Checklist for cloud migration in ten steps

The following items are included in the cloud migration checklist:

1. Create the role of migration architect. 
2. Select the level of cloud integration you want. 
3. Choose between a single cloud and a multi-cloud strategy. 
4. Create cloud KPIs. 
5. Set performance benchmarks. 
6. Should prioritize components of migration.
7. Perform any refactoring that is required. 
8. Make a data-migration strategy. 
9. Replace the production line. 
10. Examine the allocation of application resources. 

Step 1: Assign the job of migration architect.
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Before beginning your cloud migration, assign a migration architect to lead the process. The migration architect is a system architect-level position in charge of planning and completing all aspects of the mobility; their primary responsibilities should include determining migration priorities and production switchover mechanisms and defining necessary refactoring to ensure a successful migration.

Must make many decisions and technical preparations during a large migration project. Having a migration architect accountable for all migration parts is essential to the project’s success.

Step 2: Decide on the level of cloud integration you want.
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There are two approaches to migrating an application from an on-premises data center to the cloud: shallow cloud integration and deep cloud integration.

A shallow cloud integration (also known as “lift-and-shift”) involves moving an on-premises application to the cloud while making no—or minimal—changes to the cloud servers that will run the application. Any changes to the application are only required to get it to run in the new environment. You don’t use Cloud-specific services. Because the application is lifted “as is” and relocated to the cloud intact, this model is also known as lift-and-shift.

You adjust your application to use essential cloud capabilities for deep cloud integration during the migration process.

Using auto-scaling and dynamic load balancing could be the answer. It might be as complicated as leveraging serverless computing capabilities for application portions, such as AWS Lambda. Using a cloud-based data store like Amazon S3 or DynamoDB could also be an option.

Step 3: Go with a single cloud or a multi-cloud strategy.
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Before you begin your cloud migration, consider the following question: Do you want to migrate your application to a single cloud provider and optimize it for that environment, or do you want it to work on several cloud providers?

It’s incredibly straightforward to adapt your application to run with a specific cloud provider. Your development teams will only need to learn one set of cloud APIs, and your app will be able to utilize all of your cloud provider’s features.

The disadvantage of this strategy is vendor lock-in. Moving your application to a different provider after you’ve changed it to function with only one provider could take as much effort as the original cloud migration. Furthermore, having a single cloud provider may limit your capacity to negotiate binding terms with the cloud provider, such as pricing and service level agreements (SLAs).

But hold on, things are about to get even more difficult. Using several cloud providers can be done in a variety of ways:

One application resides in one cloud, while another lives in a different cloud. The most basic multi-cloud strategy is running one set of applications on one cloud provider and another location on another. This strategy allows you more business leverage with different providers and the freedom to place apps anywhere you choose in the future. It also allows you to optimize each application for the service provider it runs on.

Distribute your software among several cloud providers. Some businesses prefer to operate parts of their applications on one cloud provider and the rest on another. This method allows you to take advantage of the primary benefits that each provider has to offer (for example, one provider might have better AI capabilities than another, which is known for its database speeds). The danger here is that the functioning of both suppliers is intertwined, and any issues with one could negatively affect the customer experience of the other.

Develop your software to be cloud-neutral. Other businesses create programs that can run on any cloud provider. Using this method, you might run your application on numerous providers simultaneously or share the load between them. This architecture affords you the most flexibility in vendor negotiations because you can change gears from one cloud provider to another. The disadvantage is that you may find it challenging to leverage each cloud provider’s leading capabilities, which reduces the benefits of hosting your application in the cloud. This technique may make your application development and validation processes more difficult.

Step 4: Create cloud KPIs.
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KPIs are metrics that you collect about your application or service to see how well it’s performing compared to your expectations. You may have already developed some KPIs for your apps and services, but are they appropriate for a cloud-based application or service? The most OK cloud migration KPIs illustrate how your transfer progresses, highlighting any obvious or unseen issues within your application. Cloud migration KPIs, maybe most importantly, can assist you in determining when the migration is complete and successful.

Cloud migration KPIs are divided into numerous categories:

Determine which KPIs are the most essential to your organization in each area and which metrics will be most impacted by the cloud migration. Then you may utilize the precise tools you require, such as infrastructure monitoring, to keep track of what’s going on.

Step 5: Set performance benchmarks

Baselining is assessing your application’s or service’s existing (pre-migration) performance to determine whether its future (post-migration) performance is acceptable. Baselines assist you in deciding when your migration is complete and confirm the projected post-migration performance improvements. You can also use baselines to diagnose any issues during a cloud migration.

Establish a baseline statistic for each KPI you want to track. Decide how long you’ll gather data to establish a baseline. You can go quicker by choosing a short baseline time (a day), but you risk not collecting a meaningful performance sample. Selecting a more extended baseline period (such as a month) requires more time, but it can result in more representative data.

It’d be helpful if you could also pick whether you want to collect only average or representative baseline data or data collected during “peak” or “important” periods. For example, if you’re a news site, do you want to collect data on a day when there’s a significant news event, or do you want to avoid such days?

