What Is Cloud Migration? - A Guide By Wallarm

Getting Acquainted with the Concept: Cloud Migration

Often known as just ‘Cloud’, it is among the top preferred ways to access key IT resources as it eliminates location limitations. Digital assets like data, apps, software, IT assets, servers, etc., are hosted on the internet. They are not tied to a specific location and have limited accessibility.

But, traditionally, all these IT resources were hosted at the client’s location only. When the wave of digitization hits the world, organizations know that all these on-premise resources should start utilizing the cloud. And that’s where the idea of cloud migration comes to mind.  

It is a strategic approach wherein an organization/business takes its on-premise digital assets to the cloud space. Doing so doesn’t demand any set-up and installation. They are plug-and-play tools that are reachable and usable remotely from anywhere. Like storage, we have cloud-based solutions for other IT assets as well.

Example: Earlier, businesses used physical resources like hard disks, CDs, and floppy to store business data. Now, we have cloud resources like Google Cloud, iCloud, Dropbox, and many more.

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Why Is Every Business Looking Forward to it?

Almost every business, today, is on its journey to embracing the Cloud. Many have reached their destination, while many are halfway through. The sector’s global market is worth more than $90 billion. But why is this practice becoming so popular?

Well, the key reason is all-around accessibility to IT resources. 

In today’s cutthroat world, businesses having quick access to key data are going to excel. Also, this accessibility should be the same across the team. There shouldn’t be any disparities at the time front.  

However, this isn’t possible with on-premise solutions. Also, such IT resources have issues like high development, customization, management and maintenance expenses. Despite putting in all the efforts and investment, there is no surety that the tool will remain functional always. If the system is down, your team will sit idly.

Such functionality won’t weave long-lasting success and growth. In the Cloud’s scenario, business people have all key IT resources available with a single tap. Without any set-up, installation, and maintenance hassles, businesses will have updated digital assets accessible around the clock.

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Advantages of Migrating to the Cloud 

• Reduces overheads

Most importantly, cloud tools and solutions will help you save huge operational overheads. Cloud resources are often offered as freemium solutions, and businesses can subscribe according to their needs. 

Different subscriptions will have different offerings. For instance, if you need extra Google Drive space, you can pay $6/ month for 30 GB storage and $18/month for 5 TB storage space. There is no need to invest in resources you don’t use fully, which is the case with legacy storage solutions like CDs and hard disks. You have to pay the full price for a 1TB hard disk, whether or not you use the entire storage.

Costs are also reduced because cloud-based tools don’t require further investments in system maintenance, set-up, and optimization. The service provider will take care of this.  

• Advanced technology

As you move to the cloud, you replace your legacy systems with modern technologies and tools. You will have your hands on only updated and modern-day technologies. So, you can count it as one of the top benefits of Cloud Migration.

• Quick data access

Cloud-based applications are not tied to a specific physical location. Organizations can access key data from anywhere and anytime.

• Improved performance

Uninterrupted data accessibility has a direct impact on team productivity as your team can perform quickly and use data in every action.

• No maintenance hassles

Cloud applications come as pre-build and fully-optimized tools. As an end-user, you don’t have to be worried about application updates, maintenance, and modernization. The service provider will look after all these.

What Is A Cloud Migration Strategy?

Migration in cloud computing has to be a highly optimized approach with strategic movements. Here are the most preferred cloud migration strategies to adopt.

• Replatforming

Often known as ‘move and improve,’ replatforming involves application optimization as migration continues. It focuses on making certain changes before the process begins. The entire application architecture is not modified. Only a part of it is updated.

• Rehost

Rehost of life and shift is a quick cloud migration strategy that demands the least possible refactoring of the concerned applications. This works best for simple workload migrations. It involves lifting the on-premises app and shifting to the same kinds of cloud-based applications.

• Refactoring

This demands great configuration as it involves the overall redesigning of concerning applications. It also requires great investment and time. However, it delivers the best ROI as the applications are redesigned with the modern-day requirements.

