Cloud migration involves many complex steps and requires strategic vision, technical cloud expertise, and a clear understanding of both the existing infrastructure and target state environment. This article explores some of the proven migration techniques that can serve as a guide for any cloud migration journey.
I. The 6 R’s Approach for Cloud Migration
The “6 R’s” framework is an industry-standard approach for cloud migrations and provides a great foundation for organizations looking to undertake this journey:
- Rehost (lift and shift)
- Replatform (lift, tinker, and shift)
- Repurchase (drop and shop)
- Refactor/Re-architect
- Retire
- Retain
Among these approaches replatforming involves the most technical complexity, so we will explore it further here and try to unpack the complexity.
II. Technical Implementation of Replatforming
Replatforming includes not only moving resources to the target environment but also making optimizations during the migration process. A common example to consider here is migrating an on-premises database to a managed cloud database instance. The implementation approach shown below with a streaming data integration and change data capture technology minimizes disruptions and risks.
The above approach demonstrates effective handling of the complex process of database migration, while also considering some of the non-functional aspects like:
• Batch processing to prevent memory overload
• Error handling and logging
• Data verification
III. Containerization to enable Cloud Migration
Containerization simplifies cloud migrations by providing consistency across environments. Converting monolithic applications to containerized services can serves as a great starter in the process of completing full cloud-native refactoring. The below flowchart depicts the detailed steps to be followed in the containerization process.
IV. Refactoring to Cloud-Native Architecture
While refactoring is the most complex migration strategy, it offers the greatest long-term benefit and ROI for firms. Refactoring is also an opportunity for teams to adopt a cloud native architecture and decompose their monolithic applications into microservices.
V. Data Migration Approaches
Data migration often involves large volumes of data and is one of the trickiest pieces in cloud migration. It is crucial to design an optimal approach based on key parameters such as data volume, RTO, RPO, and rules. Shown below are some of the standard approaches used in large scale data migrations and guidance on where they fit best.
VI. Performance Monitoring and Optimization
Post-migration monitoring of the cloud environment and transactions is crucial not only for debugging, but also for addressing performance issues and scaling the infrastructure as needed. This needs a consistent approach that ties together the application layer, the logging infrastructure and the analytics platform as shown below.
VII. Conclusion
A successful cloud migration requires the right blend of strategic vision and technical expertise. The migration techniques depicted in this article provide a foundation to address complex migration challenges. But a detailed understanding of the specific requirements and careful selection of the migration strategies, is crucial to minimize risks while maximizing the benefits of cloud adoption.
When planning a cloud migration, it is recommended to prioritize these critical success factors:
- Thorough assessment of existing applications and infrastructure landscape
- Selection of appropriate migration strategies for each type of workload
- Implementation of a robust testing process
- Continuous monitoring and optimization post-migration
The cloud technologies will continue to evolve as they always have, so a regular assessment of your architecture and leveraging new cloud-native capabilities will help ensure that your cloud infrastructure remains optimized for both performance and cost.
