This blog was originally published by Adastra here
How to Perform a Google Cloud Migration
One of the first steps to digital transformation in most cases is migrating workloads to the cloud because it makes the systems more reliable while often saving infrastructure costs. But which is the best way to perform a cloud migration?
Frankly, I do not have a single right answer. Relying to myself as a certified Google Cloud Architect, an effective integration of cloud environments is an essence to successful enterprise digital transformation. There are a couple of Google Cloud migration methodologies. Each one provides its own advantages depending on the specific business needs. In this article, I will describe the most common cloud migration strategies along with some of their advantages and use cases.
Digitalization of core business processes could do more than just making the company more competitive… instead, it should position you to excel by untethering IT staff from low value, labor-intensive tasks, allowing them to focus on innovation and high-impact projects.
Migrate Virtual Machines (VMs) to Google Compute Engine GCE (Velostrata)
In my experience, migrations to Google Cloud have never been so easier. Velostrata facilitates migration to Google Cloud from enterprise on-premise data centers. It allows the companies to migrate their infrastructure not in whole lump, but in stages (formally Migration Waves). I believe that Migration Waves are the key to more manageable and easier changeover.
Thinking over the better cloud migration approach, the main pointers are your business goals and internal capabilities, along with the technical aspects of your system infrastructure. Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-to-all cloud migration approach. Whatever path you choose, it may turn out that a custom cloud migration approach is the best option for you.
GCP Migration Approach: Lift and Shift Cloud Migration
The Lift and Shift approach gives you the opportunity to get an immediate infrastructure modernization, followed by additional adjustments and improvements. It enables you to shift your workloads as needed and decrease the stress upon your infrastructure.
I recommend this approach to be adopted by companies which are newbies in cloud technologies or in Google Cloud Platform. This approach provides you with a minimum risk while gradually ramping up your teams’ cloud knowledge. The cloud migration is executed without code changes or with minimum ones to the existing applications.
GCP Migration Approach: Move and Improve
I recommend this approach if you are aiming to get more benefits from Google Cloud migration in the long run. I personally suggest you adopt this infrastructure modernization approach if you want to improve your application performance and launch new features.
While designing the Move and Improve cloud migration model, you can take advantage of cloud native capabilities and leverage cloud features such as scalability, reliability, resiliency, and high availability. You need to evaluate the extra mile in the life cycle of the migrated application. Keep in mind that it will require a bit more time to add new skillset to your team and it may be difficult to fit the timelines. You may need the support by experienced cloud migration provider by your side in this endeavor.
RIP and Replace
Leverage the full benefits of Google Cloud migration with this refactoring approach. It will cost you a bit more time and it is the most aggressive one, due to decommissioning the existing applications and recreating them as serverless and Cloud Native. The RIP and Replace strategy offers elasticity, scalability, resiliency, and high availability, while saving you a bunch of money in the long run. This cloud migration approach ensures scalability and flexibility for much faster respond to market changes, however, it requires the largest amount of time and development skills.
Useful Tool: Google Cloud Pricing Calculator
Did you recognize yourself in one of these use cases? If the answer is “Yes”, you should be pleased to know that there is a Google Cloud Pricing Calculator. It helps you calculate how much your infrastructure and workloads will cost in Google Cloud.
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