity. Start migrating disaster recovery to the cloud-first. Find out more!