Moving to the cloud doesn’t have to be high risk to capitalize on the high rewards. AWS, and managed service providers (MSPs) like CloudHesive, are consistently evolving and improving the migration process for small and medium-sized enterprises. Here’s how it works.
AWS is an industry-leading cloud IT solution, with a massive library of business solutions. These capabilities represent a significant source of competitive advantage in every industry. The challenge comes in the switching costs. AWS partners like Cloudhesive have the experience to minimize the cost of transition, while translating clients’ business needs into technical capabilities in the cloud.
The importance of migrating to the cloud is like pouring a solid foundation for your house. It’s invisible to the outside observer, yet integral to the stability of everything that follows. Building the right framework will act as a stabilizing force for all future business operations.
What is AWS migration, anyway?
Migration is simple in theory, referring to the movement of a workload from an internal IT platform onto a cloud-based platform (like AWS). There are quite a few different types of migration, but executives will most commonly be discussing the following three:
- Rehosting: In the industry, this is often referred to as lift and shift. AWS is extremely versatile, and many organizations can simply move the entire source environment (machines, applications, and databases) from premises to the cloud. This is one of the simpler approaches.
- Re-platforming: The next level of complexity is called re-platforming or lift and reshape. This means optimizing applications to cut costs and boost scalability by making careful changes to architecture along the way.
- Refactoring: This is the most comprehensive approach, which rebuilds the application architecture entirely to take the greatest advantage of cloud-native features. This is best for businesses looking to scale rapidly and accelerate product growth while cutting costs.
All strategic decisions carry risks and benefits, which map neatly to the three types of migration discussed above. Rehosting has the lowest risks and returns, simply moving existing infrastructure into the cloud. This means lower costs and improved scalability, with limited extra functionality.
Re-platforming and refactoring offer broader advantages, but also upfront challenges during migration. The primary challenge will be understanding how to reshape existing IT operations to align effectively with the cloud-based solution. This is why an MSP with a solid background in migration methodology is such a powerful tool.
CloudHesive AWS migration methodology
CloudHesive approach to migration can be summarized in three simple steps: assess, mobilize, and migrate. Let’s take a quick look at each one:
1. Assess: Assessing cloud readiness is the very first step in the process. The key question here is how easily each element of the IT infrastructure can be shifted from onsite premises to an AWS framework. This helps prepare expectations and ensure the absolute minimal impact on operational continuity.
2. Mobilize: The next step is breaking down the upcoming migration into logical and manageable steps. This is the central step to the process, where a detailed business case is constructed, governing migration, addressing security, ensuring compliance, and onboarding the broader team for cloud-readiness.
3. Migrate: With all this agile planning completed, it’s time to make the move. This final step means ensuring every application has moved successfully, testing functionality, ensuring security, and bringing the team’s daily workflow into AWS.
As a final bonus step in the process, CloudHesive can also help modernize and manage the evolution of AWS services. This can include identifying unique integrations with all AWS capabilities and finding ways to work these efficiencies into the existing workflow to fully modernize operations.
Benefits of CloudHesive AWS migration services
For most companies, moving to the cloud only happens once. When done correctly, cloud migration is a once-in-a-lifetime necessity, which is the great challenge for most companies. After all, it’s hard to have experience in something you only do one time!
Enter CloudHesive as an MSP. CloudHesive specializes in this single competency, helping countless businesses worldwide achieve scalability and efficiency by moving to AWS. This experience allows for accurate assessments and planning, utilizing expert AWS architects and engineers.
As CloudHesive cloud specialists represent a global team, clients also receive 24/7 support and monitoring. You get secure, compliant, and risk-averse migration using the best AWS migration tools in the industry.
CloudHesive AWS migration tools
Migrating to the cloud is all about finding the right tools for the job, based on the specific needs of the company making the move. CloudHesive is always expanding this suite of tools to ensure seamless and efficient migration. Here are some of the most popular tools in CloudHesive toolbox:
- Amazon Connect for companies in need of a cloud contact center
- Amazon CloudFront for web design and e-commerce platforms
- Orchestrator to streamline complex tasks with automation
- Media Box for streaming services
- Amazon WorkSpaces for cloud-based desktop access for employees and contractors
- Appstream 2.0 for virtually delivering applications to any device
- Encryption as a Service for maximum data security
- Microsoft AWS for migrating all Microsoft-based solutions into the cloud
- AWS Migration Hub for tracking the status of all current AWS migrations
CloudHesive can offer tools and services in each domain, assessing and mobilizing internal resources to provide a customized solution. Every client has a different set of needs and priorities, and CloudHesive broad range of AWS-oriented tools provides the scope necessary for any AWS project.
CloudHesive managed services model
Many MSPs prioritize infrastructure over every other phase of the AWS migration process, which comes at a cost for their clients. This puts companies at risk of floundering during their first few weeks (or months) of cloud-based operations, suffering potential downtime for both employees and customers.
CloudHesive addresses this problem through the CloudHesive Managed Services model, which incorporates every step of the process. This means infrastructure, operating systems, applications, DevOps, security, and governance are all addressed individually to ensure maximum uptime.
It isn’t enough to simply ‘move to the cloud.’ Organizations must train employees, customize applications, secure data, and ensure compliance within a governance framework.
How to choose the right AWS migration service provider
Selecting the proper provider is all about asking the right questions. Does this MSP understand my industry? Do they provide services throughout the entire migration process? How about support after AWS migration is complete? Here are a few key points of comparison when making the final call:
- Case studies: Does the MSP have experience in your industry? Banking, for example, incurs an incredible amount of privacy and security risks. Education technology has significant demands for high-volume streaming. Every industry is unique, and the best teacher is experience. Focus on MSPs with compelling success stories in your industry.
- Business case analysis: A great starting point in assessing an AWS MSP is how effectively they can capture your organizational needs in a business case analysis. Requesting a feasibility study is a great starting point for this assessment.
- Application mobility: AWS offers a wide range of solutions. Selecting a provider with experience in the specific solutions relevant to your business, with demonstrable proof of success, is a great way to narrow down the MSP shortlist.
- Monitoring and support: Finally, selecting an MSP that will stick around long enough to resolve any issues that might crop up after migration is a great way to offset risk. Consider long-term application monitoring and support as a warranty on the services provided.
Selecting an MSP is arguably the most important step in the AWS cloud migration journey. While priorities will differ based on industry and necessary functionality, the general rule of thumb is to focus on MSPs that provide accurate pre-migration assessments, efficient mobilization, and consistent support after the process is completed.
CloudHesive prides itself on being a full-service provider, delivering insightful assessments and continued support before and after migrating to the cloud. IT is a big part of any business process, and it’s critical that an MSP be available to provide 24/7 support during every stage of the migration.
Moving to AWS doesn’t have to be complicated. Keep it simple with CloudHesive by contacting us today.
