Aspects of Cloud Migration

Aspects of Cloud Migration
Lesson 3 · Provisioning

Aspects of Cloud Migration

Deciding to use the cloud is one thing — actually moving there is another. This section covers the directions a migration can run, the phases it moves through, how virtualization migrations differ from cloud migrations, and the eight strategies for handling any given application.

3.15

Migration Types

When you think of cloud migration, you probably envision moving data, services, applications, and other portions of the IT infrastructure to the cloud. There are three kinds of cloud migrations. Click each to see how it flows.

INFO — Multi-cloud is not the same as a hybrid cloud. "Hybrid" refers to a combination of private and public cloud services, possibly with legacy components integrated. Multi-cloud relies on at least two public cloud vendors.

3.16

Phases of Cloud Migration

The four phases of the cloud migration process are assess, plan, implement, and optimize the deployment. Every phase is approached with the business's strategic and tactical goals in mind — risk mitigation, scalability, increased availability.

PHASE 1
Assess
PHASE 2
Plan
PHASE 3
Implement
PHASE 4
Optimize

Your organization will probably accomplish its cloud deployment across several distinct sub-phases, which generally include:

Discovery of resources
Suitability for cloud deployment
Mapping applications to solutions
Migration of servers & services
Operational support

3.17

Virtualization Migrations

It's important to differentiate between cloud migrations and virtualization migrations — physical servers might be migrated to a locally hosted, non-cloud data center virtualization host. There are three types of virtualization migrations, each following an assess → plan → deploy → optimize flow.

INFO — Always do a backup of the server and its contents before using a migration tool.

A small sample of the migration tools CSPs provide — many third-party solutions exist as well.

GCP
Migrate for Compute Engine
Azure
Azure Migrate: Server Migration
AWS
AWS Server Migration Service

3.18

Application Migration Strategies

Eight cloud migration types describe how a given application is handled, ranging from no modification at all to a full rebuild — or no move at all. Drag along the spectrum, from least to most modification required.

In practice — your business will likely use some combination of these strategies. Not all applications can or should be migrated to the cloud — you may lift-and-shift some, drop-and-shop others, and retire the rest. This mix is itself the eighth type: Hybrid.
INFO — Cloud migrations are an excellent time to discover and retire legacy applications that may no longer serve the needs of your organization. You may be surprised how many of these applications exist on your network.
§ 3.15–3.18 · Aspects of Cloud Migration