Migration Strategies

6 Strategies for Migration

When migrating applications to the cloud, six of the most common migration strategies that you can implement are:

• Rehosting
• Replatforming
• Refactoring/re-architecting
• Repurchasing
• Retaining
• Retiring

Rehosting

Rehosting is also known as “lift-and-shift” involves moving applications without changes.

In the scenario of a large legacy migration, in which the company is looking to implement its migration and scale quickly to meet a business case, the majority of applications are rehosted.

Replatforming

Replatforming, also known as “lift, tinker, and shift”, involves making a few cloud optimizations to realize a tangible benefit. Optimization is achieved without changing the core architecture of the application.

Refactoring/re-architecting

Refactoring (also known as re-architecting) involves reimagining how an application is architected and developed by using cloud-native features. Refactoring is driven by a strong business need to add features, scale, or performance that would otherwise be difficult to achieve in the application’s existing environment.

Repurchasing

Repurchasing involves moving from a traditional license to a software-as-a-service model.

For example, a business might choose to implement the repurchasing strategy by migrating from a customer relationship management (CRM) system to Salesforce

Retaining

Retaining consists of keeping applications that are critical for the business in the source environment. This might include applications that require major refactoring before they can be migrated, or, work that can be postponed until a later time.

Retiring

Retiring is the process of removing applications that are no longer needed.