Cloud Migration:

Cloud Migration is a transformation from old traditional business operations to digital

business operations and the process refers to moving the digital business operations to
cloud. That means data; applications or other business elements are moved into a
cloud-computing environment. For example moving data and applications from a
local, on-premises data center to the cloud.
On-premises to cloud migration process:
Every business starting from small to large organizations follows slightly different
process for cloud migrations. Some of the common elements, which are considered
before cloud migration, are
• Evaluation of requirement and performance
• Selection of cloud provider
• Calculation of operational costs
The basic steps, which are followed as follows
• Establishing migration goals
• Creating a security strategy
• Replicating existing database
• Move business intelligence
• Then switch production from on-premises to cloud
Cloud Migration Strategy:
5 R’s represents the cloud migration strategy.
1. Rehost : It refers to take the application to the new hosted cloud environment by
selecting IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).
2. Refactor : It refers to reuse the application code and frameworks and running the
application on a PaaS (Platform as a Service).
3. Revise : It refers to expanding code base and then deploying it either by rehosting
or refactoring.
4. Rebuild : It refers to re-architecting the application from the beginning up on a
PaaS provider’s platform.
5. Replace : It refers to replacing the old application with a new built SaaS (software
as a Service).
Benefits of cloud migration:
1. Scalability: Scalable enough to support various workloads and users. So it offers
to expand without impacting performance.
2. Performance: Moving into cloud provides higher performance and customer
satisfaction as compared to traditional business processes.
3. Productivity: As it manages the complexity of infrastructure, so improved
productivity is more focused with a continuous process of growing business.
4. Flexibility: It allows to use the services flexibly as well as from any where and
any time cloud services can be accessed as per demand/need.
5. Cost: Moving into cloud technology offers reduced cost in managing, operating,
upgrading and maintaining IT operations or infrastructure.
6. Security: Security is a major concern which is taken care by cloud service
providers.
7. Profitability: As it follows pay per use model so it delivers a greater profitability
to the customers.
8. Agility: It is flexible enough to go with rapid changes in technology and it
provides producing newer and advanced setup quickly as per requirement.
9. Recovery: It provides backup and recovery solutions to businesses with less time
and upfront investment.
Cloud migration Challenges :
1. Moving a database is a difficult task as there are large amounts of data involved
and mostly transferred over internet.
2. After data is transferred into cloud database, another problem is to check the
transferred data is intact and secure as well as there is no data loss has been
occurred during this process.
3. During migration a problem arises as some of operations or data are already
moved into cloud and some are still available on-premises. So ensuring current
system is operational and ensuring on going cloud migration process is taking
place correctly needs a careful attention.
4. Interoperability becomes a problem as it is not easy to establish a perfect
communication in between existing applications and newer cloud environments.
5. Using cloud services, getting good with newer cloud procedures, managing
resources and cloud activities requires trained IT professionals who can work in
the cloud eco system.
Issues in Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is a new name for an old concept. The delivery of computing
services from a remote location. Cloud Computing is Internet-based computing,
where shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and
other devices on demand.
These are major issues in Cloud Computing:
1. Privacy: The user data can be accessed by the host company with or without
permission. The service provider may access the data that is on the cloud at any point
in time. They could accidentally or deliberately alter or even delete information.
2. Compliance: There are many regulations in places related to data and hosting. To
comply with regulations (Federal Information Security Management Act, Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, etc.) the user may have to adopt
deployment modes that are expensive.
3. Security: Cloud-based services involve third-party for storage and security. Can
one assume that a cloud-based company will protect and secure one’s data if one is
using their services at a very low or for free? They may share users’ information with
others. Security presents a real threat to the cloud.
4. Sustainability: This issue refers to minimizing the effect of cloud computing on
the environment. Citing the server’s effects on the environmental effects of cloud
computing, in areas where climate favors natural cooling and renewable electricity is
readily available, the countries with favorable conditions, such as Finland, Sweden,
and Switzerland are trying to attract cloud computing data centers. But other than
nature’s favors, would these countries have enough technical infrastructure to sustain
the high-end clouds?
5. Abuse: While providing cloud services, it should be ascertained that the client is
not purchasing the services of cloud computing for a nefarious purpose. In 2009, a
banking Trojan illegally used the popular Amazon service as a command and control
channel that issued software updates and malicious instructions to PCs that were
infected by the malware So the hosting companies and the servers should have proper
measures to address these issues.
6, Higher Cost: If you want to use cloud services uninterruptedly then you need to
have a powerful network with higher bandwidth than ordinary internet networks, and
also if your organization is broad and large so ordinary cloud service subscription
won’t suit your organization. Otherwise, you might face hassle in utilizing an ordinary
cloud service while working on complex projects and applications. This is a major
problem before small organizations that restricts them from diving into cloud
technology for their business.
7. Recovery of lost data in contingency: Before subscribing any cloud service
provider goes through all norms and documentations and check whether their services
match your requirements and sufficient well-maintained resource infrastructure with
proper upkeeping. Once you subscribed to the service you almost hand over your data
into the hands of a third party. If you are able to choose proper cloud service then in
the future you don’t need to worry about the recovery of lost data in any contingency.
8. Upkeeping(management) of Cloud: Maintaining a cloud is a herculin task
because a cloud architecture contains a large resources infrastructure and other
challenges and risks as well, user satisfaction, etc. As users usually pay for how much
they have consumed the resources. So, sometimes it becomes hard to decide how
much should be charged in case the user wants scalability and extend the services.
9. Lack of resources/skilled expertise: One of the major issues that companies and
enterprises are going through today is the lack of resources and skilled employees.
Every second organization seems interested or has already been moved to cloud
services. That’s why the workload in the cloud is increasing so the cloud service
hosting companies need continuous rapid advancement. Due to these factors,
organizations are having a tough time keeping up to date with the tools. As new tools
and technologies are emerging every day so more skilled/trained employees need to
grow. These challenges can only be minimized through additional training of IT and
development staff.
10. Pay-per-use service charges: Cloud computing services are on-demand services
a user can extend or compress the volume of the resource as per needs. so you paid for
how much you have consumed the resources. It is difficult to define a certain pre-
defined cost for a particular quantity of services. Such types of ups and downs and
price variations make the implementation of cloud computing very difficult and
intricate. It is not easy for a firm’s owner to study consistent demand and fluctuations
with the seasons and various events. So it is hard to build a budget for a service that
could consume several months of the budget in a few days of heavy use.
Building Return on Investment from Cloud Computing – Cloud Computing Key
Performance Indicators and Metrics
Cloud Computing introduces an expanded context for service-oriented business and
IT.
Developing ROI models that show how Cloud Computing adoption can benefit both
business and IT consumers and providers involves examining the key technology
features and business operating model changes.
This section gives an overview of ROI models to support Cloud Computing
assessments and business cases in two aspects:
Key Performance Indicator ratios that target Cloud Computing adoption, comparing
specific metrics of traditional IT with Cloud Computing solutions. These have
been classified as cost, time, quality, and profitability indicators relating to
Cloud Computing characteristics.
Key Return on Investment savings models that demonstrate cost, time, quality,
compliance, revenue, and profitability improvement by comparing traditional
IT with Cloud Computing solutions.
The overview of Cloud Computing ROI models considers both indicators and ROI
viewpoints.
Figure 12 shows an overview of Cloud Computing ROI models and KPIs.

