Cloud migration is the process of moving your company’s digital assets, such as databases, IT resources, applications and services, from an on-premise location into the cloud. The migration can be a hybrid cloud infrastructure where some of your IT and applications are on-premise and some in the cloud or a complete cloud infrastructure where all IT infrastructure and applications are hosted in the cloud.
Moving something into the cloud means moving from hosting these assets on your local systems and servers and hosting them on the IT infrastructure of cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Cloud data migration tools are software, hardware or a complete service that helps to effectively move data, applications and other IT resources to the cloud.
The best cloud migration tools help to simplify the process so that it can be done quickly and efficiently with minimal mistakes and issues. For businesses with ongoing operations, using a cloud migration tool can help save thousands of dollars by accelerating the process of migrating and decreasing the probability of issues that could cause operational downtime.
How to choose the right cloud migration tools?
Choosing the right tool involves checking a few key features:
- Ensure that it can support your cloud migration from beginning to end so you won’t have to waste time and money changing solutions mid-migration.
- It needs to be compatible with your cloud host destination, e.g. AWS.
- It should be a cloud migration assessment tool. This is a tool that will give you a pre-migration assessment. This will help you determine the best tools and methodologies to execute the migration properly.
- It should be a cloud application migration tool. This lets you quickly move applications or data into the cloud with minimal effort. This will be important for a smooth migration of your business applications.
- You want a solution that is a cloud migration automation tool.
In addition to automating the migration itself, you want to measure the performance of your new cloud-based solution and compare it against pre-migration KPIs and industry standards.
What do cloud migration tools do?
Cloud migration tools make migrating to a new cloud provider more manageable by automating many of the steps involved in the process. Within the category of tools, there are subcategories, and each one has a different purpose:
- Cloud migration discovery tools: Cloud discovery is the process of identifying and documenting your infrastructure, its related components and the relationships between them in your current environment. Discovery should be completed before starting the migration process to ensure that your entire infrastructure can be replicated in the cloud.
- Cloud application migration tool: Help transfer data and apps to the cloud. They also provide data backup and encryption services for data security and to prevent data loss.
- Cloud migration automation tools: These tools automate certain aspects of the migration process, so manual effort is not required.
- Microsoft Office migration tools: Are designed to migrate data to or from Microsoft 365.
Core features
Cloud migration tools should provide multiple features needed to migrate to the cloud. Here are some of the core features you should look for:
Pre-Migration Assessment: Allows the cloud migration tool to inventory your environment’s current IT assets and configurations. Understanding this enables IT staff to plan out what needs to be migrated and how it needs to be implemented in the cloud. This will be important for identifying your migration plan’s total scope and assets that may not be required in the new environment.
Application/Data Migration: The best cloud migration tools can make application and data migration to cloud providers easy and quick. The tool should modernize your application’s architecture and allow you to monitor the migration process throughout. You should be able to see compatibility errors, user experience issues, and other issues and fix them before they can affect post-migration performance.
Support your chosen cloud hosting environment: The tool you select must support migrations to your chosen cloud provider’s environment (AWS, Asure, Google etc.) Ideally, you should select a cloud migration tool designed specifically for that hosting environment because it will have better integration and support.
Support Performance Analytics: You want a solution that can provide metrics on how your infrastructure is performing post-migration. It should include a dashboard to view real-time performance statistics and generate performance reports for stakeholders.
Why you need a cloud migration tool
A cloud migration tool is a huge asset if you are considering migrating your IT infrastructure to the cloud. Here are a few benefits of using a cloud migration tool:
Reduce migration time: The best cloud migration tools can save you time by automating many steps. Cloud migration products are specifically designed to take data, services, applications etc. and move them to the cloud with minimal human intervention.
Lower migration costs: Tools for cloud migration are cost-effective. According to a study from Forrester, labour costs make up more than 50% of the total cost of a migration. By paying for a solution that can automate some of the tasks, you can reduce the overall need for staff and thus reduce your costs significantly.
Effective data conversion: Modern tools help companies to convert data from multiple sources, including legacy systems, into one convenient centralized data repository. This allows the company to perform better data analysis. Studies show that automation is helping companies reduce their data conversion efforts by as much as 70% to support better data analytics.
Why buy a tool when you can hire experts?
Thinking about migrating your IT infrastructure to the cloud? Before you invest in tools and take on the project yourself, why not discuss your requirements with CG Technologies?
With over 25 years of experience, CG Technologies is a trusted provider of cloud migration consulting services, delivering exceptional IT-managed services to 100’s of companies in the Toronto and Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Our experienced and qualified staff have successfully helped companies like yours migrate to the cloud from a wide range of IT environments and technologies. Contact us to discuss your cloud migration requirements.
