The 12 Key Steps For A Smooth Cloud Migration

Are you ready to move your on-premises application to cloud-based servers? From rehosting to redesigning to testing and monitoring that everything is working perfectly, the job is way more critical.

Business migration workloads to the cloud for various reasons, like the public cloud, are far more scalable than the on-premises data centers. As you know, when there were no cloud servers, the storage mechanism was very tough. The extensive array of resources, services, and automation support large, complex, and highly available workloads that are flexible and responsive to the user demand. Moreover, the vast services enable businesses to manage workloads and access data in new and creative ways.

Companies also transform from capital-intensive hardware and software investment for recurring operating expenses. However, processing the workload movement from an on-premises data center to a cloud provider is neither simpler nor automated. Moreover, it requires careful planning, analysis, and preparation of the processes.

So, in this blog, we're going to discuss the 12 fundamental ways through which you can easily migrate to cloud servers & keep your data safe and secured.

Let's get started.

The Key Steps For A Seamless Cloud Migration

There are a total of 12 steps for seamless cloud migration, through which you can easily migrate the data to the cloud.

Building A Business Case

Why does any business need to migrate to the cloud? Is it the workload, or is there something else? There is no size, purpose, or benefit for cloud usage. However, migrating workload to the cloud may improve your reliability. Flexibility and speed so, the target is to boost the convenience.

Determining Cloud Migration Approach

Understanding the driving factors such as cost-effectiveness, lower infrastructure, scalability, and availability would enhance user satisfaction & usability.

However, the most critical decision is deciding whether you need to move towards the cloud; if yes, how will you do that? Depending on the cloud and the workload, there are these four approaches for cloud migration:

Rehosting:

In this approach, you lift or shift existing data and applications on cloud storage and compute the resources without modifications. It's often the fastest and direct migration method. However, it doesn't work with every type of application but works well when you're trying to migrate a low workload.

Refactoring:

Then on second, we have an extensive modification of the workload code to use the cloud's native services with more extension. However, it requires a clear and detailed understanding of the cloud's service providers, services, and infrastructures. But remember, the features and functionalities will remain the same, which means unchanged.

Rebuilding:

The third approach is rebuilding, which is the most typical and complex one, but people demand a lot. It's fundamental for catering to the workload from scratch to function most effectively and efficiently within the cloud providers. For instance, an aging legacy workload would have a chance of being redesigned and rebuilt using a cloud-native architecture like microservices.

Replacement:

Lastly, we have a replacement in which we deploy, modify, or replace the workload and switch to a third-party vendor's application. Often businesses choose to select a Saas product. For instance, it might be easier to use the cloud provider's workload monitoring utility rather than attempting to deploy and use the same tools for running on the premises.

Cloud migration alternatives are nothing but a different way that can be used to put less effort and disturb the workload.

Evaluate Costing & Needs:

Have a clear image of the workload, current costing, and performance characteristics—evaluating the local server procurement, operations, and maintenance. However, you should carefully assess the workload local performance and gather the metrics such as transactions made per second and the bandwidth usage through an application performance monitoring (APM) tool.

Choosing A Cloud Environment:

And next, we need to identify the environment where the workload will be placed. Whether it's a private cloud, public, or hybrid, make a choice wisely.

Private Cloud

The private cloud is a small-scale cloud server that businesses implement for managing their existing data center infrastructures. It demands significant financial and technical commitments and lacks a bit of service along with scalability found in other environments. However, it will be an ideal alternative if the business stays on cloud flexibility and retains complete control over data and workloads.

Public Cloud

Secondly, the public cloud is the typical commercial computing that works as a unity service offered by large and small third-party providers. Public clouds are typically extensive and highly scalable, possess a global reach, and offer a wealth of individual services.

Hybrid Cloud

Lastly, the hybrid cloud merges both the private and public cloud servers, combining both the servers' benefits—a highly high-level controllable, flexible, and scalable server for businesses. However, let me tell you one thing, hybrid cloud servers require a way more investment than the other because it's a combination of both private and public.

