Some of the reasons why businesses are looking into cloud migration are increased digital demand, working from home, COVID, and problems with scalability.
In-house IT operations are expensive, and most small and medium-sized firms find it difficult to acquire and manage equipment, educate employees, and keep software up to date on a regular basis.
With that said, there are risks involved with migrating data to the cloud. So, companies that want to move have to think about a lot of things to make sure their data doesn’t get lost.
First, issues of compatibility need to be looked at: Will the legacy hardware applications run on the cloud? If not, how will the data be moved from the on-premise application to the cloud-based one?
For this process to work, both the source and the destination would need to have the right connectors.
Here, we’ll talk about using data integration tools to transfer conventional application data to the cloud. We’ll talk about:
- Moving traditional applications to the cloud
- Legacy application migration to the cloud
- Cost of migrating application data to the cloud
- Risks of cloud migration
Let’s get started and find out why cloud migration from legacy systems is so critical nowadays.
What is Cloud Migration?
In simple terms, Cloud migration means moving data, applications, and other digital business assets from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud, which is a virtual computer server with shared resources.
This would make it possible to access the data and applications from anywhere in the world.
How to Migrate from Legacy Systems to Cloud?
Clouds can be private or public. The cloud doesn’t have to belong to the company, but that is one option.
Connectors can be used to link legacy systems together. However, since these systems are outdated, there aren’t any existing connections for them, so each business must develop its solution. This can take days and sometimes months.
That’s where data integration tools come in handy. There are a lot of data integration tools in the market, but Talend Data Integrator, Fivetran Data Integrator, and so on are the most well-known ones.
They make it simple for users to move data from legacy systems to a staging area, where it is cleaned up and ready for final migration to the cloud.
Let’s understand why it is so important to do that.
Reasons for Migration of Legacy Systems to Cloud
Every company aspires to be agile, adaptable, and up-to-date so it can meet the needs of the market quickly. Cloud migration gives businesses the freedom to do this.
The following problems arise for companies with on-premise data:
- Scalability issues and growth restrictions.
- Increased operational and security expenses due to the requirement to set up DR locations for the whole data center.
- It is challenging to integrate data across legacy systems or from a legacy system to a new system.
- Each legacy system requires time-consuming hardware and software upgrades. Also, it requires extra maintenance and additional costs.
- Limited storage and bandwidth for their projects.
Moving to the cloud is thus a wise choice if you want access to a large number of resources that are not offered by an on-premise infrastructure.
Steps for Legacy Application to Cloud Migration
You must develop a comprehensive migration plan for your business apps before shifting your data to the cloud. You should also answer a few questions, such as:
- Will you migrate all the data at once or in batches?
- How will your company run during the migration process?
- How many disaster recovery (DR) sites do you have?
Additionally, someone would need to be given ownership of the whole data migration process. Once done, you have to follow the following steps:
Plan Your Cloud Migration
As part of your preparations, you should make a step-by-step plan of the things you want to try during the migration process. The next step is to assess each assignment to determine which one is most beneficial to your company.
Say you want to move data from legacy hardware to the cloud. The legacy system costs $2,000 per month to keep running, while a cloud server costs less than $500 per month to run. It makes sense to move that data to the cloud as soon as possible.
In the same way, you should decide what your goal is with the migration. Do you plan to have a shallow cloud migration or a deep cloud migration?
With a shallow migration strategy, you can only move data to the cloud, but with a deep migration strategy, you can use key cloud features. It can help you improve your data and make you money.
Choose Your Cloud Environment
You must choose the cloud environment that will meet your company’s demands the best. There are several types of clouds. Some cloud environments will be better for sales and marketing, while others will let you do development and design tasks in a more creative way.
In the same way, the price of each cloud environment is different, so make sure you find one that fits your budget. Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are the most popular cloud environments right now. Both are priced differently.
Similarly, Microsoft Azure and Digital Ocean also offer cloud computing and storage, but these services are much more limited in what they can do.
So, figure out which cloud environment is best for what you want to do.
Use a Data Migration Tool
You will need a data migration tool to move your data to the cloud in a smooth way. Data migration tools have data connectors that make it easier to move data from the source to the target.
Since most businesses use more than 20 applications on a regular basis, moving data to the cloud data warehouse will require 20 different data connectors.
Make sure the data migration software you choose fits your budget, gives you good value for your money, and has the features and connectors you need.
Even though there are a lot of data migration tools on the market, most of them have tiered pricing that drives the total cost of operation into the six-figure range, making it very expensive to move data.
Data migration software usually costs between $100,000 and $200,000 per year, on average. So, it’s best to choose a tool for data migration that gives you the service you need to finish the tasks at hand.
How to Migrate Legacy Applications to Cloud Environments
Let’s find out how easy it is to switch from legacy systems to cloud computing to improve the efficiency and performance of your business as a whole.
Migrating On-Premise Data To Azure Cloud
Think about moving your data from on-premise to the Azure cloud. You have a Cobol file system running on your on-premise system, and you have an MS SQL server on the Azure cloud. How would you get the files from where they are now to where you want them to be? That’s where data migration tools come in handy because they can connect all of your data.
You would need an Azure SQL source connector and an Azure SQL destination connector. First, you will move the data to the staging area in your data integration software. Then, if needed, you will change the data and load it on the destination drive, which in this case is the Azure cloud.
Migrating On-Premise Data to GCP
You can move data from on-premise software to applications hosted on your Google cloud platform just like you can with Azure cloud. The steps are the same. Let’s imagine you need to JSON encode the data for GCP. Therefore, a JSON data connection for the destination is required in this scenario. The source connection won’t change.
Migrating On-Premise Data to Redshift
A column-based data warehouse is what Amazon Redshift is. It supports multiple data formats. You can choose any data format for data conversion when moving data from your on-premise application. A data integration software can help you do this by moving data through the staging area and converting it all at the same time.
Things to Consider When Moving from Legacy Systems to Cloud
Not all on-premise systems are up to date. The majority of firms have legacy systems at their disposal that they utilize for regular company activities. They must thus take a few factors into account while transferring data from legacy systems to the cloud. As follows:
Data Compatibility in Legacy System
Ascertain if the data is appropriate for cloud applications. Data compatibility difficulties might arise when data is transferred to the cloud unless you are utilizing a data integration tool that can transform each data item to the necessary format.
Data Integration using Connectors
Businesses may quickly transfer data via data connectors thanks to data integration software. Using data integration software that provides several data connections for all kinds of apps installed on your system is one of the finest methods to do it.
Manually moving data from the source application to a staging data mart and then performing the necessary transformations is another option, albeit it is often challenging. Naturally, no business unit has the time to relocate data manually. It takes up a lot of time and uses up its resources, which is more costly than profitable.
Data transformation for Cloud Migration
Lastly, the business needs to know how the move to the cloud will affect them. Will they need all the data in their cloud environment, or will they add some transformations that show data segments?
Most of the time, cloud environments are used by businesses to improve OLAP processes. For this to work, data would need to be changed and sorted before being sent to the cloud, so that only relevant data is available to be changed.
Conclusion
The data migration process can be complicated if you don’t have proper planning and resources in place. Once done, you will find that it was definitely worth the time and effort. It is better to hire the services of professionals who can help you with the data migration process. We at AppleTech have years of experience and expertise in legacy and cloud data migration. If you are looking to move your data from legacy systems to the cloud, look no further than us.
