The document discusses key considerations for migrating a business to the cloud. It covers potential benefits like improved performance, faster innovation, enhanced resilience and security. It also discusses important factors to consider like choosing the right cloud platform, budgeting, data security and common challenges. The cloud migration process involves discovery, design, migration, going live and ongoing support phases. Different migration strategies like rehosting, replatforming, repurchasing, refactoring, retiring and retaining are also outlined.

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Cloud Migration : Key Points to Consider
solulab.com/cloud-migration-key-points
Deciding to migrate your business the cloud drastically alters how you conduct business
operations. This major move requires careful strategic planning and consideration. While
potential benefits exist, wrong decisions bring unwanted costs. Cloud migration impacts
economics, operations, security, and more. Having answers to these strategic questions
allows informed planning to fully leverage cloud promise while managing very real
challenges. Deciding requires thoughtful deliberation as this is no minor choice. In this guide,
we are going to discuss the key elements that are crucial for a successful cloud migration.
Why Do You Need to Migrate to the Cloud?
There are transformative cloud migration benefits across key business operations.
Regardless of your starting point, transitioning to a cloud platform can greatly enhance
performance, agility, scalability, and security. Key potential benefits include:
Improved Performance & Scalability

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Migrating to the cloud provides flexible access to on-demand computing, storage, and
network resources that can scale up and down based on real-time workload demands.
Organizations are no longer constrained by fixed on-premises infrastructure capacities and
capabilities. Cloud platforms offer near instantaneous access to additional resources when
needed, by leveraging the provider’s massive global infrastructure and economies of scale.
This enables high-performance workload processing. Cloud data migration also provides
auto-scaling, intelligent load balancing across global regions, and optimizing running
workloads on the latest high-efficiency hardware.
Faster Innovation
The cloud accelerates business innovation through faster ideation, development, and
deployment of new products and services. Automated self-service and API access
transforms deployment lead times from months to minutes, dramatically accelerating
experimentation and implementation. This empowers innovation across all levels of the
business, not just IT teams. Many advanced cloud services offer pre-built solutions
leveraging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, IoT and analytics
that can drive innovation. New capabilities can be built, tested and deployed rapidly.
Enhanced Resilience
Migrating business systems to the cloud substantially strengthens organizational resilience.
Leading cloud providers offer built-in business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities
across isolated global regions and availability zones. This includes persistent storage
replication and seamless cross-region redundancy providing unprecedented resilience to
outages. Cloud also offers many other related continuity capabilities such as automated
failover and instance recovery. For most organizations, cloud delivers business resilience
well beyond what can realistically be achieved using traditional on-premises models.
Advanced Security
Leading cloud providers invest billions in next-generation security tools and global threat
intelligence to prevent, detect, and respond to emerging risks. Cloud platforms provide
unified security controls including automated policy enforcement, data encryption, role-based
access controls, and activity auditing logs across services. System updates, security
patches, and compliance controls are applied automatically at global scale. By tapping
advanced cloud security capabilities, organizations can reduce risk exposure related to talent
shortages, legacy systems, limited budgets and more.
Cost Savings
The cloud changes infrastructure spending from high upfront capital investments to flexible
ongoing operating expenditure based on consumption. The pay-as-you-go models allow
optimal spending aligned to workloads. Cloud pricing models also benefit enormously from
the providers’ economies of scale. Organizations avoid over or under provisioning by

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purchasing the computing resources needed versus planning for theoretical peak capacity.
Cloud billing transparency and recommendation tools further empower organizations to
optimize cloud expenditure
Things to Consider Before Migrating to the Cloud
Building a Strong Foundation
Before moving to the cloud, it’s crucial to establish a solid migration architecture. This
involves planning resources, defining cloud requirements, and strategizing for data transfer.
The migration architect plays a key role in making critical decisions for a successful migration
process through detailed technical planning and structured design.
Choosing the Right Cloud Platform
Selecting a cloud platform for critical applications can be challenging. The choice depends
on the APIs and technology used in software development. Organizations must assess their
business requirements and application technology before deciding on a single or multi-cloud
platform.
Budgeting Wisely
Setting an affordable budget for cloud migration is essential. Companies need to estimate
the total cost of resources and understand the pricing structure of cloud platforms. Evaluating
existing infrastructure and internal resources is crucial before committing to a cloud migration

