7 Tips to Build a Foolproof Cloud Migration Strategy for 2019
In most cases, enterprises start to consider ideas on migrating applications to the cloud during the second phase of the ‘Migration Process’ viz. Portfolio Discovery & Planning.
This, along with what might be easy to migrate and the migration of such applications might involve.
It is at this stage that the developers understand the intricacies of their environments and their interdependencies. From a developer’s perspective, there are lots of things that can go wrong.
Given this understanding, organizations need to frame a migration plan and the most efficient way to migrate the applications within their portfolio and the best way to prioritize them. Apart from that, developers need to be taught of the best practices while moving their application from
With the variety of the applications involved, the complexity of migration varies accordingly. Much of it is dependent on the existing licensing arrangements and the architecture involved. If we had the freedom to imagine a migration scenario a list of applications with varying levels of complexity arranged from high to low, along with a monolithic mainframe would probably be at the high-complexity end of the scale.
As a general suggestion, it is best to begin with an application that is at the low end of the complexity scale. The reasons for this are obvious — it will provide the user with immediate positive feedback and quick win as the familiarity with the system develops.
Listed below are some tips for a foolproof strategy for migrating applications to the cloud. Feel free to comment, suggest insights and ask anything.
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Cloud Security: Using HTTPS
As certificate authorities from Let’s Encrypt with SSL certificates were handed out for free, a trend to use SSL on every other website became a commonplace. When it comes to security, SSL on a web application is of paramount importance. In case the data being exchanged is not encrypted, any individual eavesdropping on the exchange would be able to access the confidential information in question.
While Alibaba Cloud is an example of a service provider that supplies SSL certificates, it can tend to be a bit expensive. The SSL certificates that Alibaba Cloud provide are perhaps most suitable for Enterprise users.
Another option is to use free SSL service offered by Let’s Encrypt. This can be used to quickly secure your web applications. To be able to generate client application certificates using Certbot for Let’s Encrypt CA, users would need to have the domain requirements directed towards the server.
Most of the cloud vendors today make domain names available at extremely reasonable costs. This includes free whois protection.
Cloud Security: Protect Your Cloud Credentials
Your cloud account is a representation of a business agreement between you/your organization and the cloud vendor. One of the biggest cloud migration challenges revolves around how you manage your cloud security credentials. Let’s take the case of AWS. Because your root account is used to manage related AWS resources and services, the account will require complete access including root permissions. A word of caution though, these come with enhanced risks.
Probably the most useful of suggestions when using AWS is to avoid creating an access key for the root account that you use. To take this further, it is best not to create a root access key unless necessary. You can instead consider creating AWS Identity and Access Management users (AIM) and grant them the required credentials for use with everyday interactions with the AWS system.
This is not just limited to AWS though. While using any cloud provider service, you’ll come across similar issues and risks. Users tend to share their credentials with someone else in the office because they’ve forgotten theirs. Similarly, any policy related to rotation of credentials is usually non-existent.
To solve these issues, it’s best recommended to create an industry-standard policy that covers scenarios related to loss of credentials, key rotation and how to respond to key theft.
Cloud Security: Backup and Test Your Recovery Resources Before Needed
As a user, given that your credentials are secure and protected, and your applications have been aptly secured, it is natural to relax when it comes to anticipating unsolicited access. However, it is always a good idea to plan for a backup and recovery plan in case of an unanticipated scenario.
Here are some aspects you should consider -
- Frequently back up your instance via snapshots or a similar backup tool.
- Deploy your application’s critical components across different Availability Zones, and duplicate your data as appropriate.
- Design applications so that they can handle dynamic IP addressing whenever your instance restarts.
- Monitor and respond to events in a timely fashion.
- Make sure that you are prepared to handle any failovers that may occur. At a fundamental level, you should be able to manually attach a network interface or Elastic IP address to a replacement instance.
- Test the recovery of your instances and Amazon EBS volumes at frequent intervals to check for possible failures.
Select the Appropriate Hosting Environment
Notwithstanding your choice of migrating or building a cloud-centric application, as a user, you would still be required to select the correct cloud infrastructure as a service offering. The following features are considered to be essential in this case -
Irrespective of whether you migrate or build a cloud-first application, you will still need the right cloud infrastructure to offer it as a service, which must provide the following essential features:
- Vertical and horizontal flexibility and scalability
- Support for cross-country deployment
- Single-click delivery
- Ability to capture usage and billing data
- Data redundancy and backup
As you can imagine, many different service providers offer a global presence when it comes to public cloud-based services. Google, Azure, and AWS are just a few to name. Many times users would need to compel ISVs to make use of different cloud platforms to guarantee scalability, redundancy as well as enhanced availability.
Learning by experience in cloud adoption, ISVs can deliver considerable value to users by reducing their TCO while also generating a constant revenue stream thanks to a subscription-based SaaS model.
Formulate a Migration Strategy and an Appropriate Roadmap
Once you have assessed the existing application as well as the technology stack, combined with the business’s target goals, you should be able to develop an appropriate migration strategy. This can be quickly done once the relevant components and applications to be migrated are identified along with the target timelines.
If you represent an established Independent Software Vendor (ISV) using an enterprise level application, the suggestion is to go in for a phased, incremental approach to cloud migration strategies. This would help minimize the impact to your existing customers.
Given the data requirements of your application as well as other relevant critical factors like security, resource utilization, TCO and control, you should retain the right to select the appropriate cloud platform while also being able to choose between private, public or a hybrid setup.
The public cloud option is perhaps the most cost-efficient. This is especially true in case you are running a SaaS read application with incremental infrastructure requirements. Adversely, the private cloud can prove to be a better option when control and security are the primary concerns. As the name suggests, the Hybrid cloud is a mix of both public and private cloud infrastructure and is fast gaining popularity because it provides the flexibility of both public and private cloud and can deliver services as required.
Opt for a Phased Migration
On the chance that you are running a relatively large legacy application which proves to be cumbersome to migrate, the initial step is to start with a hosted deployment model.
A hosted deployment model delivers a single-tenant model of the application via a virtual desktop through local hosting services or via a managed service provider. This method allows the user to guarantee the fulfillment of the customer’s needs when it comes to infrastructure, maintenance, support as well as upgradation.
To put it just, it is a low-stress reward which can be easily achieved by most existing ISVs before going in for the more complex tasks of migrating applications.
Adopt a Cloud Architecture
The next logical step is to commit to a re-engineering or a refactoring of the application architecture and offer it as a service. This service should consist of the following features -
- API and service-based architecture
- Extensible data model with inbuilt security
- Ready support for multi-tenancy
- The ability for flexible configuration
- Compatibility with industry-standard cloud platforms and the utilization of third-party services that can extend the functionality of the core product.
Conclusion
In case you are at the cusp of deciding how to proceed with your cloud migration strategy, the points touched upon above should help you move ahead. A robust and complete migration checklist is paramount to success in your endeavor and will act as your initial guiding step.
Migrating to the cloud is not straightforward. That said, a good understanding of the implications involved as well as proper preparation for the actual migration will ensure the transition is as smooth and painless as possible. Thanks for reading and please feel free to ask anything 👏
