Cloud Migration Strategy: Best Practices, Challenges and Success Stories

Modernize Your Legacy App with a Tailored Cloud Migration Strategy and Consulting Services

In today’s hyper-competitive digital era, moving your organization’s digital assets with the right cloud migration strategy can improve 80% operational efficiency. 

Whether it be startups or SMBs, organizations are continuously looking for potential ways to cut spending and prevent the cash flow, while maintaining and improving work efficiencies. This is where the cloud migration strategy emerges as a perfect cost-effective process of transferring applications, data, and other IT resources from one cloud platform to another.

Migration from major cloud services providers such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud- to the most trusted, simple, and cost-effective AWS development services can be an attractive option for startups with rapidly evolving infrastructure needs.

However, alternatively, if you are still using that traditional approach of managing organization data and looking to migrate it to the cloud for the first time, then it will be equally beneficial.

But, Why Move to the Cloud?

Shifting your organization’s digital assets to a cloud platform is not just a trend. In fact, cloud computing and migration services are becoming an essential strategy for driving innovation and staying competitive for most businesses. The numbers speak for themselves:

• The cloud computing market is expected to reach $2321.1 billion by 2032, reaching a CAGR of 16% from 2023 to 2032. 

• In the research of 451 organizations, 90% of respondents said that they are already on the cloud. It means the cloud is already changing how companies work with this latest trend.

• By 2025, it is predicted that 51% of IT spending will switch from traditional IT tools to cloud alternatives as 60% of small businesses fail to recover within 6 months of a cyberattack making cloud solutions vital for data security and disaster recovery. 

• 75% of tech leaders are building all new products and features in the cloud and globally it contributes to nearly 12 billion buyers of cloud infrastructure. 

In a nutshell, moving is invariably stressful, whether you are buying a new home or moving your application to the cloud. However careful planning will have a significant effect on a smooth transition. But, before you jump ship from onsite infrastructure to cloud platforms, it is important to understand the key considerations for the cloud migration.

What is a Cloud Migration Strategy?

Cloud migration strategy is no different from having a plan to shift your entire office from a physical building to a virtual space. Cloud migration strategy includes transferring a company’s digital assets and data sets from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud-based platform. 

So what exactly does it mean practically?

Cloud migration enables you to manage all your important files and software stored securely in the cloud. With this, organizations need not worry about hardware failure or data loss. Moreover, cloud migration enables you to access your resources anytime, anywhere with an internet connection.

All it includes is the strategic relocation of data and workloads to platforms like Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft Azure, or other cloud service providers. This migration can also extend to moving assets from one cloud platform to another, commonly referred to as cloud-to-cloud migration. The well-defined cloud migration strategy also offers scalability and flexibility. You can quickly scale up or down the data storage depending on the business needs without investing in expensive hardware upgrades.

At its core, it is not just about relocating data. It is about transforming IT infrastructure to a cloud platform to remain modern. It offers cloud-native capabilities where businesses can adapt rapidly to changing market demands and stay competitive. 

For instance, businesses migrating to the cloud can replace outdated systems with scalable, high-performance solutions that align with their modern operational needs. This strategic move can ensure seamless collaboration, faster data processing, and improved disaster recovery.

A well-defined cloud migration strategy ensures this transition is smooth, secure, and aligned with the organization’s goals. However, to make your cloud migration strategy work, it must include a deep analysis of the existing IT environment, choosing the right cloud computing services and platform, determining the migration approach, and planning for post-migration optimization.

Cloud migration is more than a technological shift. For businesses, it is a strategic and crucial decision. As the demand for agility and innovation grows, higher numbers of businesses are looking to adopt cloud solutions.

Key Highlights of Cloud Migration Strategy Includes:

• Quick Infrastructure Transformation: It replaces outdated systems with modern yet high performance cloud solutions that ensure flexibility and scalability.
• Cloud-Native Capabilities: It allows businesses to adapt to changing market demand with rapid scalability.
• Resilience and Security: It enables seamless collaboration, and faster data processing and ensures better disaster recovery. 