Regardless of whatever data-collection approach is best for your company, make sure you explicitly identify what kind of data you’ll gather and for how long.

Step 6: Determine which components of the migration should be prioritized.

You must also select if you will migrate your complete application to the cloud at once or component by component or service by service.

To begin, determine the links between your services and which services are dependent on which others. Use an application performance monitoring tool to produce dependency diagrams using service maps for larger, more complex applications. Determine which components should be migrated and in what order using the dependency diagram. It’s common practice, to begin with, that the services have the fewest dependencies. In this situation, you’ll start by migrating your most internal services and then move on to your outermost services, often the ones closest to your clients. Alternately, start with the benefits most comparable to your customers—those that are the most external—to manage any impact on your customers.

Step 7: Perform any refactoring that is required.

You may want to perform additional work on your applications and services before migrating them to the cloud to ensure that they function effectively and efficiently. For instance, you might want to refactor your application as follows:

• As a result, it may scale dynamically with a variable number of operating instances, potentially saving you money on cloud service fees. 
• As a result, rather than statically allocating resources ahead of time, you can use dynamic-cloud capabilities, including dynamically giving and de-allocating resources. 
• To migrate to a more service-oriented architecture before the migration may move individual services to the cloud more simply. 

Step 8: Make a data-migration strategy.

Data migration is among the most challenging components of cloud migration. The location of your data can significantly impact how quickly your program works. Performance can suffer when your data is moved to the cloud, but your data access methods are still predominantly on-premises. If the information is still on-premises, but the service that accesses it is in the cloud, the situation is the same.

Data migration options include:

• They are using a bi-directional synchronization technique between on-premises and cloud databases. Remove the on-premises database once all data consumers have moved to the cloud. 
• Allow users to connect solely to the on-premises version of an on-premises database with one-way synchronization to a cloud-based database. When you’re ready, turn off access to the on-premises version so that the cloud-based version may take over as the primary database and provide cloud-based users access to the new database. 
• Make use of a cloud data-migration service, such as Amazon Web Services. 

Don’t undervalue the necessity and complexity of data migration planning. If you ignore your data transfer plan before starting a cloud migration, it may fail or at least fall short of expectations. Involve your migration architect early on in the data migration planning process.

Step 9: Make the switch from manual to automatic production.

How do you migrate your production system from an on-premises solution to a cloud version? The complexity and design of your application and the architecture of your data and data stores will determine the response.

Two ways are commonly used:

• Do everything at once. Only after transferring the entire application or service to the cloud and validating that it works should traffic be switched from the on-premises stack to the cloud stack. 
• Take it one step at a time. Move a few clients over, make sure everything is still working, and add a few more. Carry on until all of your clients have been transferred to the cloud-based application. 

Step ten: Examine the allocation of application resources. 

After you’ve moved everything to the cloud, there are a few things to consider. Resource optimization is the most critical factor. If you allocate resources (servers, for example) statically, you’re not taking advantage of the cloud’s benefits. Make sure your teams have a plan to allocate resources to your application as you transition to the cloud. When you need to give more resources to a cloud application, you can usually get them from the vendor in nearly any number. It means providing your teams with the application architecture to support dynamic scaling. You can generally rely on that you will be able to scale as needed to meet demand.

Other factors to consider while migrating to the cloud
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Our ten-step cloud migration checklist covers a lot of ground, but there are a few things to bear in mind while moving to the cloud. For example, establishing a safe and secure cloud environment is integral to any cloud migration. Fortunately, the major cloud providers provide extensive tooling and resources to assist you in developing and maintaining a closed system.

There are two general rules for cloud pricing: the cloud is less expensive than on-premises, and the cloud is more costly than on-premises. Depending on the situation, either can be true or false.

It’s likely that after you start using the cloud, you’ll discover that your infrastructure expense has increased compared to what you were paying for your local data center. It could happen for a variety of reasons:

First, all infrastructure systems have hidden expenses, and you may not be considering all of the expenditures associated with maintaining your own data center. Still, your cloud provider’s monthly fee makes the prices crystal evident. What’s the result? When comparing apples to oranges, the cloud solution appears to be more expensive than the on-premises alternative.

Second, on-premises infrastructure costs are primarily capital expenditures (CapEx), whereas cloud-based infrastructure costs are typically made up of running expenses (OpEx). Depending on how your organization maintains its finances, CapEx may be easier to come by than OpEx. Understanding how to pay for cloud-based infrastructures differs from paying for on-premises infrastructures, and ensuring that your company’s financial models accommodate the differences is crucial to realizing cloud cost savings.

For more information on cloud costs, see How to Calculate the Cost of a Cloud Migration.

Finally, everyone thinking about moving to the cloud should learn to design modern apps with services and microservices. Best practices for developing and administering cloud services and apps include twelve-factor applications and employing DevOps methods and procedures. Once you’ve fully migrated to the cloud, don’t forget to optimize your customer experience.