• Repurchasing or Replacing

This strategy is also known as ‘drop and shop’ and involves completely getting rid of legacy apps and buying modern cloud applications. This is great but comes with high overheads.

• Retaining

Next, we have retained that by keeping certain legacy apps, their migration is too tedious. Mostly, applications that are crucial for workflows are retained. When certain apps are retained in their original form while others are reformed or refactored, organizations are said to adopt a hybrid approach.

• Retiring

Retiring means getting rid of applications that are no longer needed or adding value to the organization.  

4 Steps To Migrate To The Cloud  

A good result is only possible when it follows a strategic approach based on planning, picking the right cloud types, secured migration, and continual monitoring of the process. Based on your organization, cloud migration steps may vary. However, this 4-step strategy is the most widely used. Let’s understand this strategy in detail.

1. Step - Planning

Start your progress with extensive cloud migration assessment and planning that involves finding the key aim behind the migration, what all auto-scaling and microservices processes are required, which all applications need an upgrade, and setting up the total budget. Planning also extends to anticipating the ROI and ensuring migration stays on track.

To avoid fallouts, industry experts recommend hiring specialized consultants to help you plan strategically and devise a result-driven path to achieve all the goals.

2. Step - Selecting the right cloud ecosystem

When planning is done strategically, the next step is to decide which kind of cloud environment to adopt. As we all know, we have a public, private, and hybrid cloud. Every type has certain strengths and weaknesses

For successful migration, you need to find out which works the best according to your organizational needs.

3. Step - Secured data migrations

After deciding the cloud type, the next step involves ensuring data and workloads are moved to the cloud with full protection. The first step for cloud data migration is to install a cloud firewall so that data leak doesn’t happen. Taking up data back-up, sorting the data, and data upload over the internet are also part of this stage.

4. Step - Continual monitoring and assessment of cloud migration

As the procedure continues, you need to ensure that you’re watching the process from close. You need to find out how the application works on the cloud, how modernization improves the performance, and how data security solutions perform. You should also watch out for the process to find new scalability opportunities.

Cloud Migration Challenges

While the process of migration is imperative, the task never remained risk-free. Nearly 68% of all digital migration efforts failed, and certain factors are to be blamed. Certain challenges are always there to deal with, such as -

• Cost management

Certainly, cloud adoption is an operational cost-saving move. But, all your cost-saving efforts can be unsuccessful if you fail to manage the cloud adoption expenses. Organizations have a tough time setting a budget for migrating because many factors like application development, type of cloud deployment, storage, and so on goes into consideration. 

Businesses have to find a way to optimize the cloud adoption cost and make sure that it doesn’t go beyond the budget.

• Effective cloud management

Regardless of the cloud type you pick, there are certain cloud management challenges that an organization has to deal with. For instance, the public cloud comes with evident security risks as too many people are using it.

The issue with a hybrid cloud is that it becomes too complex to handle at times. Dealing with specific cloud management challenges is a great deal for every business presently.

• Application dependencies

Cloud-based applications depend on each other, and this dependency certainly bears a great challenge. With inter-connected apps, management becomes more complex, and businesses have to seek the help of discovery tools to find the right app quickly.

• Team readiness

Certain teammates become too attached to legacy systems that they are not ready to adopt new cloud applications instantly.  

• Database security

One of the biggest cloud migration challenges is to make sure that the data transit remains fully protected. Any incident of data leak or theft will have a huge impact. Cloud creates multiple access points to your key data, and it becomes too hectic to ensure that each access is secured. In the wake of remote work, organizations have to invest heavily in cloud security tools to make sure that the employees, who are out of sight, are not misusing the data or involved in activities that can harm the databases, directly or indirectly.

• Hardware optimization

Working on the cloud also involves certain hardware upgrades. For instance, high-power internet connection with more bandwidth is required. Also, every teammate should have secured and encrypted data connectivity. This hardware optimization is also a huge challenge to deal with.

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Tools And Software to Migrate to Cloud with Ease

Automated cloud migration is the best migration as it saves a huge deal of time and effort. However, you need to make sure that the right kind of software and cloud migration tools are used. Gladly, here are a couple of advanced options offered. 

