Today, enterprises around the world are in the spree of adopting a ‘cloud-first’ policy to leverage the benefits of cloud computing. They are going all-in with either Microsoft Azure or AWS cloud services. Azure and AWS both are global cloud services giants offering reliable, hyperscale, and secure hosting environments for business workloads in the cloud. But what if something doesn’t go well and a business wants to change its cloud service provider?
Let us through lights on some of the use cases where companies would require migrating applications and business data between the two clouds, whether it is a migration from Azure to AWS or vice versa.
Why Move from One Cloud to Another?
Reasons, why companies would look for switching their cloud service provider, include:
Changes in the terms and conditions
Initially, enterprises often choose their cloud service vendor based on a unique value proposition offered by the vendor. However, alterations in the terms and conditions of the vendor over time could make a company think of changing the vendor.
Application portability
Another example of moving possibility is the use of heterogeneous platforms by different cloud vendors which can adversely impact application portability. For instance, workloads that use AWS’ Amazon Machine Images or applications configured to make Amazon S3 API calls might restrict the enterprises from using other services outside of AWS. In such a case, a company might desire to migrate out.
Contract renewal
Businesses often re-evaluate hosting options during the time of contract renewals to explore differentiating services offered by competing vendors. If they are introduced to new features by other vendors, they might migrate out.
Data consolidation
In hybrid cloud architectures, an organization’s data could exist across private/public clouds or on-premises storehouses. Consolidating the data and seamlessly managing it is crucial for optimizing the data storage and operations expenses. In the case of mergers & acquisitions, businesses having multiple platforms would require to consolidate data, then they might look for migrating to another cloud.
Cost benefits
Services offered by one cloud service provider at premium prices could be availed at competitive prices from another provider. For instance, Azure Hybrid Benefit can provide up to 80% cost saving to companies with pre-existing investments in Microsoft licenses. On the other hand, Amazon provides Microsoft licensing on AWS, in which organizations can use their Microsoft licenses even without Software Assurance to cut cloud hosting expenses.
Common Challenges Faced by Companies in Cloud Migration:
- Deciding which workloads to move, and in what order.
- Maintaining the reliability and performance of critical business services while making the shift.
- Implementing proper levels of security controls and regulatory compliance.
- Choosing the right cloud provider from a performance, price and security perspective.
- Deciding which in-house IT infrastructure to replace, upgrade or eliminate as part of the migration.
- Combining the cloud migration with a move to more Agile development and deployment methodologies.
- Ensuring the migration doesn’t disrupt existing IT service management processes such as patches and enhancements, or the workloads of those managing such processes.
Addressing Cloud Transition Challenges with ACI
With robust capabilities in cloud automation and application modernization, backed by unparalleled industry and business innovation experience, ACI helps you navigate and transform your business on cloud platforms. Our Azure and AWS cloud migration services leverage top-notch data management technologies for cloud and hybrid deployments that can access your data seamlessly no matter where it is hosted, whether it is Azure or AWS or on-premises. Our focus is to move your data and workloads to the right platform with the slightest amount of operational hassles.
ACI Cloud Transformation Framework:
Vision and strategy: Ensure alignment with business and IT strategy
Assess and plan: Assess portfolio for cloud suitability and cloud migration viability
Design and build: Set up a secure cloud environment based on workload recruitments
Migrate and Validate: Transition of workloads to the cloud environment
Run and optimize: Manage the cloud-based systems, including services
ACI Differentiators
- Enterprise-ready cloud migration services
- Certified cloud solution architects
- Dedicated teams of certified cloud professionals
Azure and AWS are the cloud service providers of choice for enterprises across the globe. However, at some point, an organization may want to change its service provider and migrate from one cloud to another, following many reasons including the above mentioned. ACI helps businesses of diverse industries migrate data and workloads between cloud service providers in a faster, secure, easier and more effective way.
