What is Cloud Migration?
Cloud Migration is the process of moving business data and operations from a data center/cloud environment to a new cloud computing environment.
There are various types of cloud migration a business can perform depending on their needs & wants. These can range from on-prem data centers moving to a cloud environment, or moving from one cloud environment to another. Alternatively, reverse migrations involve moving data from a cloud environment back to a local data center. Most often, cloud migration is completed by moving data from on-premise to a cloud environment.
What is Legacy infrastructure?
Legacy infrastructure is hardware/software that is outdated but still in use. Using outdated software may not be as efficient as using an up-to-date counterpart. However, many companies rely on on-premise legacy infrastructure to store data. Outdated infrastructure brings a number of risks to a business and can ultimately lead to falling behind competitors.
Companies who are relying on outdated infrastructure will see increased benefits of cloud migration. Companies moving from legacy to a cloud environment will likely notice an increase in company business processes & up to date security features. This will also enable the business to reduce its risk of data breaches.
Benefits of a Cloud Migration
There are a number of benefits of performing a cloud migration.
Security: Likely, the most important for any business. With careful implementation and control, cloud migrations can offer a higher level of security than legacy infrastructure. As infrastructure is up to date, there are regular patches and updates from providers. This helps to ensure data is securely stored.
Cost reduction: Many companies adopting cloud migration can often find a decrease in their IT operation costs. This is largely due to the cloud providers looking after the maintenance and update of data on the businesses’ behalf. This allows companies to reduce, or in some cases remove, costs associated with the data management maintenance.
Increased performance: For some businesses, they may be able to benefit from increases in performance, as legacy operating systems often run slower than their cloud counterparts. Following a cloud migration, if websites & applications are hosted in the cloud rather than in data centers, data will not have to travel as far to reach users, reducing latency.
How long does a Cloud Migration take?
The duration of cloud migration will vary from business to business. However, as a general time frame, a medium project involving email migration and document management can take anywhere from 2 – 4 months. However, a more complex move involving the setup and configuration of cloud-native services can take up to 24 months. Of course, an element of the time is determined by the business and its willingness rate to migrate. Within this time will include elements of planning, training, and modifying applications where needed. In some cases, accelerated cloud migrations can take place to speed up the process as a whole.
