As companies realize the benefits of the cloud, along with new cloud application deployments, they are also migrating existing on-premise applications to the cloud.

However, migration can be a daunting task, and if not planned and executed properly, it may end up in a catastrophe.

When migrating to the cloud, the first thing companies have to do is to define a strategy. There are several common migration strategies.

The first one is “lift and shift”. In this method, applications are re-hosted in the cloud provider (such as AWS or Azure). Re-hosting can be done by performing migration sync and fail over – using tools available from the cloud provider or third party vendors.

The second strategy is to re-platform. In this method, the core architecture of the application is unchanged, but some optimizations are done to take advantage of the cloud architecture.

The third strategy is to repurchase. In this method, the existing application is totally dropped and you buy a new one that runs on the cloud.

The fourth strategy is to re-architect the application by using cloud-native features. Usually you re-architect the application to take advantage of the scalability and higher performance offered by the cloud.

The last strategy is to retain the applications to run on-premise. Some applications (especially legacy ones) are very complicated to migrate and keeping them on-premise may be the best option to take.

One important task to perform after migration is to validate and test the applications. Once they are smoothly running, find opportunities for application optimization, standardization and future proofing.