Cloud migration: Taking your data and analytics to the cloud

We’ve assembled the following guide to help you plan your cloud migration strategy, govern data across hybrid environments, and accelerate your deployment of data and analytics capabilities to the cloud.

If you’ve asked these questions, then this guide is for you.

• Why are so many companies moving to the cloud?
• What are the benefits of cloud migration?
• What should I consider before starting a cloud migration?
• What are the steps of a successful cloud migration strategy?
• How long will a cloud migration take?
• What are the costs associated with a cloud migration?
• Do I need cloud migration consulting services?

Why are so many companies moving to the cloud?

If it feels like everyone you know has or is moving to the cloud, you’re right. Most organizations already use some form of cloud service, and demand is expected to continue growing.

Even industries that were traditionally reluctant to shift to the cloud, such as financial services and insurance, are now moving data, applications, and services to the cloud.

Digital transformation initiatives have helped organizations adapt more nimbly to office shutdowns, supply chain disruptions, and shifting customer expectations.

Companies whose existing cloud strategy helped them survive recent disruption are likely to accelerate those investments, while others will kickstart new cloud initiatives.

What are the benefits of cloud migration?

Optimize operations

• Seamless scalability for dynamic workloads
• Reduced capital expenditure
• Predictable infrastructure costs
• Lower maintenance requirements
• Fast, easy access to software and hardware upgrades
• Improved data security

Accelerate innovation

• Rapid development and faster time-to-market
• Ready access to machine learning and advanced analytics capabilities
• Flexibility for changing business needs
• Ability to capture and integrate new data quickly
• Easier collaboration across distances

What should I consider before starting a cloud migration?

While highly beneficial, cloud migrations are more complex and time-consuming than many expect. They require careful planning, a clear understanding of expected outcomes, and defined success measures.

Before migrating to the cloud, you should consider several strategic and technical factors.

1) Start with business goals and benefits

Cloud migration should start with business strategy. It is critical to determine which initiatives will benefit most from cloud data and analytics, prioritize them, and build a business case.

Both business and technical leaders should be involved to ensure that the cloud platform and applications will meet end-user needs.

Examples of business strategies enabled by cloud data and analytics

• New product development and test-and-learn innovation
• Customer acquisition and retention through better customer experience capabilities
• Mergers and acquisitions that require analysis of large internal and external datasets
• Demand forecasting based on large volumes of historical and real-time data

A global medical device manufacturer consolidated data from more than a dozen ERP systems in the cloud to get a single view of business KPIs across regions and divisions, enabling rapid scaling of ventilator production to meet unexpected demand.

2) Identify what must be migrated to achieve your objectives

You need to decide which data should be migrated, what analytics capabilities are required, how to manage and protect sensitive data, and who will have access to it. Consider whether you are migrating applications, databases, or both.

3) Determine your cloud migration approach

Once you know what needs to move, you can choose an approach that fits your objectives:

• Lift and shift (rehost) – copy applications or databases to the cloud with minimal changes.
• Re-platform – make targeted optimizations to take better advantage of cloud capabilities.
• Refactor – re-architect applications to be fully optimized for the cloud.
• Repurchase – replace with an entirely new cloud-native application.
• Retire – decommission applications that are no longer needed.

4) Choose the right type of cloud environment

There are several options, and most organizations use a mix rather than a single model.

• Public cloud: Services shared across customers but logically isolated; typically offers significant cost benefits.
• Private cloud: Dedicated cloud infrastructure for a single organization; offers more control and security at higher cost.
• Multi-cloud: Use of multiple public and/or private cloud vendors to avoid lock-in and leverage best-of-breed services.
• Hybrid cloud: Combination of public and private clouds to balance scalability, cost, and control.
• Distributed cloud: Public cloud services distributed across multiple physical locations to support location-dependent use cases.

What are the steps of a successful cloud migration strategy?

Your specific steps may differ based on scope and approach, but a clear strategy is essential for achieving business results. A common, proven methodology includes:

• Identify project scope – Inventory applications, evaluate performance, determine needed updates, and assess which should run on hybrid, public, or private clouds.
• Plan and coordinate teams and resources – Assign a project owner, define roles, and involve architecture, development, and product teams for design, build, and validation.
• Prioritize migration projects – Decide whether to start with low-risk systems or high-value systems that drive the greatest business impact, knowing that more complex migrations may go first.
• Test the new environment – Validate functionality, performance, scalability, and security; ensure integrations and authorizations work as expected.
• Automate where possible – Use accelerator tools to reduce time, cost, and errors across the migration lifecycle.

A global quick-service restaurant organization migrated from a legacy on-premises data warehouse to a cloud data warehouse to gain a single source of truth for reporting and more advanced analytics across many business domains.

How long will a cloud migration take?

Moving data to the cloud involves more than changing storage; you may also be migrating to new data warehouses, data lakes, or integration platforms.

To reduce time, effort, and cost, some teams use accelerators that automate parts of the migration and validation process.

• Database Converter: Converts database structures to cloud targets, reducing effort.
• Data Capturer: Compares data between legacy and cloud systems to verify quality.
• Data Integration Code Converter: Recreates ETL logic in a cloud integration platform to save development time.

Cloud data integration solutions help handle rapid integration of today’s data volumes while moving data efficiently, quickly, and securely between environments.

What are the costs associated with cloud migration?

Cloud computing can reduce capital expenditures and give more control over operating costs, but it is important to understand all cost components.

• Cloud infrastructure costs: Servers and storage consumed in the cloud.
• Tools and licenses: Data warehouses, data lakes, ETL platforms, analytics tools.
• Networking: Costs of moving data into and out of cloud environments.
• Security: Identity and access management and other protections.
• Skills: Internal expertise needed for planning, deployment, and operations.
• Professional services: External consulting for strategy, migration execution, data management, and governance.

Do I need cloud migration consulting services?

Large-scale cloud migrations are often better handled by experienced specialists who have migrated applications and databases for multiple organizations.

• Established frameworks: Experienced consultants bring tested frameworks for planning, execution, and go-live, reducing risk.
• Accelerated timeframes: Proprietary accelerators can significantly reduce time and cost by automating key steps.
• Improved security: Well-designed, automated processes help reduce human error, which is a common source of security issues.

Many enterprises lack sufficient cloud skills internally, which can delay cloud migrations by years; consultants help fill that gap.

How can Wavicle Data Solutions help with cloud migration?

Wavicle focuses on rapid delivery of data and analytics solutions and helps clients use cloud-native technologies to capture, analyze, and share growing volumes of data for advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI.

By combining technical expertise, industry knowledge, and proprietary accelerators, Wavicle provides fast, trusted data so organizations can reduce risk, manage costs, increase sales, and operate more efficiently.

Working with leading cloud technology partners, such as AWS, Talend, Snowflake, and Databricks, Wavicle delivers cloud data platforms that support critical business processes.

One customer noted that Wavicle was a trusted partner in their cloud journey, providing data engineering and cloud platform expertise and the flexibility to scale teams as the project ramped up.