Gartner recently highlighted the current trends impacting the future of the cloud, data centers, and edge infrastructure. According to Gartner, 35% of all existing data center infrastructure will be managed on the cloud by 2027. 

As part of their digital transformation process, more enterprises are modernizing and migrating their legacy applications to the cloud. According to IDC, 65% of organizations in 2023 are investing in legacy modernization through cloud solutions. At the same time, over 80% of organizations believe that choosing the right cloud solution partner is crucial for a successful cloud migration.

How can organizations plan and execute a successful cloud migration and modernization process on Google Cloud? Read on for more.

How to plan cloud migration and modernization

For a successful cloud transition, organizations need a complete and efficient cloud migration strategy that starts from:

• Identifying the current IT environment – be it on-premises or on private cloud.
• Classifying applications (or workloads) as legacy or cloud-native applications.

Based on the state of the existing infrastructure, organizations can consider any of the following 3 migration strategies:

1. Lift and Shift Approach (or Rehosting):
   In this approach, organizations have to simply migrate their applications to the cloud with minimal changes. However, on the flip side, this approach does not leverage Google Cloud capabilities like autoscaling and managed services.

2. Modernize and Migrate Approach (or Re-platforming):
   In this approach, organizations can leverage Google Cloud’s refactoring and cloud-native capabilities. Though it takes more time than lift-and-shift, this approach can improve workload performance and the user’s cloud experience.

3. Rip and Replace Approach (or Refactoring):
   This approach entails rewriting or replacing the existing applications as cloud-native applications. With this approach, organizations can fully leverage the capabilities of Google Cloud such as microservices.

Here is how we assess your existing infrastructure for cloud readiness:

1. Rapid Infrastructure Assessment – This provides an overall analysis of your existing on-premises infrastructure, along with areas for improvement.
2. Comprehensive Infrastructure Assessment – This is a more in-depth analysis of your infrastructure that enables us to develop a complete cloud migration plan.
3. Rapid App Migration – This step provides a secure landing zone on Google Cloud, along with the migration of 1 MVP application (with 5 virtual machines) to the landing zone.
4. Migrate at Scale – This is a more comprehensive cloud migration step comprising creating one landing zone and moving hundreds of virtual machines to Google Cloud.
5. IT Cost Assessment – This provides a comprehensive cost analysis of your existing infrastructure and the estimated cost savings by migrating to Google Cloud.
6. Dashboard for GCP Spend Visualization – This post-migration step provides real-time insights into your company’s cloud spending patterns.
7. Rapid Containerization Assessment – This is the final step aimed at assessing your current environment and how quickly you can modernize applications for the cloud.

To learn how to streamline your migration and modernization process, download our latest eBook on “How to Get the Most from Your Cloud Migration Process” by filling out the online form.

Reference links: 

• https://www.ltimindtree.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Top-3-Application-migration-to-cloud-trends-Article.pdf
• https://hexaware.com/blogs/on-premises-to-google-cloud-migration-steps-and-best-practices-for-embracing-the-cloud/