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approach. Various cloud tools and third-party applications can enhance business growth and
productivity.
Making the Right Choice
Making the right choice of cloud service provider is a crucial step. Companies should
analyze providers based on technology, compatibility, international standards, and governing
policies. An apt provider can work efficiently with your applications and provide 24/7 support.
Ensuring Data Security
Safeguarding confidential data is paramount. Organizations must scrutinize the security
policies and regulations of the chosen cloud provider before deploying applications. More
than 60% of companies express concerns about the security measures followed by cloud
providers, highlighting the importance of thorough evaluation.
R’s Of Cloud Migration
Broadly categorized as the “six R’s of migration,” these strategies offer various approaches,
each tailored to different business needs and priorities. Understanding and choosing the right
strategy is crucial for a successful transition to the cloud.
Rehosting (“Lift and Shift”)

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Rehosting involves lifting your existing infrastructure and shifting it from on-premises hosting
to the cloud without making significant modifications. This approach aims for a quick return
on investment (ROI) by creating an exact replica of the current environment. It is suitable for
companies with a conservative culture or those lacking a long-term strategy for advanced
cloud capabilities. The advantage of rehosting lies in its simplicity and speed, making it an
efficient strategy for organizations looking for a straightforward migration process.
Replatforming
Replatforming, a variation of lift and shift, involves making additional adjustments to optimize
your applications for the cloud. While the core architecture remains the same, organizations
implementing this strategy aim to enhance performance and efficiency. Replatforming is a
good fit for conservative organizations seeking to build trust in the cloud while realizing
benefits like increased system performance. It strikes a balance between the simplicity of
rehosting and the potential improvements offered by more complex strategies.
Repurchasing
Repurchasing entails moving applications to a new, cloud-native product, commonly a
Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. For example, migrating a Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) system to Salesforce. This strategy can be cost-effective, especially for
organizations transitioning from highly customized legacy landscapes. However, it comes
with challenges, such as adapting to a new platform and training teams on its usage.
Repurchasing is a strategic move for organizations looking to benefit from specialized cloud
services provided by third-party vendors.
Refactoring (Rearchitecting)
Refactoring, or rearchitecting, involves rebuilding applications from the ground up. This
strategy is driven by the need to leverage cloud capabilities not available in the existing
environment, such as auto-scaling or serverless computing. While refactoring is generally the
most expensive option, it offers compatibility with future versions and allows organizations to
fully exploit advanced cloud features. Businesses adopting this strategy prioritize long-term
benefits and are willing to invest in overhauling their applications for maximum cloud
efficiency.
Retiring
After assessing the application portfolio for cloud readiness, organizations may find some
applications are no longer useful or relevant. In such cases, the retirement strategy involves
simply turning off these applications. The resulting cost savings can potentially strengthen
the business case for migrating other applications. This approach is a pragmatic way to
streamline the IT landscape, focusing resources on essential and relevant applications,
ultimately contributing to cost efficiency and improved overall performance.

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Retaining
Not all organizations are ready for or find value in immediate cloud adoption. The retaining
cloud strategy acknowledges that cloud migration might not currently align with the
organization’s priorities or constraints. This could be due to compliance reasons, data
sensitivity concerns, or a recent application upgrade. In such cases, organizations plan to
revisit cloud computing at a later date when it makes more business sense. Retaining allows
businesses to migrate to the cloud at their own pace, aligning with their strategic goals and
priorities.
Cloud Migration Process
A smooth transition to a new cloud infrastructure requires a comprehensive framework and
access to expert guidance. A structured migration plan helps organize the process into
manageable phases while ensuring accountability. Here is how to migrate to the cloud.
1. Discovery Phase
This analysis ensures alignment with unique infrastructure demands. Assemble a
cross-functional migration team and evaluate priorities from different viewpoints:
Analyze Existing Infrastructure:
Catalog all applications, servers, resources in use. Document purposes,
hardware/software requirements, licensing costs and operational expenses. Identifies
migration readiness.

