Abstract: Digital transformation continues to create opportunities for business development. Due to the uncertainties of Brexit, many businesses in the UK are considering implementing digital transformation plans to ensure sustained growth. Many see digital transformation as the key to enhancing competitiveness and a necessity to keep pace with a rapidly changing business environment. For many companies, cloud computing is critical to their business success.
For years, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have been trapped in the 80/20 IT spending dilemma: 80% of the budget is spent on ongoing operations, with only 20% allocated to technological innovation. In contrast, cloud computing users spend 69% of their budget on ongoing operations, leaving 31% for technological innovation. The additional budget allocation allows for coordination between the CEO and CIO, which is crucial for fully embracing cloud computing and its potential.
To help CEOs and Chief Information Officers (CIOs understand their cloud computing strategies, the following discusses four of the six Rs of public cloud adoption: Rehost, Re-platform, Re-factor, and Replace. Understanding each of these migration strategies provides significant clarity.
The additional Rs are Retain and Retire. While they are an essential part of the decision-making process, they do not strictly require businesses to migrate. Businesses will opt for these options in the following cases:
- Retain: If there is no business case to migrate an application to the cloud.
- Retire: If the application is redundant or needs to be decommissioned.
The methods outlined below will guide which strategy best suits a business’s needs.
Rehosting (“Lift and Shift”)
In traditional cases, the first step is rehosting. This approach minimizes the risk and effort of transferring legacy data center workloads to the cloud. Rehosting involves migrating existing applications and services (which may be running on bare metal or virtual machines in traditional data centers) to virtual machines running in the cloud. It may also involve virtualizing the existing environment into containers beforehand or as part of the migration to the cloud.
Rehosting significantly reduces infrastructure and operational costs. With this cloud migration method, organizations will find it easier to rebuild applications. This long-term benefit encourages companies to adopt a cloud-first approach and develop cloud-related skills within the business.
Re-platform, Re-factor, Replace
Due to the inherent similarities in transformation, the next migration methods can be grouped together.
Re-platform offers some immediate moderate cloud advantages with minimal risk. This strategy involves some cloud optimization during migration. By leveraging common cloud services, such as load balancers, during the migration process, it reduces the number of virtual machines, configurations, and operational processes that need to be migrated without changing existing applications. Modifying applications for cloud compatibility during migration avoids migrating fragile scripts and configurations to the cloud, thereby reducing risk.
Re-factoring is a method for transforming non-cloud applications into cloud-native applications. A cloud-first migration strategy changes everything about an application: its components, application code, and data itself. This strategy is driven by the need for functionalities, scalability, or performance that are difficult to achieve in the existing environment.
While this is undoubtedly the most expensive option for cloud migration, it is the most beneficial in the long run if organizations aim to improve agility and enhance business continuity.
Replace may be the simplest and safest way to run services in the cloud. By migrating through applications provided by vendors such as AWS Marketplace, businesses can avoid much of the setup work required in the cloud.
For example, businesses can replace software using cloud procurement frameworks (such as AWS Marketplace), thereby smoothly updating their application stack.
Although the replacement method carries several risks, it provides the greatest opportunity for businesses to mix and integrate components that have been migrated through other methods. These risks include issues like misconfiguration or incompatibility with new services.
Benefits of Adopting Cloud Computing
Choosing the right migration strategy can help businesses reap the benefits of the cloud. While the initial “Lift and Shift” rehosting strategy offers business case advantages, such as saving on operational costs and achieving long-term ownership of infrastructure, additional steps can bring even greater benefits.
Re-platforming, Re-factoring, and Replacing will increase the cloud-native capabilities of the IT environment, further maximizing the business case benefits of operational and capital expenditures through automation. In turn, this approach leverages local services at the lowest cost and effort, enhancing the ability to innovate in a timely manner.
Deciding to migrate applications or entire services to the cloud can be a bold change for businesses. However, cloud-supported business models are the best way for organizations to innovate and discover new opportunities. When a business decides to migrate to the cloud, it marks an exciting moment. Every company’s cloud strategy is unique, but by following the same principles, a business’s cloud migration journey will bring opportunities for growth.