What are the Six Rs of Cloud Migration?

One of the predominant factors that kept businesses thriving when the world economy went under the blankets during the pandemic, and everything shifted online- The cloud Migration. No wonder organizations have fastened their seatbelts towards this billion-dollar industry, especially after the massive pandemic outbreak. But is that all? Businesses are re-considering every operation towards the cloud because of its advanced features and benefits, which it equips the businesses with. One of the many yet significant silver linings is improved productivity, availability, and saving business ROI by choosing the right Cloud Service Provider.

By 2026, Gartner predicts that public cloud spending will exceed 45% of all IT spending, up 17% in 2021.

Maintaining business lines through physical hardware, saving data manually, and networking is a cumbersome task; now that everything has shifted online, not just unnecessary labor-intensive, it significantly fuels capital expenditures and IT and network services.

Moving data and applications to the cloud lighten the budget loads for organizations and leave more room for cross-collaboration. You’ve minimal to no chances of losing data; thus, future proofs on risk management ensure the business continuity flows uninterrupted. Everything from the servers to the data and applications is not tied to the home office.

However, the added benefits come with little of their tantrums of the migration process, which can be daunting in terms of aftermath execution and expense if not taken care of initially. Your cloud requirements, features, and services you want should be based on your business requirement and not on what others are following. And that requires you to brush up on the basics of cloud migration if you’re new to the process. Additionally, businesses need to ensure a holistic strategy in understanding what, how, and the aftereffect of migration in terms of licensing, services, and products across the organization.

To make your bullet and soundproof through this process, we’ve enlisted the basic 6Rs of Cloud Migration that leaves a collective overview of how and when should you consider these processes-

Rehost

Rehosting is currently charming; several organizations are considering their migration strategies. Suppose you’re thinking about transitioning from your on-premise Oracle database to an EC2 in AWS with some upfront exertion; this is where rehosting is your best fit. Rehosting quickly transitions without code-level changes, making it the most uncomplicated cloud migration strategy.

It works on the lift and shift principle, where it requires lifting servers from their ongoing hosting environment and migrating them to infrastructure in the public cloud and rehosting. This especially applies to large-scale migrations. Furthermore, it comes with its own added benefits-

• Enhances performance and speed
• It’s scalable & pay-as-you-go infrastructure
• Low resistance in terms of migration.
• Ephemeral compute and autoscaling.
• It doesn’t require too much technology and expertise, making it simple to use.

Replatform

The second R refers to Replatforming, where we revise our focus from “lift and shift” to “as is.” Replatforming involves optimizing the application during the migration stage, requiring programming input and expertise. You may have outdated operating systems that the cloud provider no longer supports, so re-platforming is an essential prerequisite to migration.

Additionally, when you consider shifting to an open-source platform from a commercial platform to improve your business functionalities. In similar situations, you’d require only modifying the underlying services while keeping the core application intact, and this doesn’t let your application architecture change.

Repurchase

Repurchasing, if possible, makes the most feasible options to access cloud-based SaaS that is tailored according to your business requirements by the cloud provider. It’s also referred to as drop and shop pattern as it includes moving down to another product by replacing the in-premise application with a cloud-native vendor-packaged software. It entails a licensing change by ending existing on-premise licenses and repurposing new license agreements on new platforms or services. The upgraded cloud version provides higher efficiency, increased app storage, and reduced maintenance charges. It assists your in-house operations like Customer relationship management, content management, and Human resources by uplifting their existing data and articulating them in your cloud-based production environment.

Retain

Retaining is also termed as revisit since it emphasizes revisiting the vital portions or applications of your digital data, which should be refactored before they get relocated to the cloud.

Given that some portions of your digital asset might suit better with the on-premise renditions and be retained as-is. There are several other factors to maintain the in-house segment, such as increased migration costs and cutting off the depreciation values. Your organization can probably leverage better value using the on-ground application, famous for hybrid cloud services.

Refactor and Re-architect

Refactoring, the fourth R, comes into action when you pledge to upgrade or re-organize your cloud architecture. That’s why we also refer to this as refactor or “re-architecture.” It’s driven by the business requirements that demand scalability or adding up for features, perhaps when the drivers face difficulty operating in their existing environment. In situations where cloud providers anticipate heavy traffic bursts or activity, refactoring makes a great option to increase reliability over the application.

Moreover, it comes with its business benefits-

Boosts agility, expands overall productivity and collaboration support, security, and business continuity.

However, it’s more towards the time-consuming and pocket-tight situation, so businesses running on time constraints can schedule refactoring towards the end of the migration stage. Thus most preferably, it’s stranded after the rehosting phase has been accomplished unless you have got a mission-critical situation to combat.

Retire

Here we come towards the last strategy-where you understand which applications are explicitly phased out.

While you transition through every business element that has the potential of migrating and creating value for your business in terms of product, service, or application, it’s inevitable to recognize which users of each migration can be put to rest, so you don’t burn resources in their expedition. These are predominant in situations where businesses carry over mergers or acquisitions. However, the phasing out should filter your application portfolio and utilize your resources to their best.

Wrapping Up- Scale Responsibly

It’s not an overnight process; to reap the benefits, businesses require being prompt and ready to combat the process’s cracks and heal. In fact, every business and its core is unique, which should be ensured while you migrate your applications, knowing what shall work best for you.

The technology is fast-paced to reach their optimum potential businesses moving along the way. Cloud migration is an excellent solution, but only if you’ve weighed your options well already.