The cloud is already a big deal—and it’s only getting bigger. Research reveals that 94% of organizations use cloud services, and on average, enterprises leverage 5 different cloud platforms at the same time.

To stay ahead of the curve and maximize cloud services, however, it’s often necessary to migrate—either from one cloud provider to another or from on-premises systems to cloud services. This is a problem for most businesses with cloud migration being their second cloud-related pain point, right after security.

So, how does an organization minimize the stress associated with migrating to a new cloud platform? We’ll go into some top cloud migration best practices below, but first, let’s explore what cloud migration is all about.

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of moving IT processes, data, applications, and other business elements to a cloud computing environment, or a new cloud platform.

Benefits of Cloud Migration

Migrating to the cloud comes with many benefits:

• Cost-effectiveness: Organizations that migrate to the cloud reduce IT operational expenses since cloud providers handle upgrades and maintenance.
• Scalability: Cloud computing can scale up to accommodate bigger workloads and a larger number of users a lot easier than on-premises systems, which require purchasing additional networking equipment and physical servers.
• Integration: The cloud environment enables cost-effective and seamless integration with other systems.
• Disaster Recovery: It’s easy to recover data via cloud-based recovery and backup solutions. This saves time and investment during recoveries.
• Automation: API and automatic updates are seamless in a cloud environment, enabling the automation of repetitive tasks.
• Security: In cloud computing environments security challenges like data theft, intrusions, hacking, and identity theft are better handled due to greater security options such as multi-factor authentication and rotating access keys/passwords.
• Better Storage: Cloud solution providers usually offer high-security data storage at a low cost. You can also easily expand and scale back on storage depending on your cloud computing demands. Organizations with seasonal data storage demands often go for cloud services for this reason.
• Resource Upscaling as Required: Cloud computing allows you to decrease or increase processing resources based on your business needs.
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Cloud Migration Risks

There are a few risks developers must pay attention to while cloud migrating:

• Irrecoverability of sensitive data
• Completion timeframe of the entire process
• Data security may be compromised during cloud migration
• Possible interoperability and acceptance issues between applications

However, you can minimize these risks by implementing the following steps and strategies.

Steps & Strategies to Migrate Cloud Platforms

Cloud migration includes a 5-step process:

1. Assessment: This step involves assessing if applications can be migrated to the cloud with minimal problems. Certain applications cannot be easily transferred to the cloud.
2. User Application Testing: Before migrating to the cloud, application performance must be assessed. The security and compatibility of the application should be tested with cloud systems.
3. Begin Migration: The migration process is the responsibility of IT personnel or developers with technical cloud migration expertise. However, whether the applications or data is moved first depends on the organization’s business needs.
4. Evaluate Applications After Transfer: Once the application has been transferred to the cloud, it needs to be evaluated to confirm that it’s functioning properly. If not, a re-architecture may be required.
5. Optimization: Depending on the architecture and application, systems may need to be optimized to save bandwidth and storage.

With that said, let’s look at some cloud migration strategies.

Cloud Migration Strategies

There are 5 common cloud migration strategies, identified as the “5 Rs”:

1. Rehost: This strategy involves choosing an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider and re-creating your application architecture on the provider’s infrastructure.
2. Refactor: Organizations that opt for refactoring will use their current frameworks and code, but run their applications on a Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider’s platform rather than an IaaS.
3. Revise: This strategy deals with partially expanding or rewriting your codebase, then deploying it by refactoring or rehosting.
4. Rebuild: In rebuilding, you’re re-architecting and rewriting your application from scratch on a PaaS provider’s platform.
5. Replace: This strategy involves discarding old applications and switching to ready-to-use Software as a Service (SaaS) apps from 3rd party vendors.
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How interworks.cloud Can Make the Transition Smoother

interworks.cloud ensures a smooth transition for Microsoft Cloud Solution Partners during cloud migration via our importer tool using a 3-step process:

Step 1: Access Our Office 365 Import Customers Tool

To access the interworks.cloud importer tool, head to BSS Setup > Tools and click on Import Customers Tool.

Step 2: Define Your Import Instance

Before you begin the import process, you first have to define the instance you’ll import your customers from. To do this simply click the Microsoft Cloud Services Instance drop-down menu and select the correct instance (you may have one or multiple instances that you can choose to import customers from). These instances are either Indirect/Direct CSPs or both.

Step 3: Get Hierarchy Process

The interworks.cloud platform features a Get Hierarchy function that starts communication with Microsoft’s Partner Center to copy everything that’s associated with your chosen instance. Basically, the importer tool accessed via the Get Hierarchy button collects a CSPs MS tenants and their respective subscriptions and loads the data into the interworks.cloud platform.

It’s important to note that the entire process of accounts and subscriptions collection is visualized, which makes the migration easily understandable. Find out how easy is the whole process by reading the Use Case: 5 steps to import your existing customers and subscriptions to the interworks.cloud platform.

In Conclusion…

Migrating to a new cloud platform can be an extremely painful process. Plus, risks associated with cloud migration such as loss of sensitive data and compromised data security can occur during the process. However, following the right migration steps and strategies as mentioned above can create a seamless cloud migration process.

interworks.cloud’s solution can also help you easily migrate your customers’ subscriptions from Microsoft’s Partner Center to the platform using the powerful importer tool. To learn more about how interworks.cloud can help with this and other aspects of CSP cloud services automation, get in touch with us to request a free demo.