Are you considering migrating legacy applications to the Cloud? Before you move forward, you need to create a clear plan to minimize downtime and ensure a successful migration. In this guide, we’ll walk you through 5 cloud migration steps to successfully migrate legacy applications to the cloud, as well as highlight common mistakes and pitfalls that you might face. Feeling overwhelmed? No worries – skip the article and get in touch with a Mission Cloud expert for a free migration readiness assessment.
Legacy applications, while reliable, often lack the scalability, cost-efficiency, and performance required to meet modern demands. Migrating legacy applications to the cloud allows your company the ability to scale resources on-demand, optimize operational costs, and achieve enhanced application performance, allowing you to remain competitive.
Because migrating applications to the cloud involves so many moving parts, the first of the cloud migration steps we’ll discuss is gaining a thorough understanding of your current application architecture. This deep understanding of your existing application architecture is the foundation upon which successful migrations are built; it mitigates the risk of encountering unexpected issues and disruptions and informs your choice of cloud service providers and migration processes.
Here are some areas to consider as you evaluate your environment:
Consider employing tools like code analysis and profiling tools, along with techniques like impact analysis and dependency mapping, which can streamline the migration process and minimize risks. Balance your use of automated tools with manual code reviews to verify that the nuances of your particular environment are accounted for.
When determining the appropriate cloud service model for migrating your applications to the cloud, three primary options are available:
IaaS provides virtualized computing resources over the internet. It includes virtual machines, storage, and networking. Users have full control over the operating system and software stack, providing flexibility in infrastructure while outsourcing the hardware management. This makes IaaS ideal for migrating legacy applications that rely on specific configurations since migration requires minimal code changes. Consider IaaS when your migration project involves running virtual machines or hosting applications that require precise OS and middleware settings.
PaaS offers a platform that includes infrastructure, runtime environment, and development tools. It abstracts much of the underlying infrastructure, focusing on application development and deployment. It offers a platform equipped with tools and services that simplify the development processes — like application management, scaling, and updates — allowing your team to focus on coding instead of infrastructure management.
PaaS is preferred for migrating apps for development and deployment purposes, involving web development, APIs, mobile apps, or implementing continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.
SaaS is the go-to option for straightforward applications with minimal customization needs. It’s used more frequently for new, cloud-native applications rather than migrating legacy applications, but it can be considered when modernizing certain components.
With SaaS, users don't manage the infrastructure, they simply use the software. Maintenance overhead is reduced since users are able to just use the operating system, or software stack. This makes it an excellent choice when migrating applications such as email services (e.g., Gmail), productivity tools (e.g., Microsoft 365), or customer relationship management (CRM) solutions (e.g., Salesforce). It's particularly valuable for applications that serve specific business functions.
Beyond the technical requirements of migrating legacy applications to the cloud, you should also consider these things when choosing the right cloud service provider.
When it comes to choosing a cloud provider for your applications, it's essential to consider the strengths and expertise each major player brings to the table. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are three of the most prominent cloud providers, each offering unique advantages. In this section, we'll delve into their strengths and areas of expertise to help you make an informed decision during your cloud provider selection process.
In conclusion, each major cloud provider, whether it's AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, comes with its own set of strengths and expertise. Your choice should align with your specific application needs, existing technology stack, and long-term business goals. By carefully evaluating these strengths and expertise, you can make an informed decision that maximizes the benefits of cloud computing for your organization.
After you’ve created a robust, in-depth strategy for migrating legacy applications to the cloud, review your migration plan using the following checklist to help ensure you’ve covered major migration pitfalls:
It is important to choose a verified Cloud Service Provider before you surrender control of your intellectual property in order to prevent your company from being on the wrong side of litigation. Preparation for security concerns should be undertaken at the beginning of any cloud strategy to ensure that the company’s data is secure. For Example: Amazon Web Services is a verified Cloud service provider and utilizes best practices to secure the users data in AWS Cloud. Learn more at AWS Security Best Practices.
If your cloud computing system experiences downtime or is faced with a disaster, how is your Cloud Service Provider going to get you out of the crisis? To ensure business continuity, it is vital for employees and clients to still have the ability to access company data. For any amount of downtime, businesses should have some knowledge of what constitutes an outage and when fiscal penalties should take effect. Learn more at AWS Disaster Recovery.
There is a limitation to everything. A cloud application is scalable, with a “pay as you go” strategy based on demand but even the Cloud has constraints. While framing a Cloud strategy, focus on the various “ceilings” like organization, storage, people, technology and cost to determine how much and how far your application is scalable. Determining your existing software compatibility with the Cloud is highly crucial as well. Learn more at AWS Auto Scaling.
It is important to determine your vendor’s margin of error, frequency of power outages and security issues. Also, keeping a check on the accessibility and availability of cloud services can help you decide the best suitable cloud service provider for your business.
Whether you need additional support in preparing your migration plan, or want an expert review of your completed plan, Mission Cloud is here to help. As an AWS Migrations Competency Partner, we offer a free 60-minute migration assessment to help you prepare for migrating legacy applications to the cloud on AWS. Get in touch with an expert and prepare for a successful migration to the cloud.
Ensuring that migrated applications are optimized for the cloud involves a thorough assessment pre-migration, followed by iterative refinements post-migration to exploit cloud-native features. This may include re-architecting the application to be more modular, implementing microservices, or integrating cloud-specific services for enhanced performance and scalability.
For monitoring post-migration performance, adopting a comprehensive suite of cloud-native monitoring and management tools is crucial. These tools should offer real-time analytics, performance metrics, and the ability to quickly pinpoint and resolve issues to maintain optimal application performance in the cloud environment.
Definitely. These case studies can describe the before and after of migrating legacy applications to the cloud.