Cloud Migration Strategies and Trade-offs Cloud migration means moving apps and data to the cloud. The goal is faster innovation, better resilience, and lower costs, but every path has trade-offs. The right choice depends on the workload, risk tolerance, and speed you need.
There are several common approaches:
Lift-and-shift (rehost): move the app to the cloud with minimal changes. It is fast and predictable, but it can keep inefficiencies and higher ongoing costs. Replatform: migrate to managed services while keeping the core design. This reduces maintenance and improves reliability with moderate changes. Refactor (re-architect): redesign the app to use cloud-native features like microservices, serverless, or event-driven patterns. It often yields the best long-term efficiency, but takes more time and planning. Repurchase (move to SaaS): replace parts of the app with commercial software. This lowers in-house maintenance and speeds delivery, but adds vendor dependency and data migration work. Hybrid and multi-cloud: spread workloads across private data centers and multiple cloud providers. This can improve resilience and compliance, but increases orchestration and security complexity. Trade-offs to consider:
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