The Journey from On-Premises to the Cloud

Cloud computing is a technology that makes use of the internet and remote servers to manage data and other information centrally.  In this increasing data-oriented world, managing data security with cost effectiveness is important. As a software vendor, if you are planning to switch your on-premise software to a cloud platform, then the cloud migration process might be a painful journey without proper planning, execution and testing. What is Cloud Migration? In today’s business scenario, you need to be flexible and adaptable to the changing business requirements according to your customer’s needs. Cloud infrastructure assists with reduced costs, scalability, data security and disaster recovery. How to Migrate A sequence of well-planned procedures with a clear understanding of goals is the basic groundwork.  This process plan depends entirely on the type of business and its needs. The main question while considering this shift is whether to use a Big Bang approach or to go with an incremental approach. Cloud service providers like Google, Azure and AWS provide partner tools that facilitate rapid data as well as application migration to the cloud.  Plus, it is important to choose a structural method that will successfully migrate the application. The following steps provide a guided cloud migration process for a successful outcome:

• • The Application Assessment: The most important first step towards a successful migration, this step identifies the application technology, infrastructure, dependencies and migration difficulties that could incur.  Many businesses that try to migrate without identifying these at the basic level often reach a dead end. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze all these aspects before finalizing the big steps.

• • Create the Platform: Before shifting to the cloud, you need to create a space where you shall land. In order to decide this basic foundation, you should consider all the future requirements such as security controls, management framework, connectivity and network design. If you fail to identify these requirements, you may need to rebuild a space in the future. Depending upon your requirements, you’ll likely choose among IaaS, PaaS or SaaS.

• • Leverage Security: Understanding your organization’s security requirements, then implementing the cloud security practices is the correct approach. This requires you to not only use what the cloud is offering but also incorporate the additional security that your application requires.

• • Migrate the Application: Depending upon the size of your application, you will need to decide upon the required technique. If the size of your data is not too big, then you can move it all at once onto the internet. But, if you have a larger application, then you will need to compress the data before sending it over the cloud.

In addition, an important aspect while migrating the data is to check thoroughly and constantly for security during migration by making use of the available cloud tools. After successful migration to the cloud, your task is not yet over. You further need to check resource optimization for your distributed teams. Conclusion: A well-structured approach is what will ultimately give you success in cloud migration. The complexity of migration depends largely on the size of the application and its components. A thorough analysis of the application and required security will lead to fruitful results.