Cloud Migration Strategies: Lift-and-Shift vs Re-Architect

Moving apps to the cloud can save costs, boost resilience, and simplify updates. Two common paths appear often: lift-and-shift, which moves apps with little change, and re-architect, which redesigns parts to fit cloud services. The best choice depends on goals, time, and skills.

Lift-and-Shift

Lift-and-Shift (rehosting) moves software to the cloud with minimal changes. It is fast and introduces less risk, making it attractive when time is short or the on‑prem system is complex to model.

  • When to choose: tight deadlines, fragile timelines, legacy applications, or a need to minimize upfront work.
  • Pros: speed, lower upfront effort, familiar tooling.
  • Cons: you may miss cloud-native benefits and long-run cost savings.
  • Example: a web app runs on a VM in the cloud with the same code and database, then later is modernized step by step.

Re-Architect

Re-Architect (refactor or rebuild) means redesigning for cloud-native services. This path takes longer, requires more design work, but can unlock autoscaling, managed databases, and cheaper operation over time.

  • When to choose: you want better resilience, elastic scaling, and long-term cost control; you plan to modernize core features.
  • Pros: better fault tolerance, simpler maintenance, optimized resource use.
  • Cons: longer project, higher initial effort, more expertise needed.
  • Example: a monolith is split into microservices, hosted on a managed Kubernetes platform, with serverless components and a modern data layer.

How to decide

Ask a few practical questions:

  • Do you need speed over perfect cloud fit, or can you invest time to modernize?
  • Is the app a good candidate for cloud-native patterns (stateless services, autoscale)?
  • Are you ready to train or hire for DevOps, security, and platform governance?
  • What level of downtime can you tolerate during migration?

A practical plan

  • Start with a small pilot app to test a migration approach.
  • Map dependencies and data flows to identify risky parts.
  • Prioritize apps by business value and modernization potential.
  • Create a staged plan: lift-and-shift for urgent workloads, then re-architect where it pays off.
  • Run tests and a dry-run to minimize downtime.

Key Takeaways

  • Lift-and-Shift is fast and lower risk, good for quick wins.
  • Re-Architecting unlocks cloud-native advantages but needs time and skills.
  • A staged plan, starting with a pilot, helps balance speed and modernization.