Whether it be on-premises to cloud migration or cloud-to-cloud migration, the goal is to ensure your IT environment remains agile, secure, and aligned with your business objectives.  

Ready to start your cloud migration journey?

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How Cloud Migration Can Add Value to Your Business?  

Switching your business IT infrastructure to cloud-based services can bring heaps of benefits. With cloud migration services, you can gain a competitive edge while maximizing operational efficiency and minimizing the overall.

So if you are still hesitating to hire a mobile app development company for cloud migration consulting services, then you need to understand these quick benefits…

• One of the simplest reasons for migrating digital assets to a cloud environment is it has the potential for cost savings. By moving to the cloud, businesses can eliminate hardware and infrastructure costs and able to cut down the maintenance and system upgrade expenses. 

• Cloud migration offers unparalleled scalability and flexibility and allows businesses to quickly adjust their resources based on their demands. This means businesses can easily scale up and down without any disruption to the system and can meet the changing customer requirements. 

• By choosing to migrate data on trusted cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure or AWS, businesses can streamline operations by automating processes and reducing manual tasks. This improves productivity and frees up valuable time for employees to focus on strategy building rather than managing routine IT tasks. 

• Cloud-based tools facilitate seamless collaboration among team members remotely, regardless of their location and device. This enables real-time sharing of information, fostering teamwork and enhancing overall productivity. 

Migrating Digital Assets to the Cloud with the Right Approach

Migrating your business infrastructure to a cloud environment can be a transformative step for any business, but to achieve success, you would require proper preparations and strategic planning. Before you jump straight to outsourcing software development company, you need to understand key considerations to ensure a seamless and efficient cloud migration journey.

Here are the key considerations that help you determine which application and data should be migrated and prioritized accordingly:

1. Choosing the Best Suitable Cloud Service Providers is Important

For a seamless and hassle-free migration experience, it is important to hire app developers who have strong reliability and security track records. In addition, before you make any decision, invest some time to overall evaluate their offerings in the context of features, performance guarantees, pricing structures, and customer support.

For successful data migration, planning and prioritizing your applications is key. Develop a clear migration plan outlining which will be moved first and how they will integrate it with existing infrastructure. 

2. Regiourly Testing and Monitoring Throughout the Migration Process

To detect bugs or technical issues early, your team must conduct a test and monitor the migration process carefully. Conduct thorough testing of applications after they have been migrated to ensure that they function correctly. Moreover, continuously monitor performance metrics to detect bottlenecks or frauds. 

3. Training Employees to Use the New Cloud Environment

Before fully transitioning the IT infrastructure, it is important to provide comprehensive training sessions so everyone understands how to navigate the system effectively while adhering to proper security protocols.

Cloud Migration Strategy: Major Challenges and Solutions

Migrating a legacy app to cloud platforms can assure a wide range of benefits. From scalability to cost-effectiveness and improved performance, businesses can harness the unique capabilities of cloud migration, but all these benefits would come along with several challenges during the process. 

Challenge 1: Complexity of Legacy System

Usually, legacy apps are built on outdated technologies that may not be compatible with modern cloud platforms. This is where limited documentation or lack of expertise in handling legacy apps can make the cloud migration strategy more challenging.

Client Challenge

One of the reputed retail clients approached us with a monolithic retail app built on COBOL, with over 15 years of accumulated business logic. The system has limited yet poor documentation, hard-coded dependencies, and a majority on a local database incompatible with the latest cloud platforms.

Now the challenge is that the client was struggling to modernize it but the internal team lacked the expertise to decouple the system for cloud deployment. 

Xicom’s solution, here’s how we addressed it:

Xicom began by performing a comprehensive application assessment, identifying critical business processes and dependencies. Using microservices architecture, we broke down the monolithic structure into manageable, independent modules. 

Further, to keep business-critical functions safe, we leveraged automated code converters and containerization tools like Docker and customized a perfect cloud migration strategy for our clients. Additionally, our experts worked closely with the client’s team to create detailed documentation and offer training to ensure a smooth transition to a cloud-native model.

