How to successfully migrate to the AWS Cloud

How to successfully migrate to the AWS Cloud.

Every year in Germany, eight million people move, asking themselves what they need to take with them, what they can do away with and what they need to buy. These are the same questions businesses pose themselves when they migrate their IT infrastructures into the cloud, and, just as when it comes to moving house, the whole process can be stress free with the right planning and professional support.

We've all been there. Books and crockery, clothes and knick-knacks where they shouldn't be. The constant frustration of tripping over unopened boxes. Stress and chaos are all part and parcel of moving. Businesses that want to remain competitive have to view the strategic modernisation of their IT and the migration of their on-prem infrastructure into the cloud as absolutely critical. Over the last few years, AWS (Amazon Web Services) Cloud Services in particular have become a mainstay of IT portfolio management, and with good reason!We've all been there. Books and crockery, clothes and knick-knacks where they shouldn't be. The constant frustration of tripping over unopened boxes. Stress and chaos are all part and parcel of moving. Businesses that want to remain competitive have to view the strategic modernisation of their IT and the migration of their on-prem infrastructure into the cloud as absolutely critical. Over the last few years, AWS (Amazon Web Services) Cloud Services in particular have become a mainstay of IT portfolio management, and with good reason!

A move into the cloud can only be successful when you have a reliable partner by your side.

The reasons behind making the decision to make the move are many and varied. It could be because the IT environment isn't up to scratch anymore, more capacity is required or simply because data latencies between sites is far too long. The reasons behind choosing AWS as the new home for servers and applications, on the other hand, are clear—many years of experience, national and international migration partners such as Bechtle, and flexibly scalable infrastructures that minimise operating costs and boost corporate operative flexibility.

However, the move into the cloud, whether wholly or in part, brings with a raft of questions and challenges for those at the helm. Which steps need to be taken to ensure a migration is a success? Will our current architectures and applications help us achieve our objectives into the future? Which cloud provider should we choose? Do we need professional services from specialist service providers? If yes, to what extent? And, what migration options are available?

Why the move to the cloud begins with business cases.

Before anything can happen, it's important to determine how ready the company actually is. Readiness in this instance is the ability to understand the need for strategic planning and operative implementation of a cloud migration, or rather, what employees are able to achieve and for which tasks the company requires the support of professional service providers like Bechtle. It also means identifying the relevant applications and business cases that will benefit from the move into the cloud. A business case, therefore, is the first step towards migration, followed by choosing a cloud and service provider and then how the migration is to take place.

Providers are fundamental.

A good cloud strategy starts off with identifying the objectives and ends with identifying and determining what's required to achieve those. Two critical factors for success are selecting a cloud provider aka hyperscaler, and choosing a service provider that can help define goals and implement strategies. A growing number of businesses are therefore turning to AWS and Bechtle. An ever-greater number of customers are having their heads turned by cloud computing As a result of the highly-trained and extensively qualified employees, many years of experience on the market and industry-wide partnerships with leading cloud providers.

For example, Bechtle has been working closely with AWS or many years to help their mutual customers turn their cloud strategies into a reality and set up more agile IT solutions with users benefiting in particular from extensive services for cloud projects and faster migration to AWS. Bechtle provides solutions for specific requirements, works closely with the customer to develop strategies to achieve new corporate goals, creates cloud architecture solutions, and also offers hybrid and multi-cloud solutions.

The secret to success? Having a plan.

Generally speaking, companies looking to migrate into the cloud have three options when it comes to transforming their on-premise structures. They can

do it all themselves,
hand over full responsibility to a cloud and sourcing provider, or
split the burden between themselves and a service provider.

Studies show that, just like moving home, making the move into the cloud is usually done with the support of professionals. It's not just how the move is carried out and which cloud and service providers are chosen that's important, but also the type of migration. For the move itself, business have in theory six options. Rehost (aka lift and shift), replatform, (optimising applications during the migration phase), repurchase (changing to a new product), refactor(optimising/tweaking services), retain (keeping a part of the IT portfolio), retire (taking some services out of service).

In reality, three methods have become front-runners in the race to switch workloads to modern cloud architectures. These are:

Lift and shift,
Partial new development or adjustment, and
Complete refactoring.

Having to decide whether data should be kept in-house or moved to the cloud can be quite complicated for IT managers. They need to have an in-depth understanding of their IT and data centre infrastructure, application design and business development. Making a wrong decision can impact performance, put objectives at risk and cause additional costs.