Cloud Migration Strategies for Enterprises Cloud migration is a strategic program, not a single event. Enterprises move data, apps, and teams to a new operating model. The goal is not only technology, but speed, resilience, and cost predictability. Teams often start with a simple lift-and-shift to move legacy workloads, then layer in replatforming or refactoring to gain cloud-native benefits.
Core strategies include:
Lift and shift (rehost): move workloads with minimal changes to speed up migration. Replatforming: adjust components to use cloud services, gaining some benefits with modest effort. Refactoring: rebuild critical applications for cloud-native patterns, improving scalability but taking more time. Hybrid and multi-cloud: balance control and flexibility, keeping sensitive data on private systems while using public clouds for burst capacity. FinOps and governance: set cost controls, monitoring, and policy enforcement across clouds. Plan in phases to control risk and learn quickly. Start with a clear inventory of apps, data, and interdependencies. Classify by business value and risk. Build a migration backlog with target states. Design a target architecture that covers security, identity, data residency, and observability. Choose a pilot project that can demonstrate value within weeks.
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