Challenge 2: Data Migration Issues

Migrating large amounts of datasets from on-premises systems to the cloud can lead to data loss or create inconsistencies. While adopting cloud computing migration, ensuring data security and compliance during the migration is critical but complex to achieve. 

Client Challenge

A logistic company with over 10TB of data stored in most fragmented legacy databases wanted to move to the cloud. However, they were concerned about the data consistency, compliance, and synchronization of data with the system during migration. The biggest concern of them was, that past migration had resulted in partial data loss, corrupt data files, and integration failures with third-party APIs.

Xicom’s solution, here’s how we have handled it:

Xicom, being a leading cloud migration service provider developed a phased migration strategy tailored to their specific priorities. We begin with a data audit to identify inconsistencies and cleanse records. Further, we use robust ETL tools like Apache NiFi and AWS Data Pipeline to ensure secure, incremental data transfers with real-time validation.

Also, we implemented redundant backups for rollback options, integrated compliance measures to meet GDPR standards, and tested the migration in sandbox environments to minimize risks. 

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Challenge 3: Downtime and Business Continuity

Many businesses still hesitate to migrate an application to a cloud platform as a majority of them have an impression of severe downtime which impacts the business operations and customer experience. Instead, data migration can be done without any downtime or minimal disruption. All of it requires careful planning and expertise. 

Client Challenge:

One of our fintech industry clients faced significant concerns about downtime while migrating their legacy trading platform cloud. The system processed over 1,00,000 real-time transactions per minute and even a minute downtime would result in huge financial loss and customer dissatisfaction. 

Xicom’s expert approach to address this issue:

At Xicom, we have implemented a blue-green cloud migration strategy to minimize downtime. We set up a parallel cloud environment where the new system could operate alongside the legacy platform and avoid showing any downtime.

With continuous testing and incremental cutovers, we ensure the stock trading platforms remain active and functional throughout the migration process. Moreover, we provided 24/7 monitoring, to ensure zero disruption to the client’s live operations. 

8 Rules to a Successful Cloud Migration Strategy 

Migrating your business infrastructure to the cloud platform can be challenging without planning and a strategy. Though it is a transformative step for any business, success lies in how you set a cloud migration strategy.

If you are all set to migrate your business infrastructure to the cloud platforms, then below are the key considerations to ensure a seamless and efficient cloud migration journey:

1. Have a Clear Goals in Mind

Before you delve into hiring a software development company and start drafting the cloud migration strategy, it is worth to take our some time to determine your business objectives. Start by identifying what your organization aims to achieve with a cloud migration strategy. 

Whether it’s reducing operational costs, enhancing scalability, improving efficiency, or boosting security, these goals will help shape your cloud migration strategy. Prioritize which application and data you need to move on cloud based on these objectives.

2. Assess Your Current IT Environment

Let your expert cloud computing consultants evaluate the existing system. They will conduct a thorough analysis of your existing infrastructure, applications, and workloads. 

The team of cloud computing experts will identify dependencies, outdated systems, and performance bottlenecks. This deep assessment of the process will help you determine the readiness of your digital assets for the cloud and highlight areas that may require optimization.

3. Choose the Right Cloud Service Provider

To ensure seamless cloud migration with minimal disruption and data loss, it is worth selecting a cloud migration service provider that aligns with your business requirements. 

But the central question is how will you determine the best cloud migration service provider? Here’s what you need to evaluate in terms of offerings:

• Security protocols and compliance certifications
• They must offer scalable cloud migration options
• Look for the experts that follow flexible pricing models
• Partner with the cloud migration experts that ensure performance guarantees (SLAs)
• They must ensure the availability of customer support and migration tools
• Prioritize the providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud each offer distinct advantages, so choose based on your operational and budgetary needs.

4. Develop a Migration Roadmap

Now, it’s time to plan and prioritize your migration with a detailed roadmap. Here’s what you can refer to  and how you can plan your cloud migration roadmap:

• Which applications and data need to move first on clouds
• Determine the approach of the integration process with existing systems 
• Identify potential challenges and dependencies of the legacy system
• A phased approach – starting with less critical workloads – allows you to address any unforeseen issues early on.

