In this digital world, we are constantly and interacting with the cloud. If your day entails working using SharePoint, zoom, google mail, and office among other tools, then you are interacting with the cloud. Almost every organization has transitioned some or all its operating systems to the cloud.
On-premise to cloud migration allows you to manage the structure of IT remotely without risking inconveniences, high costs of maintenance, security risks, and liabilities. However, cloud migration solutions can only be effective if monitoring is done right at every stage of cloud migration.
In this article, we will explain the definition and benefits of cloud migration, on premise versus cloud migration, and the process of cloud migration:
What is Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration involves relocating critical services like data, application, and other business elements from on-premise and collocated hardware to a cloud computing environment like google cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, amazon web services among others platforms. As essential professionals of migration projects, DevOps facilitate the migration to the cloud and ensure all the applications are function is satisfying.
There are different types of cloud migration an enterprise can perform. When deciding the type of cloud migration to perform, priority should be given to the mission-critical services. This is to increase optimization and refactoring while giving you room to tackle the rest of your workloads with a simple lift-and-shift.
Types of Cloud Migration
When considering on-premise to cloud migration, you must understand the unique factors that comprise each cloud migration type. The cloud migration solutions below are not ready-made that can be incorporated into every organization. They serve as a basis on which new strategies can be developed and customized to your needs and goals. Below are the 6 types of cloud migration:
Rehost
This is the most straightforward that involves lifting applications, virtual machinery, and server OS from the on-premise to cloud infrastructure. This migration method if low resistance. It picks up applications like images and exports them via migration tools to a container running on the public cloud.
Re-Platform
This platform involves optimizing certain sections of the OS, changing the API of the application, and upgrading the middleware. Lift-and-shift allows you to leverage more cloud benefits while reshaping the sourcing environment to increase compatibility with the cloud. This reduces any risks of post-migration challenges.
Repurchase
This type of cloud migration involves changing the current proprietary application to be compatible with the new cloud migration solutions. In most cases, this means shifting from the existing license agreement to a new platform.
Refactor
This type is driven by the need to revamp the product while representing the other side of lift-and-shift migration. Sometimes this means recreation the cloud versions from scratch. This makes it more complex and expensive when it comes to implementing it.
Retain
Retain comes about when you as an organization decide to work and keep some work-loads as standalone on your database. This calls for creating a hybrid infrastructure to host the retained workloads while some are retained on-premise.
Retire
Retirement happens when organizations decide to turn off application environments without being subjected to a decrease in productivity or value. This can be is done by archiving unnecessary aspects of the infrastructure. With this type of cloud migration, you can reduce any complexities that you may encounter during cloud migration and monitoring.
What is Cloud Monitoring?
Cloud migration leads to an ecosystem with various range of servers, endpoints, applications, databases, security tools among other things. This ecosystem is constantly changing with the focus being users, updates and patches, and configurations. As a business, you will need a toolkit that manages all these complex aspects without complicating them even more. Well, this is where cloud monitoring comes in.
Cloud monitoring is an automatic or manual method that involves reviewing, observing, and managing the flow of work in a cloud environment. The techniques are used to confirm the functionality of the cloud environment and infrastructure including applications, servers, and websites. It is a continuous evaluation process whose focus is to predict possible future shortcomings and fixing them before they become a challenge.
There are different types of cloud monitoring each with its components. With the need for seamless functioning, different types and techniques have to align. These types have summed up as follows:
- Database Monitoring
- Website Monitoring
- Virtual Network Monitoring
- Cloud Storage Monitoring
- Virtual Machine Monitoring
Benefits of Cloud Migration
Cloud migration is accompanied by challenges when it comes to stability, cost, and security. This can make the decision and process overwhelming. When migrating applications, you need cloud services that meet to your goals and objectives. If done right, the cloud migrations solutions of your choice should reduce costs, improve scalability as well as reduce any risks of cybersecurity concerns.
Therefore, below are some of the things you should expect when employing cloud migration services:
- Faster Deployment Times
- Enhanced Security Features
- Reduced Infrastructure Complexity
- Built-in Status Monitoring
- Automatic Backup and Logging of Key Metrics
- Greater Flexibility and Collaboration for Staff
- Reduced Footprint
- Improved hosting Cost Management
- Enhanced agility and scalability
Differentiating Between On-Premise vs. Cloud
Determining the suitability of cloud migration for an enterprise in the current IT relies on several factors for compatibility. This may include the analysis of the tips scale and the choice of the technology partner. This is why some companies have not migrated to the cloud and therefore rely on on-premise applications and software to run their business.
