When running your business, you’ll always be looking for different ways to improve your daily operations. During your search, you might have come across cloud migration. This process allows you to transfer your data and applications over to the digital cloud platform. Using the cloud means all your employees can access what they need to use during their day, and they can also work collaboratively a lot easier too. However, migrating to the cloud takes planning and implementing a strategy. Take a look below at the 6 R’s of cloud migration and see which strategy will work best for you.
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1. Retire
When you think about migrating your applications or software over to the cloud, it’s a good idea to check that it’s supported by the cloud, and if not, is there an alternative. In some cases, you might find that a piece of software no longer serves a purpose too.
When you figure out which applications or software you don’t need anymore, you can choose to not migrate it over, effectively retiring it. This strategy can also make your migration quicker as you remove any unnecessary software being moved over. This will help to eliminate any disruption to your business too with less downtime impacting your employees.
2. Retain
If you choose to retain an application or software, this means you can’t find a cloud alternative, so you decide to keep it as it is and continue working with it as usual. This option may be best when certain software is necessary for the running of your business, but there isn’t a way to move it over to the cloud.
Instead of retiring it and trying to look for a new solution, you can simply keep it in its current state. This can reduce any disruption to employees and ensure your business operations continue as normal.
3. Refactor
Sometimes you might find you can’t move over an application due to it not being supported by the cloud, and there might not be a suitable alternative. If you decide you can’t work without this application, you could look at refactoring it.
This means you work with developers to adapt the application or software so that it becomes suitable for the cloud. However, this can sometimes be quite expensive as you’re re-writing a pre-existing application, and you don’t have any idea how much of it needs to be changed to make it suitable for the migration.
4. Repurchase
If you’re lucky enough to find a suitable cloud replacement for your software, you may only need to end your current licence and start a new one with the cloud version. This strategy is called repurchasing as you’re basically buying the same software licence you already have, but for the cloud version instead.
This strategy allows you to decrease the risk of disruption to your business operations as less time will be needed sourcing a new application. Similarly, you won’t need to spend as long training your employees on the new software as it should be relatively similar, with only a few minor changes they need to be aware of.
5. Rehost
Rehosting your data is the easiest method of cloud migration. All of your data and software is moved over to the cloud without refactoring or replatforming it. This can help to minimise any disruption to the daily operations. But, if you don’t check your data beforehand, you may end up moving over a lot of redundant files which could cause problems later down the line.
Rehosting can be particularly helpful if you have a lot of data that needs migrating as it allows for a seamless transition without losing any files. There’s also no need to for you to manually move thousands of files over as the process is completed automatically.
6. Replatform
You can also combine repurchasing and rehosting to follow the replatforming strategy. This process allows you to move over your data in the same way you would to rehost, and then repurchase any software you need the cloud versions of. This strategy might be most suitable for businesses that have a lot of data and software that needs moving over as following just one may not work for everything during migration.
Planning a cloud migration is the key to its success. Take some time to discover what strategy will be best for your business to follow. Not only will you drastically reduce the chance of any disturbance, but you’ll also reap the benefits from using a cloud platform. Making the move over to the cloud can seem daunting, but with careful planning, you’ll ensure a faultless transition that will only boost your business.
