MULTI-CLOUD WORKS WELL AS IT ENABLES THE COMPANY TO MATCH EACH APPLICATION OR WORKLOAD TO THE IT INFRASTRUCTURE BEST SUITED .
INDUSTRY WATCH
MULTI-CLOUD WORKS WELL AS IT ENABLES THE COMPANY TO MATCH EACH APPLICATION OR WORKLOAD TO THE IT INFRASTRUCTURE BEST SUITED .
A carefully planned cloud migration strategy is essential to facilitate the smooth transfer of data , applications , and workloads from on-premises to the cloud or between clouds . To do so requires a business to establish a simple and efficient application migration plan for its workloads .
One of the reasons for the recent shift in computing models across Africa is that hybrid multi-clouds provide organisations with choice and the flexibility and simplicity to host applications on the most appropriate infrastructure based on various factors . These include location , cost , performance , and resilience .
As more hyperscalars open datacentres across the continent , these considerations will play a crucial part in a successful migration project .
Getting started
Today ’ s competitive focus centres on having an efficient , agile technology adoption strategy in place . This can reduce risk and cost while shortening the time-to-cloud . When a business considers embarking on a high-impact IT infrastructure project , application workloads are commonly managed through one or more of the following : rehosting , refactoring , rearchitecting , and replacing .
It is also common for companies to employ these migration strategies in a way that overlaps . The focus is identifying the most appropriate migration path determined by the specific application type , how application data is managed , source and target infrastructure connectivity , and more .
Databases , for example , are not easily migrated using lift-and-shift methods without incurring a service outage . However , they typically have natively integrated data migration capabilities . Deploying a new database instance on the desired target infrastructure and migrating the data using these native tools may make the most sense .
It can also enable IT teams to update software versions during the same process , similar to the process for directory services workloads , which natively support data replication and are unsuited for lift-and-shift migration .
If anything , the lift-and-shift migration option is better suited for application workloads that are monolithic in design rather than ones natively written for a scaleout architecture .
Business sense
Because it can take up to two years per migration , depending on the application size , companies may decide to move multiple applications in parallel . Unfortunately , many need to pay more attention to the complexity this can cause . To do one migration effectively can be challenging , but doing two becomes exponentially more difficult .
A singular approach to migration might make the most business sense . After all , no company wants to slow down existing processes by performing tests and application cutovers across multiple cloud environments . This is especially true in Africa , where each country has different market requirements .
But once the decision to migrate to the cloud is made – based on a detailed cost-benefit-time analysis – success comes down to how strategically and meticulously the process of moving workloads to the cloud is planned and executed .
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