On-Premise vs. Cloud
On-promise software is installed on the company’s servers and behind its firewall. It continues to serve the needs of the organization adequately if it’s not broken. The applications are reliable, secure and allow enterprises to retain some level of control which is not possible when using the cloud. However, some IT experts argue that businesses have to understand and leverage new cloud and SaaS applications to meet business goals.
This is one of the reasons for the spread and growth of cloud computing. The cloud promises to deliver flexible services to enterprises with the advantage of cots effective services and flexible timings which improves scalability and agility. It is therefore a no surprise that everyone wants to migrate to the cloud.
Major Differences of On-Premise and Cloud
| Factor | On-Premise | Cloud |
| Deployment | Resources are deployed in-house and within an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. This makes the enterprise responsible for maintaining the solution and all its related processes. | There are different forms of cloud computing that include a public cloud, a private cloud, and a hybrid cloud. When it comes to public cloud computing, resources are hosted on the premises of the service provider. However, these resources can be accessed by the enterprises at any given time. |
| Cost | If enterprises deploy software on their premise, they are responsible for the ongoing costs of the server hardware, power consumption, and space. | If a computing model is used, the enterprise will only need to pay for the resources that they use. The enterprise is not responsible for maintenance and upkeep costs, or the price fluctuation depending on how much is consumed. |
| Control | Businesses have control of all their data and what happens to it. This is why companies in highly regulated industries with extra privacy concerns hesitate in engaging in cloud migration. | In a cloud computing environment, the question of ownership of data has its contradiction. The third-party provider has control over data and encryption keys making them inaccessible to you. |
| Security | On on-premise, the environment provides a high level of security and privacy which makes it essential for companies with sensitive information. | The biggest concern of the cloud computing environment is security given the increasing number of publicized cloud breaches. With cloud computing, personal information like login details, personal details, and even intellectual property at risk. |
| Compliance | Regardless of the industry, most companies have adopted some form of regulatory control. The goal is to remain compliant and know the whereabouts of the data at all times. | When businesses migrate to the cloud, they have a responsibility of ensuring that the third-party service provider is compliant with different regulatory systems within the industry. They should ensure that sensitive data is secured and all the involved parties have their privacy. |
What Hybrid Cloud Solutions?
Both on-premise and cloud computing have their advantages and shortcomings. Well, being a technological savvy era, it was only right to come up with a solution that explores the advantages of both worlds. That is how hybrid cloud solutions were born.
A hybrid cloud solution features the elements of different types of IT deployment models. They range from on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud. This typically involves a connection from an on-premises data center to a public cloud. The connection also can involve other private assets, including edge devices or other clouds.
How it works:
Hybrid cloud computing gives businesses a platform to deploy sensitive data and in an on-premises cloud and to host less critical resources on a third-party public cloud provider. It does this by allowing businesses to deploy workloads between the Private IT ecosystem and public clouds based on the needs and costs. This presents businesses with several benefits that include:
- Increased Flexibility
- Cost-Effectiveness
- Agility and Scalability
- Increased Resilience and Interoperability
- Increased Compliance
What are the Challenges of Cloud Migration?
While cloud migration largely relies on finding the right cloud migration and monitoring service, the process can be accompanied by many risks and challenges. Not every technologist will offer smooth cloud migration and monitoring. Some of the critical challenges to look out for include:
- Downtime will require having in-house servers temporarily offline. The outages could have a disastrous outcome on application performance and customer loyalty in absence of proper backup or resource allocation.
- During cloud migration, the company data becomes vulnerable. This could cause data to be unavailable or succumb to breaches.
- Sometimes, the existing applications fail to communicate properly in new cloud ecosystems. To minimize this risk, ensure your processes align with those of the service provider.
Go for a company that understands the ecosystem and processes that make cloud monitoring easy for you and your business. SYNERGY IT is a company that has established itself as a reliable managed IT service provider with lots of experience and knowledge in cloud migration and monitoring.