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Compare on-premises systems and resources versus assessing suitability for cloud
hosting. Analyze performance, security and cost tradeoffs to determine migration
candidates.
Leverage automated discovery tools to collect technical data on servers, storage
systems, networks and application dependencies. Provides a basis for cloud mapping.
Formulate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Define quantifiable metrics like system uptime percentage, application response times,
error rates per requests to gauge pre-migration baselines.
Set infrastructure health baselines using KPIs for legacy systems. Provides comparison
points to evaluate post-migration improvements and cloud optimization.
KPIs determine success criteria for the migration such as improved uptime, faster
processing. Track progress from legacy to cloud systems.
Understand Pain Points:
Use infrastructure KPI analysis to identify deficiencies compared to ideals for
performance, availability, and recovery capabilities.
Highlight issues facing stakeholders such as inadequate disaster recovery provisions,
network bottlenecks impeding application response times.
Align business and technology teams on priority limitations and challenges to address
through the cloud data migration.
Identify Success Drivers:
Link stakeholder goals around IT agility, scalability and cost-savings to the definition of
a successful migration outcome.
Understand must-meet security, compliance, disaster recovery needs and constraints
forming the basis for migration decisions.
Success drivers guide deployment model selection, vendor evaluation and detailed
cloud infrastructure planning.
2. Design Phase
Select Deployment Model:
Public cloud simplicity enables faster migration but less control over resources with
possible regulatory compliance limitations.
Private cloud facilitates fully customized environments with security and control but
requires owning on-premises data centers.
Hybrid model blends public and private cloud capabilities allowing workloads placed
optimally across environments.

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Community cloud shares pooled resources between organizations easing costs but
limiting configuration options.
Choose Cloud Vendor:
Compare vendor service offerings to collected functional needs and non-functional
requirements including reliability, security maturity and infrastructure scale.
Vet vendor operational policies, customer service reputation, ecosystem integration
support and product roadmaps covering future-proofing needs.
Select vendor(s) delivering the best combination of technical capabilities, business
requirement alignment and budget suitability.
Document Architecture:
Map out server types and counts, storage volumes, network topology and connectivity
between legacy and cloud environments.
Catalog all software applications, databases and services planned for migration or
cloud transformation for implementation planning.
Architecture blueprint details the full technology stack and data flows for engineers to
provision and configure the cloud setup.
Plan Migration Sequence:
Schedule order and phases for migrating infrastructure, applications and data migration
based on interdependencies and failure impact.
Incorporate testing checkpoints, backups and rollback contingency plans across all
stages to minimize disruption upon cutover issues.
Structure rollout plan aiming to balance minimized legacy environment downtime
against total migration timeline
3. Migration Phase
Infrastructure Migration:
Backup existing systems before provisioning new cloud network capacity, storage
pools, security infrastructure, and compute capabilities.
Configure cloud framework encompassing subnets, routing policies, access controls
and connectivity back to legacy on-premises systems.
Test failover and recovery across cloud infrastructure before migration; simulate
workloads.
Application Migration:
As per migration plan, directly rehost simpler applications while refactoring others to
optimize for scalability, resilience and performance.

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Shift legacy custom applications in phases performing extensive testing before cutover
and routing production traffic.
Build in contingencies and rollback steps in case of unanticipated issues or delays
during migration.
Data Migration
Follow structured ETL process – extract data from legacy systems, transform if
necessary, and load into cloud databases.
Execute data migration in batches aligned to applications using specialized migration
tools.
Test accuracy of data transfers; confirm transaction integrity and validation checks
before cutover.
4. Going Live
Data Freeze:
Halt changes to the legacy environment before go-live, synchronize any final data sets,
enforcing change freeze to minimize discrepancies.
Minimize Downtime:
Use proxies and load balancers to reroute client and end-user traffic from old
infrastructure to cloud applications with minimal downtime.
Conduct tests to gauge failover timelines, noting any deltas between test and
production environments.
Have Rollback Plan:
Define rollback plan with detailed steps and contingencies for all components if
migration issues arise necessitating reverting back to legacy systems.
5. Ongoing Support
Regular Updates:
Schedule monthly patching and upgrades for cloud infrastructure security, OS, software
capabilities per organization policies.
Performance Monitoring:
Actively monitor system KPIs around utilization, latency and SLAs while benchmarking
workload performance and scalability.
Consider Managed Services:

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Consider leveraging managed services providers rather than limited internal resources
for maintenance, troubleshooting and cloud optimization.
So, these are the cloud migration steps to carefully work on for successfully moving your
business to the cloud.
Common Challenges Of Cloud Migration
Cloud migration is not without challenges, and understanding and mitigating these
challenges are crucial for a successful transition. In this comprehensive exploration, we
delve into various facets of cloud migration challenges, emphasizing the need for careful
planning, expertise, and strategic decision-making.
1. Data Security and Compliance Risks
Moving to a new cloud environment introduces fresh security and compliance risks. While
major cloud providers have robust security measures in place, understanding the shared
responsibility model is vital, especially when dealing with highly sensitive data. Thorough risk
assessments and a clear grasp of the cloud provider’s coverage are essential for maintaining
data security during migration. Compliance considerations, such as industry-specific and
regulatory requirements, must also be diligently addressed to avoid legal and financial
repercussions.
2. Cost Management and Budgeting