Choosing A Deployment Model

A fourth most crucial step is identifying the deployment model on which you will post all of your data. Each model varies based on the data type, size, and level of convenience.

Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)

In this type, the cloud resources closely mimic the traditional data center infrastructures like the servers, storage space, and monitoring of the activities. However, the cloud architects assemble all the elements to create a complex infrastructure for hosting the organization's most crucial workload.

Platform As A Service (PaaS)

This type, which is the most general and highly integrated development environment, is used by leading businesses. It extends with the hardware-based resources and software like databases, development tools, and integration layers for ready-made components that can easily replace one or more traditional local tools.

Software As A Service (Saas)

Lastly, we have Saas known and used by many businesses these days. There is a ready-made application that works as an alleviation for fulfilling the needs of companies by deploying the workload in the cloud.

Picking A Cloud Partner For Partnership

On the fifth, you have to choose the cloud partner from many people already available in the market. Various cloud partners offer the space like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. These days, businesses are typically choosing a cloud partner based on the scope of services and the functionalities required for the workload.

There are different options for cloud-like VMware, Dell EMC, IBM Red Hat, Nutanix, HPE, and OpenStack.

Designing The Architecture For Deployment

In the sixth step, we have to design the cloud architecture for hosting the workload. The design combines virtually with computing, storage, and networking instances like databases, logging, or event-driven computing instances.

The architecture can be simple without any loopholes, like a single computer and a storage device for managing the simple rehosting mechanism. An architect is responsible for considering the cloud costs associated with desired architecture and ensuring that the workload is adequately budgeted.

Especially look carefully to prioritize the migration components. One of the most modern enterprise workloads involves one or more dependencies like databases and application monitoring tools.

Outlining The Migration Steps

A migration plan can be as detailed as possible, involving some of the most important factors like;

Informing the users

Backup the local deployment

Transfer all the data required for workload management

Move or install the workload to the cloud

Validate and test the complete migration

Prepare documentation for help desk staff so they can quickly respond to queries.

Open the migrated workload for some users

Implement workload monitoring

Executing The Cloud Migration

And we are now very close to seamless cloud migration, ultimately when the business implements the migration plan and migrates all the data, workload, dependencies to the cloud infrastructure. In the process, networking engineers play a vital role in managing the network changes like IP addresses and setting up security environments.

For a smooth cloud migration, it's vital to carefully test and migrate the migration process as proof of principles. Moreover, at the same time, keeping the current & direct contact information for both the

Local IT staff and cloud provider technical support in the event of an unexpected problem.

9. Testing The Workload

And once you're done with the migration, test the workload for functionality and performance. You can collect and evaluate workload metrics and look for vulnerabilities, if any. You can always start with the basic testing and keep repeating it until all users report that the migration has been done successfully.

10. Monitoring The After Effects

You will need to perform a maintenance check once you are done with testing. This test includes monitoring, support troubleshooting, adjustment, refinements, and general upkeep over time.

Here you can;

Monitor the workload performance to foresee utilization trends, and spot the bottlenecks, if any.

Periodically review all the deployment configuration layers for an adequate security and compliance test.

Checking monthly bills and ensuring that the workload stays within the cloud budget.

Evaluating the costing and performance of the migrated workload for ensuring it achieves intended benefits for the business.

Buckle Up Cloud Skills & Training Sessions

And yes, you're now all done with the successful cloud migration. Even the most straightforward rehosting projects are directly exchanged without translation from a local to a cloud-based environment. However, cloud migration projects require explicit knowledge and expertise in the relative field.

No migration wizard applet can be replaced without fundamental expertise and experience.

Wrapping Up | Key Steps For Smooth Cloud Migration

And that's all for the day! I hope you are now unambiguous with a clean, straightforward, and seamless cloud migration. However, if you still have some questions in mind, feel free to share them in the comments section.