Cloud migration refers to the process of moving an enterprise’s data, server, and resources from a physical location to a cloud infrastructure.
Cloud computing can be deployed in different ways depending on what services a business actually needs.
When considering its cloud migration strategy, a company must consider two factors.
- The first thing to consider is the deployment model—public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud.
- The second element is the service category. Will it be Saas (Software as a Service), Paas (Platform as a Service), or Iaas (Infrastructure as a service)?
What are the types of cloud migration?
There are a number of different migration approaches a company can choose to adopt.
These are the key cloud migration types:
- Lift & Shift: First the basic lift & shift (this is known as re-host), involving the transfer of data and applications from a local, on-premises data center to the public cloud, to moving to a wholly new cloud-based operating system (re-platform), with the advantage of a reduction in operational expense, to an upgrade of application components to conform to new standards (re-factor).
- Cloud-to-cloud migration: A cloud migration could also entail moving data and applications from one cloud platform or provider to another, a model known as cloud-to-cloud migration.
- Reverse cloud migration or de-clouding: A third type of migration is to uncloud, also known as reverse cloud migration or de-clouding, where data or applications are moved off of the cloud and back to a local data center.
Cloud computing has been a game changer for organizations and businesses of all sizes.
Here are the top advantages:
Cost Savings:
A Cloud Hosted Desktop provides you with scalable computing power while minimizing IT requirements and physical data storage, providing you with significant savings.
- Lower acquisition costs
- Lower hardware costs
- Minimal IT resources required to run
- Less expensive to manage
With cloud computing, organizations no longer need to invest in expensive hardware and infrastructure. Instead, they pay for what they use on a subscription basis, which can result in lower upfront costs and ongoing expenses. Additionally, cloud computing eliminates the need for IT staff to manage and maintain hardware, further reducing costs.
Security: Cloud IT service providers actually provide higher levels of security and data integrity. Why?
- Because they make huge investments in resources and technology, along with a skilled team of IT experts and engineers smaller businesses just can’t afford to do on their own.
- With cloud computing, organizations benefit from the expertise and resources of their provider, ensuring that their data and applications are secure and protected.
- Even more security for users by backing-up data offsite – decreasing the potential for hackers, viruses, ransomware, and other cybersecurity problems.
- In addition, cloud providers are often subject to rigorous security and privacy regulations, making it easier for organizations to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
“Operational agility” – a top driver for cloud adoption:
Agility and flexibility can provide companies with a true competitive advantage. Flexibility and agility, refer to the ability to rapidly and cost-effectively respond and adapt to market and environmental changes. The cloud offers a level of flexibility that is unmatched by on-premises solutions.
- Employees can access cloud-based applications and data from anywhere with an internet connection, making it easier for teams to collaborate and work remotely.
- Cloud-based solutions are inherently flexible, allowing companies to scale up or down with demand, without the need to add to or retire existing infrastructure.
- Cloud providers often offer a range of options and customization features that allow organizations to tailor their solutions to meet their specific needs.
Connectivity & Accessibility:
Keep users connected no matter where they work with anytime, anywhere access. Users may access files anytime, anywhere, using any device. That means no more risk of files being stored on any computer.
Disaster recovery and business continuity:
- One of the biggest advantages of the cloud is the ability to maintain business continuity in the event of a disaster.
- With on-premises solutions, if a disaster occurs that damages or destroys the physical hardware, data, and applications may be lost.
- In the cloud, however, data is stored in multiple locations, making it much easier to recover from a disaster and maintain business continuity.
Faster Deployment:
- Additionally, cloud computing often includes built-in tools and automation that can help streamline the deployment process and reduce the time and effort required.
- It means that businesses can quickly provision the necessary resources and scale up or down as needed, allowing for more efficient and cost-effective deployment of applications and services.
- Cloud-based services can be deployed within just an hour or a few days rather than weeks, months, or years to strategically plan, buy, build, and implement an internal IT infrastructure with internal personnel.