5. Focus on Security and Compliance

For successful cloud migration services, understand the security and compliance requirements for your industry. Ensure the cloud provider offers robust encryption, access controls, and monitoring tools. Prepare a data protection plan to safeguard sensitive information during and after migration.

6. Test and Monitor Migration Progress

Testing is critical at every stage of migration. After moving workloads, verify that applications function as expected in the new cloud environment. Continuously monitor performance metrics to detect and address bottlenecks or vulnerabilities early.

7. Train Your Employees

Prepare your team for the transition by offering comprehensive training on the new cloud environment. Teach employees how to navigate the platform effectively, follow security protocols, and leverage cloud-based tools to enhance productivity.

8. Plan for Post-Migration Optimization

Cloud migration is not a one-time event. Even after migration, continuously optimize your workloads to maximize performance and cost savings. Leverage auto-scaling, monitoring tools, and cloud-native features to adapt to evolving business needs.

Cloud migration market is expected to reach $2.3 trillion!

Transit your business data to clouds and tap into the trillion-dollar industry by simply collaborating with our dedicated cloud migration experts at Xicom.

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Xicom as Your Trusted Cloud Migration Service Partner

In the early days, businesses were worried about storing their sensitive data on the cloud and losing control and access. But today with the availability of cloud migration consulting and service providers like Xicom, trends have changed. Companies are more comfortable keeping their sensitive data on the cloud and this is where Xicom provides expert cloud migration and computing services. Right from developing mobile applications on the cloud to migrating the legacy app to cloud premises, we at Xicom offer end-to-end services.    

Being in the industry for over 20+ years, we specialize in building cloud migration strategies that focus on efficiency, cost management, and hybrid cloud security. With extensive experience in helping businesses migrate infrastructure to the cloud, Xicom understands the complexities of this process. Our dedicated cloud computing team works closely with you to assess your existing environment, identify your business objectives and challenges, and develop a tailored migration strategy that fits your unique needs.

As we understand the hassles aligned with cloud migration strategies, including security, cost, and data loss, therefore prioritizing cloud cost management and ensuring data security. Leveraging our in-depth knowledge of cloud service providers and pricing models, we help optimize your resource usage and minimize costs without sacrificing cloud computing performance or security.

Hybrid cloud security is another critical aspect of our services. With Xicom, you will be assured of the robust security measures we implement to protect your data, both on-premises and in the cloud. From advanced encryption protocols to multi-factor authentication, we ensure your systems are safeguarded against potential threats.

By hiring experts to develop cloud migration strategies with us:

• You gain access to seasoned professionals who specialize in migrating applications and data efficiently.
• Get your team structure customized as per your cloud computing requirements.
• Our expertise in optimizing cloud costs ensures you achieve maximum ROI.
• We deliver industry-leading security solutions for enhanced data protection.
• You benefit from ongoing support, with dedicated teams available 24/7.
• You can focus on your core business while we handle your cloud migration with precision and care.

With Xicom, you experience a seamless transition to the cloud, enabling your organization to reap the benefits of improved scalability, flexibility, and cost savings. Let us help you unlock the true potential of the cloud while minimizing disruptions. So if you are all set for customizing cloud migration strategy with Xicom, then book a free 15-minute consultation slot with them. 

Conclusion

At the end of this blog, it is fair enough to say that a well-executed cloud migration strategy is essential for organizations looking to harness the full potential of cloud computing services. By understanding the basics of this concept, and key considerations of building a cloud migration strategy to address challenges, businesses can navigate the digital landscape with confidence, ensuring a seamless and successful transition to the cloud.  

If you are all set to thrive in the digital age, then hire a cloud migration company like Xicom that can ensure organizations a smooth transition to the cloud, unlocking new levels of efficiency, innovation, and competitive advantage.

FAQs

Here we have gathered some additional information related to the cloud migration strategy and best practices to help you transit the data with complete confidence.