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Cloud Migration Strategies: The 6 "R". Part 1/6

With the boom on the field of cloud computing, there is more and more need for engineers capable of helping companies make their transition to the cloud smooth.
Being able to assist an organization to make safely make their transition to the cloud is a valuable skillset to have. In this post, I will go over the 6R of Cloud Migration Strategy.

It is important to mention that not all applications are optimized to run on the cloud. After careful evaluation, if you think that your application is still better of on the cloud, take a time to understand which cloud Migration Strategy fits your case best.

In most block posts, you will see the 6R's staring with "Refactor" and end up with "Retire" However, in this post I deliberately decided to go from the migration strategy that requires the Least effort to Most effort.

  1. Retire
  2. Retain
  3. Repurchase
  4. Rehost
  5. Replaftorm
  6. Refactor

Retire: I will coin this as "Drop and Go" In this option application that have reached end of life (EOL) are simply retired or decommissioned.

Retain: Also known as "Re-visit"
In this case some applications are just excluded from the migration strategy to be revisited on a later time. The reason for that may be things like latency, compliance/regulatory constrains for simply costs. In this case you will be running a hybrid environment.

Rehost : Mainly referred as _Lift and Shift _.
This is known as one of the most basic way of cloud migration strategy . It consists of moving your application or data without having to go through a code level changes. It is the preferred method for most organizations as it carries least amount of risks or complication.

Repurchase: This is also known as "Drop and Shop"
In this case, on prem or legacy applications are just dropped in favor of cloud-native vendor software packages It is like moving from proprietary application to SAAS

Replaftorm: This also know as Lift Tinker and Shift Method
In this method, candidate applications are packaged , tweaked a little bit and moved to the cloud via tools like AWS Data Migration Service

Refactor : I will coin this as " Go from scratch "
In this case, an application is rewritten re-architectured from scratch to make cloud native. It is a an expensive and time consuming method that require a team of qualify cloud engineers. Most companies goes that route if their existing applications are not cloud compatible.

In the following series I will have a full blog post of each of the 6R mentioned here.

Let me know if you find this post useful.

Lets link up on twitter : @asksouley
or visit my site. www.asksouley.com

Cheers!

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