The wide adoption of cloud computing across different industry sectors has primarily been due to the many business benefits and convenience that cloud solutions offer. However, the main issue that many companies face is about moving their data and applications from the traditional, on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. The process is known as cloud migration, and it requires a proper strategy to ensure a smooth transfer.

If your in-house IT team does not have the technical know-how to handle the process, you may need to hire the services of a third-party company that specializes in handling cloud migration. While there are several migration strategies, the most commonly used one is the lift and shift migration strategy.

Understanding lift and shift cloud migration

To explain in simple terms, lift and shift cloud migration is about taking or lifting data and applications from the place where you have hosted them—usually, the infrastructure on your company’s premises—and moving or migrating them directly to the selected cloud solution. What you are doing is rehosting everything on the cloud. The process involves moving everything as it is from one location to another. Since you do not have to make any changes, the migration is time-saving and cost-effective.

Is lift and shift cloud migration the right option for you?

The lift and shift cloud migration might be the right option for you if you seek a strategy that is not too complicated and will not use up a lot of resources. With the lift and shift strategy, you can get the following benefits:

It can save a lot of time

Since you do not have to make changes in your data and applications to move them to the cloud, the process can be fast and time-saving. There will be no downtime issues with your applications. The end-users of the applications will not lose their access to them during the move, so your business will not face any loss in productivity.

It can save business expenses

It is not necessary to allocate in-house resources to affect data or application changes for the cloud migration. You also do not have to set up virtual machines for the migration process. Additionally, you can move the data and applications together without increasing the workload by too much back and forth. If you hire a third party to handle the migration, that may be the only additional cost you have to bear for the migration process.

It does not require extensive planning

Lift and shift migration to a cloud-only involves moving your business data and applications from the infrastructure on your premises to the cloud. That does not require you to undertake data backups and extensive planning. It may also not be necessary to inform your employees and customers before the migration as the likelihood of any downtime occurring in the applications is non-existent.

It does not pose any risk to the applications

As there are no changes to the configurations of the applications during the migration, they will have no cause to malfunction. Your end-users can continue to use the applications without experiencing any usage issues. There will be no question of facing downtime.

It offers security and compliance

You also do not have to be concerned about security and compliance issues with the migration since the cloud service provider will handle those matters for you. They will also monitor the cloud frequently and install security updates as they become available. Your data and applications will remain safe in the cloud.

So, should you opt for lift and shift migration?

It might be a good idea if you are looking for a strategy that offers convenience and ease of transfer. However, it is essential to know that while there will be no data or application issues during the transfer, you might face a few performance issues in the cloud environment. It usually happens when you have applications that you have not built to work in the cloud. So, they are not likely to work as well, and you may have to make some changes. You may face the same issues with custom-built business applications and may need to continue hosting them on the infrastructure on the premise.