Introduction

When it comes to cloud migration, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Every organization has unique needs, whether it’s improving performance, cutting costs, or modernizing legacy applications. Enter the 7Rs of migration, a set of strategies designed to offer a tailored approach to moving workloads to the cloud. In this post, part of our Cloud Migration blog series, we’ll explore each migration strategy to help you find the path that best aligns with your business goals.

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Section 1: Rehost (Lift and Shift)

The rehost strategy, often called ‘lift and shift,’ involves moving applications to the cloud with minimal modification. It’s a quick solution for organizations looking to transition to the cloud without altering their existing architecture. Rehosting is ideal for legacy applications that need to be moved quickly, as well as for those with tight timelines and limited resources for development. While it doesn’t maximize cloud benefits like scalability, it’s a valuable first step for companies planning to optimize later.

Example: A mid-sized retail company with an e-commerce platform running on older hardware decides to move it to AWS. They rehost by migrating their virtual machines and databases directly to the cloud without modifying the application code. This allows them to benefit from cloud scalability and uptime quickly, with minimal disruption to their operations.

Section 2: Replatform (Lift, Tinker, and Shift)

Replatforming is about making minimal adjustments to applications to benefit more from cloud infrastructure. Known as ‘lift, tinker, and shift,’ this approach might include small optimizations, like switching to a managed database service instead of self-hosting. Replatforming is ideal for organizations that want some cloud benefits, such as improved performance or lower costs, without diving into a full-scale refactoring project.

Example: A media streaming service wants to move its application to AWS. Instead of just rehosting, they decide to migrate their database from a self-hosted setup to Amazon RDS (a managed database service), which requires minimal code changes. This small adjustment reduces their database maintenance workload, while still allowing them to retain their core application as-is.

Section 3: Repurchase (Move to a Different Product)

With the repurchase strategy, companies replace their existing solution with a new cloud-native product, often a SaaS application. This approach is common when an application can’t meet modern demands or when maintaining it is too costly. For example, many organizations migrate from in-house CRM software to platforms like Salesforce. Repurchasing can bring quick cloud benefits, including managed updates and lower maintenance, but it may require users to adapt to a new tool.

Example: A small software company using an on-premises CRM tool switches to Salesforce, a SaaS CRM solution. By repurchasing, they avoid managing hardware and software updates and gain access to a fully managed, cloud-native CRM with better support and features.

Section 4: Refactor (Re-architect)

Refactoring, or re-architecting, involves reengineering an application to optimize it fully for the cloud. This approach is often chosen when an application would benefit significantly from cloud-native features, such as serverless computing or microservices. Though it’s the most resource-intensive strategy, refactoring unlocks long-term scalability and cost-efficiency, making it ideal for core applications that need to perform optimally at scale. Refactoring is a commitment, but the payoffs in flexibility and innovation can be substantial.

Example: A logistics company with a monolithic, on-premises application for managing shipments decides to break it down into microservices on AWS. They refactor the application, rewriting parts of it to leverage cloud-native services like AWS Lambda for serverless functions and Amazon S3 for storage. This shift improves scalability, reduces costs, and accelerates innovation.

Section 5: Retire

In some cases, not all applications need to make the move. The retire strategy involves identifying and decommissioning applications that are no longer valuable. By cutting down on redundant or outdated software, companies can focus on modernizing what matters, saving time and reducing costs. Retiring is especially valuable in large organizations with extensive legacy portfolios where rationalization can lead to significant efficiency gains.

Example: During the planning phase of migration, a financial institution identifies several older applications that aren’t adding much value anymore—such as a rarely-used internal reporting tool. Instead of migrating these applications, they decide to retire them, reducing their overall migration footprint and freeing up resources to focus on modernizing other important applications.

Section 6: Retain (Keep as-is)

Sometimes, the best strategy is to leave certain applications where they are. Retaining, or ‘keeping as-is,’ applies to workloads that may not yet be cloud-ready, perhaps due to compliance, technical limitations, or low priority for modernization. Companies using the retain strategy often adopt a hybrid environment, running some applications in the cloud and others on-premises. Retaining is a reminder that cloud migration doesn’t need to be an all-or-nothing approach.

Example: A hospital runs a specialized medical records system on-premises, as it requires compliance with strict regulatory standards and isn’t yet fully cloud-ready. They decide to retain this system on their local servers while gradually moving other applications, like HR and payroll, to the cloud. This hybrid approach allows them to maximize cloud benefits without compromising on compliance.

Section 7: Relocate (Move to Another Data Center)

Relocating involves shifting applications to a different cloud region or data center with minimal modification, usually when companies want to take advantage of regional availability zones or latency improvements. It’s a useful choice for organizations that already have workloads on the cloud but need better performance or compliance with regional regulations. Relocating helps achieve these goals without the need for extensive re-architecting.

Example: A global financial services company running workloads on a public cloud provider in North America decides to relocate some of them to AWS’s data centers in the EU to improve latency for European customers and comply with EU data regulations. They don’t change the underlying application architecture, just shift it to a new cloud region.

Conclusion:

Choosing the right migration strategy is a crucial part of a successful cloud journey. Each approach—from the straightforward lift and shift to the more complex refactoring—offers unique benefits to meet diverse organizational needs. Understanding these strategies can help your business align its goals with the right cloud architecture, setting you up for long-term success. In our next post, we’ll dive deeper into the stages of migration to ensure a smooth transition from planning to optimization. Stay tuned as we continue our journey to the cloud!

References:

Amazon Blog Post - 7Rs strategies

Numen Cloud Services

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