Increased Collaboration:
Cloud computing enables employees situated in various locations to collaborate easily. By providing simultaneous syncing, working, and sharing of documents and records in real-time, cloud computing helps increase the collaboration and efficiency of employees.
some of the benefits of cloud-based collaboration as:
- Flexible work environments
- Enhanced communication with customers, suppliers, and partners
- Enables new products and services
- Supports business scalability
- Enables workforce mobility
- Reduces operating costs
While collaboration can certainly take place outside of the cloud, nothing can compete with the cloud’s ability to facilitate collaboration across functional boundaries, time zones, and between organizations.
Improved Efficiency: After migrating to the cloud, you no longer need to worry about power requirements, space considerations, expensive computer hardware, or software updates. You get to keep your entire company focused on generating revenue and relationships, not on IT.
Scalability: Cloud computing is highly scalable, meaning that organizations can easily add or remove resources as needed. This is in contrast to on-premises solutions, which often require a significant investment in hardware in order to handle increased demand. In the cloud, businesses can scale up or down as needed, making it easier to accommodate growth and changes in demand.
Accelerated Adoption to New Technology:
Migrating all your applications to the cloud allows your organization to adopt new technologies much faster, while also enabling affordable technology adoption in response to suitable business opportunities.
Ease of Use:
Most of the cloud solutions are built with user-friendliness in mind. Moving to the cloud generally requires no technical resources for setting up the architecture and is super easy to use.
Always up-to-date:
When software is hosted in the cloud by the vendor, updates are typically made automatically, meaning users are always running the most current version. This has several benefits, including:
- Eliminate time spent updating server applications and desktop devices
- Protection against threats and vulnerabilities
- Continually take advantage of the latest features and functionality
- Benefit from ongoing improvements in speed and security
- Maintain compliance with changing regulations
- Ensure compatibility with other, newer applications
Document access and control:
Cloud-based document access and control solutions store documents centrally, enabling everyone (with the correct security privileges) to access, view, share, and edit content. Advantages of centralized document management include:
- One version of the truth — everyone is viewing the same version of the document.
- Automatic backups — the documents are backed up along with the application data.
- Easy sharing and increased collaboration — documents can easily be routed to employees, customers, and vendors.
- Regulatory compliance — companies in many industries are subject to strict record-keeping and document control requirements and cloud solutions are typically superior to premise-based solutions.
Predictable, budgetary pricing:
In a major shift from the typical on-premise software purchase model where companies purchase perpetual licenses for the application, SaaS applications are typically sold as subscriptions, where companies pay a monthly subscription fee that may vary by the number of users and/or the capabilities desired. With a fixed fee, companies are better able to budget their overall technology expenditures.
Cloud computing – How it is crucial to the future of our society:
The cloud will also be transformative for companies, especially small and mid-sized businesses, as data analytics, artificial intelligence, and other capabilities become available as services. Because each industry has different needs, thousands of distinct, separate clouds, all working in concert across a digital ecosystem of different industry verticals. For example:
- A commercial aviation cloud will help airlines manage ground operations such as maintenance, fueling, baggage handling, and cabin cleaning, thereby increasing efficiency and helping flights take off on time.
- A utility cloud will automatically repair faults in the power grid to ensure that homes and businesses get the electricity they need.
- A banking cloud will let financial institutions scan thousands of transactions per second to prevent fraud.
- Artificial Intelligence: The cloud will support emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and help them to adapt to new platforms such as mobile.
- Autonomous Vehicles: The vision of driverless cars gliding down streets and highways is still a ways off, but it will be realized soon, thanks to the power of the cloud. As with smartphones, vehicles come with sensors and cameras that generate plenty of data. Much of that data needs to be processed in real-time, so pressing will take place on, or inside of, the vehicle itself. But many tasks, such as software updates and machine learning, will happen in the cloud.
The cloud has lost its mystery and is now a utility service like water or electricity:
In conclusion, the migration from on-premises to cloud computing can bring a range of benefits for organizations. From cost savings and scalability to flexibility, disaster recovery, and security, there are many compelling reasons to consider making the switch. Of course, every organization is unique and the specific benefits will depend on the specific needs and circumstances. However, for many organizations, the benefits of cloud computing are too significant to ignore.