Starting from calculating the cloud cost to effective management, a wide range of tools are offered. We have listed the best ones here.

AWS Cloud Migration Services

AWS is the leader of cloud computing for obvious reasons. It offers feature-rich cloud and expert assistance to every new cloud user. Some of the best AWS tools are:

• AWS Migration Hub lets you track the migration process across the organization. Also, it guides you on picking the right tool, tracking the right metrics, and goal optimization.
• AWS Application Delivery is a great way to plan migration strategically, as it lets you review the on-premise data and make the data fully encrypted.
• AWS Server Migration tool is perfect for seamless workload migration.

Microsoft Azure cloud migration

Azure holds the second-largest share of the global cloud market and offers a wide range of automated tools and technologies that assist you at every step of the migration process. For instance, you have:

• Azure Migrate is a centralized platform to track the migration process, gain deeper insights, and take immediate action.
• Azure Migrate: Server Assessment and Migration is a dedicated tool to check how server migration is going on.
• Data Migration Assistance is the perfect tool to own when finding out the compatibility issues that can cause migration hindrances.
• It will help you spot the features, facilities, and capabilities that are not aligning with your current IT structure.
• Azure Data Box can help you migrate massive offline data to the cloud.

GCP cloud migration

GCP or Google Cloud Platform offers some of the most powerful tools to improve your success rate while migrating.

• You can try Transfer Service to migrate huge data from on-premise tools to online.
• Transfer Appliance is a great tool to migrate bulk data offline.
• Migrate for Anthos is an automated migration tool for moving workloads to containers.

Tips For A Seamless Migration To The Cloud

Some businesses fail at migration miserably. For those who don’t want to face failure, these tips are of great help.

• Gather inputs from different departments and then figure out what all departments need digital transformation and up to which extent.
• Create a DevSecOps team and let every teammate contribute.
• Put everyone in charge and set specific accountability.
• Before cloud migration, analyze all your in-use legacy systems and evaluate their efficiency. Migrate crucial applications. Investing efforts, time, and money in any redundant tool will only add complexity to the process.
• Adopt automation as much as possible. Automation makes the job done in the least possible time and with accuracy.
• Always use data protection measures as you move critical data from legacy systems to modern cloud-based applications.
• Don’t migrate in one go. Migrate in stages. Create bunches of applications, based on priority, and move step-by-step.  
• Investing in cloud migration consulting is a great idea as this helps you have a strategic migration approach with a reduced failure rate.
• Don’t overlook cloud protection. Based upon the resources you have on the cloud, use multiple cloud protection tools like WAAP, MFA, Authentication, and many more. This way, your cloud resources will be saved and you will have fewer worries to take care of.

Cloud Protection From Wallarm

Adopting cloud and seamless cloud migrations is not enough to accelerate growth. As you adopt the cloud, you must learn the fact that your cloud-based resources are at huge risk. Nearly 79% of cloud-based organizations have experienced a cyberattack at least once in their lifetime. Out of those, 48% admitted to facing more than 10 cyberattacks at a time.

Data theft, data leak, malware attack, and various other kinds of cyber risks are part and parcel of the cloud. Hence, one key aspect of the cloud migration strategy is to strengthen cyber security and protect the cloud.

Wallarm presents a very inventive and result-driven cloud protection tool, Cloud Native WAAP. The tool is designed to provide all exclusive and updated protection to all sorts of web applications and APIs that an organization is using.

It works seamlessly in all leading cloud types like public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and even Kubernetes-based cloud. The tool is equipped to eliminate cloud threats like -

• OWASP Top 10
• ATO or Account Take Over
• Malicious Bots
• Zero-day vulnerabilities
• L7 DDoS attack

It’s worth your trust as it won’t involve you in manual rule tuning, comes with nearly zero false positives, has advanced threshold blocking mode, and fully managed SOCs. Over 200 enterprise customers have already trusted this cloud protection tool. It’s your turn now. Adopt cloud and protect your digital assets with Wallarm.