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Cloud migration is a complex and resource-intensive process that demands meticulous
planning to avoid unexpected costs. Businesses must carefully assess their existing
infrastructure and applications, identifying potential bottlenecks and compatibility issues.
Collaborating with experienced cloud providers and implementing cost management
strategies, including rightsizing instances and utilizing cost-saving options, is crucial to
control expenses and ensure a successful migration.
3. Wrong Cloud Migration Strategy
A well-planned cloud migration strategy is vital for success. Rushed decisions, such as
migrating all workloads at once, can lead to increased costs, prolonged timelines, and
disruptions to business operations. A comprehensive strategy should include cost estimates,
workload prioritization, realistic timelines, and considerations for necessary human and
technical resources. Failing to assess specific organizational needs may result in suboptimal
performance and higher-than-necessary costs.
4. Lack Of Internal Capacity
The lack of internal expertise can impede a smooth migration. Skilled cloud professionals are
essential for optimizing resource utilization, troubleshooting, and understanding best
practices. Engaging with cloud consultants or managed service providers with proven
expertise can provide valuable guidance and support throughout the migration process.
5. Migration Complexities
Cloud migration is inherently complex due to factors such as data type, size, and
dependencies. Incompatibility issues, both with data and hardware/software, can arise,
requiring careful consideration and resolution. Differences in opinions on migration
approaches can add to the complexity, emphasizing the need for a well-thought-out plan.
6. Application Compatibility
Applications that perform well on-premises may face performance issues in the cloud.
Identifying and addressing root causes, such as poorly optimized applications or network
latency, is crucial to ensure optimal performance and user adoption.
7. Data Transfer and Bandwidth Limitations
Transferring large volumes of data from on-premises to the cloud can lead to significant
delays, especially with limited network bandwidth. Efficient data migration strategies,
including incremental transfers and data compression techniques, are essential to overcome
bandwidth limitations.
8. Cultural Resistance to Change

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Organizations may encounter resistance from team members accustomed to legacy
systems. Proactively managing change and communication, involving end-users in decision-
making, and adopting a phased migration approach can help mitigate cultural resistance.
9. Legacy Systems Migration
Migrating legacy systems poses unique challenges due to outdated technologies and
complex interdependencies. Rigorous testing, validation, and a thorough assessment during
the planning phase are essential to ensure a seamless integration with modern cloud
platforms.
Conclusion
When choosing a new infrastructure, it’s essential for companies to carefully think about
various factors while moving their applications to the cloud. A reliable Cloud service provider
must provide robust security measures to safeguard your company’s sensitive data. While
cloud data migration is a vital process, following the appropriate steps with the support of
your cloud provider can streamline the transition to a cloud platform.
Elevate your cloud migration experience with SoluLab cloud-based development and
migration services. We will guide you through the discovery and design phases, evaluating
your current environment and optimizing a bespoke cloud solution.
Subsequently, we will assist you in selecting a platform, deploying your applications, and
executing the migration to your new environment. Our experts will then ensure that your
cloud environment consistently meets the security and performance standards vital for your
business success.
For further details on cloud migration or to initiate the development of a personalized cloud
migration plan for your organization, reach out to SoluLab today.
FAQs
1. Can I put secret information in the cloud?

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It depends on how important your data is. Sometimes, rules about where and how to store
private information, like medical details, might limit your choices.
2. Can I use any technology in the cloud?
If you’re using special technology that belongs to someone else, you might not be allowed to
use it in the cloud.
3. Does the cloud slow down apps?
Some apps might be slower depending on where the user and the app are. It’s called
latency.
4. Can I see how well my cloud is doing?
Since someone else controls the cloud hardware, you might not have as much control when
fixing problems. It can be less clear.
5. Will I ever run out of space in the cloud?
In theory, no. But it depends on your money. Cloud storage can get more expensive, but it’s
flexible. You can control costs with tools like calculators and alerts.
6. How good are cloud disaster recovery systems compared to in-house ones?
They are really good. Cloud systems are faster because you don’t need to buy more
hardware. They also have plans that follow industry rules.
7. Do I have to update my cloud server software?
Usually not. The cloud provider might do it automatically. Some cloud models also make hard
tasks, like backups and updates, easier for you.