Cloud Computing ROI Models and KPIs

Cloud ROI Cost Indicator Ratios
Figure 13 shows the cost indicator ratios, and outline explanations are given below.

Cloud Computing ROI Models – Cost Indicator Ratios

Availability versus Recovery SLA
• Indicator of availability performance compared to current service levels
Workload – Predictable Costs
• Indicator of CAPEX cost on-premise ownership versus Cloud
Workload – Variable Costs
• Indicator of OPEX cost for on-premise ownership versus Cloud; indicator of burst
cost
CAPEX versus OPEX Costs
• Indicator of on-premise physical asset TCO versus Cloud TCO
Workload versus Utilization %
• Indicator of cost-effective Cloud workload utilization
Workload Type Allocations
• Workload size versus memory/processor distribution; indicator of % IT asset
workloads using Cloud
Instance to Asset Ratio
• Indicator of % and cost of rationalization/consolidation of IT assets; degree of
complexity reduction
Ecosystem – Optionality
• Indicator of number of commodity assets, APIs, catalog items, self service

Cloud ROI Time Indicator Ratios

Figure 14 shows the time indicator ratios, and outline explanations are given below.

Cloud Computing ROI Models – Time Indicator Ratios

Timeliness
• The degree of service responsiveness
• An indicator of the type of service choice determination
Throughput
• The latency of transactions
• The volume per unit of time throughput
• An indicator of the workload efficiency
Periodicity
• The frequency of demand and supply activity
• The amplitude of the demand and supply activity
Temporal
• The event frequency to real-time action and outcome result
Cloud ROI Quality Indicator Ratios
Figure 15 shows the quality indicator ratios, and outline explanations are given below.
Cloud ROI Quality Indicator Ratios
Experiential
• The quality of perceived user experience
• The quality of User Interface (UI) design and interaction – ease-of-use
SLA Response Error Rate
• Frequency of defective responses
Intelligent Automation
• The level of automation response (agent)
Cloud ROI Profitability Indicator Ratios
Figure 16 shows the profitability indicator ratios, and outline explanations are given
below.

Cloud ROI Profitability Indicator Ratios

Revenue Efficiencies
• Ability to generate margin increase/budget efficiency per margin
• Rate of annuity revenue
Market Disruption Rate
• Rate of revenue growth
• Rate of new market acquisition
Cloud ROI Savings Models
Figure 17 shows the savings models, and outline explanations are given below.
Cloud Computing ROI Savings Models
Speed of Time Reduction
• Compression of time reduction by Cloud adoption
• Rate of change of TCO reduction by Cloud adoption
Optimizing Time to Deliver/Execution
• Increase in provisioning speed
• Speed of multi-sourcing
Speed of Cost Reduction
• Compression of cost reduction by Cloud adoption
• Rate of change of TCO reduction by Cloud adoption
Optimizing Cost of Capacity
• Aligning cost with usage, CAPEX to OPEX utilization pay-as-you-go savings from
Cloud adoption
• Elastic scaling cost improvements
Optimizing Ownership Use
• Portfolio TCO, license cost reduction from Cloud adoption
• Open Source adoption
• SOA re-use adoption
Green Costs of Cloud
• Green sustainability
Optimizing Time to Deliver/Execution
• Increase in provisioning speed
• Reduced supply chain costs
• Speed of multi-sourcing
• Flexibility/choice
Optimizing Margin
• Increase in revenue/profit margin from Cloud adoption