If you’re a business, understanding cloud migration can be important. It’s part of everything, including file synchronization.
Cloud migration in simple terms refers to the process of moving your business data and applications from on-premises architecture to the cloud.
The following are some of the key things to know about cloud migration in general.
Types of Cloud Migration
There are different types of cloud migration that can be done. One of the common ones used by businesses is transferring data and other applications to the public cloud from an on-premises data center.
Cloud migration can also be used to describe moving data and applications from one cloud platform to another. That’s simply known as cloud-to-cloud migration.
Along with types of cloud migration, understanding the types of clouds themselves can be helpful.
These include:
1. The public cloud
Public cloud services are run by a third-party vendor, who is called a cloud service provider, over the internet. The services can be free or they might be available as pay-per-use. The public cloud has a lot of advantages, which makes it the most common. Examples of public clouds include Amazon Web Services and the Google Cloud Platform. With the public cloud, you have constant uptime, and you pay only for what you need.
2. The private cloud
With this, resources are used by one organization and also owned by that organization. This is often used in highly regulated industries. For example, it can be used by government entities or in financial industries. Private clouds are located either in a data center on-site or hosted in a remote location.
3. The hybrid cloud
This type of cloud combines the public and private cloud so that resources can move between the two. With the hybrid cloud model, you may need on-site hardware still, so it doesn’t have the benefits of the public cloud model alone, particularly for smaller businesses.
4. Multi-cloud
The multi-cloud environment uses multiple services in one environment. It’s often used among enterprise-level organizations.
Reasons for Migration
The biggest reason a business migrates to the cloud is that it gives them extensive access to resources that are almost limitless.
With cloud migration, you tend to get more efficiency, and you get better results in a lot of areas, but at less of an expense.
Specific reasons and benefits of migration include:
1. More scalability
There’s more scalability. You can go up or down as your demands for resources require it.
2. Only pay what you use
In that scalability, there’s also the benefit that comes with only paying for the resources you use. In traditional IT, it was expensive to scale up, and it would take months to plan and implement along with upfront investments. While we often think about what would be needed to scale up, we less often consider scaling down, but the cloud accounts for that as well.
You don’t have to worry about having enough resources to handle peak demand and then having that demand decline while still paying for peak-level resources.
3. Agility
Agility is one of the biggest objectives for modern businesses. Migrating to the cloud offers agility. You can quickly test and launch new applications, and you have the ability to rapidly respond as your needs change.
As a small business, thanks to the proliferation of the cloud, you can have access to the same tools and resources that were once only available at the enterprise level.
4. Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is something organizations of any size can’t afford to ignore. What you get with the cloud is big company-level security, regardless of your budget. You have to remember that cloud providers are themselves typically big companies, so they are heavily focused on security.
5. Simplifying IT
Cloud migration simplifies IT, so you don’t need employees who are exclusively dedicated to maintaining equipment.
Planning a Cloud Migration
If you are planning a cloud migration at any level, you’ll need to have an in-depth strategy before you do anything.
If you don’t plan adequately for a cloud migration of any kind, it can impact your costs and your performance.
To build your strategy, you’ll want to know what you’re moving, why you’re moving, and how you’re doing it.
You can create a checklist and start by evaluating the why. Consider why you’re moving to the cloud. You should have a formal business case for doing so in mind that will help you set goals.
Then you can start planning the specifics of what will be moving and how that will be happening.
Finally, from there, you can begin your actual migration and stop using your legacy systems.
