Many businesses have started considering cloud migration as a reliable business alternative. The process of shifting data, apps, and other business constituents from an organization’s in-house computers to cloud or moving them from one cloud service to the other is complicated and requires a well-defined plan, focus, and persistence. If your business is planning to migrate applications to the cloud, there are a few pointers that need your attention. Here is the list of five criteria to be considered seriously before staring with the process of cloud migration.
Pointers to follow as a per-requisite to migration include the following:
1. Software Licensing
Software licensing is a major concern as far as data and app migration is considered. It has taken years of effort for software providers to sync with the reality about virtual environment. Various software vendors continue to follow the penitentiary licensing framework for virtualized environments. Likewise, various cloud infrastructures are enduring an identical transformation. Even today, many software and Operating Systems (OS) need separate licensing for cloud wherein some solutions have omitted cloud from their options altogether. You should thus, focus on the database layer and ensure that your database engine meets the licensing requirements of your cloud provider.
2. Virtual Infrastructure
Before getting started with the process, one should ponder over a basic question, do we have the right infrastructure to migrate to the cloud? If yes, then there is nothing to worry about. In case the answer is a no, you need to count your options including third-party assistance to facilitate the migration of data and apps to the cloud. The fundamental truth about migration is that it can happen only if there is a virtual-to-virtual (V2V) platform available. Considering x86 virtualization, if your technology is already running on a virtual platform, migration is not that difficult a task. However, the physical migration of apps needs some analysis, although nothing major.
3. Vendor Support
One of the most challenging non-technical tasks for migration is to earn the support of software vendors. Various critical and highly efficient apps are bound by strict obligations around infrastructure support. For instance, some in-memory analytic programs are stern about essential CPU and memory assemblage and storage designs. Technically the solution may perform well on the cloud, yet the software provider may either not offer the required support or offer no support at all. Integrated solutions like AWS SAP from vendors and cloud providers are simply great.
4. Data Locality
It is mandatory for the engineers to consider all regulatory issues pertaining to data before proceeding with the process of migration to cloud. Most cloud providers make sure they follow standard procedures to obtain certification for their processes and physical infrastructure for compliance rules like that of the Payment Card Industry (PCI).
5. Redundancy
Applications that are refactored for the cloud, consider the accessibility of fundamental infrastructure. Thus, it is important to scrutinize and recognize the availability needs of the apps, which are set to be migrated to the cloud. For example, if an app needs five 9s (99.999%) of uptime and you have created a redundant infra to assist the required uptime, you need to be careful about migrating it to the cloud.
Consider the above-mentioned pointers at the right time for a hassle experience throughout the data and app migration process.
