What Is Cloud Migration?
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What Is Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration is the process of moving applications, data and IT workloads from on-premises servers — or from one cloud environment to another — into a cloud computing platform such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. It's driven by the promise of lower hardware costs, easier scaling, better disaster recovery, and access to managed services that would be expensive to build in-house.
Common Cloud Migration Strategies
Businesses typically follow one of a few strategies: "rehosting" (lifting an application as-is onto cloud servers, sometimes called lift-and-shift), "replatforming" (making small optimisations during the move, like switching to a managed database), or "refactoring" (redesigning the application to be cloud-native, using containers and microservices). Each involves a different tradeoff between speed, cost and long-term efficiency.
Planning a Successful Migration
A successful migration starts with an inventory of what's running today, which workloads are actually good candidates for the cloud, and what compliance or data residency rules apply. Bandwidth, downtime windows, staff training and a rollback plan all need attention — rushing a migration without a clear plan is one of the most common reasons cloud costs end up higher than expected rather than lower.