How do you decide what to move first in a cloud migration? Pat Wright outlines five practical guidelines to help you in this process. They cover risk, impact, testing, and business priorities.
“Someone has to go first”. Choosing which application is used as the ‘test subject’ (i.e, which ones is moved first), in a cloud migration, is an important and sometimes difficult decision to make. In this article, I’m sharing the guidelines I follow when I need to make this decision myself.
This will, of course, vary by company and its needs. I have run into situations where specific applications had to go first because they were critical and required cloud services or resources to function properly. Other times it’s been the newest application, simply because it’s the easiest to move. Regardless of the specific reason, make sure everything is discussed and agreed upon with key stakeholders beforehand.
The five key guidelines I follow when deciding what to move first in a cloud migration
- Write out a list of your applications and rate them by how easy to change they are (and how many resources you can use to change them). If you can easily change an application to work in the cloud, that suggests it can also adapt to changes in cloud infrastructure. Hence, it’s high on this list!
- Rate the list by “size” of application. If the application is down for X amount of time, how much will that impact your company? The impact it has is a good indicator of how low or high a priority it is when it comes to the cloud migration. I would suggest going with small applications first, since these are likely to have less of an impact.
- Determine the durability of your applications. Is the application always breaking? Is it always hitting alerts and causing problems? If so, it probably shouldn’t be moved first.
- Assess your company’s needs and objectives. Perhaps a customer requires cloud services, and you have to move for that reason? Perhaps application X will stop working if we don’t move it to the cloud? These are all determining factors in what should be migrated, when.
- How well can you test the application? If you have great test coverage for an application, that’s a good reason to put it high on the list. If you have low test coverage, you may run into issues, so an earlier migration wouldn’t be beneficial.
Ultimately, choosing the right application to move first is critical to a database migration. Make sure you review the list carefully, discuss with stakeholders, and come to an agreement as to what will work best in your company’s situation.
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FAQs: How to decide what to move first in a cloud migration
1. Why is choosing the first application to move important in cloud migration?
It sets the stage for a smooth transition and helps identify potential issues early.
2. Should critical applications move first?
No, not always. Smaller, easier-to-migrate apps often make better initial candidates.
3. How do I decide which app to move first?
Consider ease of change, size, durability, business needs, and test coverage.
4. Who should be involved in this decision?
Key stakeholders from IT, operations, and business teams should agree on priorities.
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