Cloud migration

Cloud migration is moving applications, data, and the workloads around them off infrastructure you own, on-premise servers, a colocation rack, or another cloud, and onto a provider like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. The scope runs from one app moved in an afternoon to a multi-year re-architecture of everything you run.

In plain terms

You’re changing where your software lives and who keeps the lights on. Today an accounting system runs on a server in your office: you bought it, you patch it, and when a disk dies at 2 a.m., that’s your problem. After migration it runs on rented capacity in an AWS, Azure, or GCP data centre, and the hardware becomes the provider’s problem. The migration itself is the careful part, getting live systems from old home to new without losing data or breaking what customers depend on. It’s almost never one big weekend; real migrations move in waves, one group of applications at a time.

Why it matters when you migrate

• It’s a portfolio decision, not a switch. Each application earns its own treatment, rehost, replatform, rebuild, or retire. That’s the 6 Rs framework, and applying it app-by-app is most of the strategy.
• Sequencing kills more migrations than technology. Failures trace to missed dependencies and botched cutovers far more than to the cloud itself, which is why you start from a roadmap, not a tool.
• Pin down cost and downtime before you move. Estimate the bill up front, and decide per system how much downtime the cutover can tolerate, those two numbers shape every other choice.