How can you determine if your system architecture is ready for cloud migration?

To assess if a system architecture is ready for cloud migration, one should check application and data compatibility with cloud environments, ensure scalability, review security and compliance with cloud standards, evaluate performance and cost-efficiency, confirm robust backup and recovery plans are in place, and make sure the team has the requisite cloud management skills. If these elements are satisfactorily addressed, the architecture is likely prepared for cloud migration.

Identifying pain points before decoding on the migration strategy; defining goals and objective would be next steps. System availability, performance degradation and decreased ability to meet business functionalities are some factors to be looked upon for defining the migration strategy. Also, ensuring alignment of cloud migration with strategic preferences and vision for the organisational growth.

Acredito que o que move uma empresa a migrar para a cloud tem muito a ver com o crescimento do custo operacional, aliado a necessidade de experimentação e competitividade mais agressivos de mercado, além de uma visão estratégica de expansão. Ficar em um ambiente on-primisse é interessante se o ambiente atual consegue suportar a sua demanda de disponibilidade, performance e segurança, se normal regulatórias exigirem que sua infraestrutura esteja em um local físico, se os custos de migração não gerarem significativo ganho financeiro ou se não atendem ao modelo estratégico (expansão, aumento na velocidade de crescimento).

In my experience you have to know the states you build up in your legacy application that is not continously committed to the data layer. In monolithic applications you tend to cache, build up complex state in memory because you can and maybe have to to be able to perform. In cloud applications you want to be able to scale horizontally these states need to be shared by all instances. Locate these cases and find mitigation for the either by using persistent storage or external caching of some sort.

We can leverage multiple tools to evaluate our current state: For example, Azure has "Azure Migrate" to assess our cloud readiness by analysing our infra dependencies and performance matrices. similarly we have "CloudEndure Migration" in AWS to facilitate current state analysis. Tools like AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or New Relic to discover and map dependencies between applications, services, and infrastructure components. There are other tools such as "AWS config" which can be used to do the compliance assessment. Similarly we can do network analysis , application performance analysis to do the cost assessment.

Assessing your architecture's readiness for cloud migration involves examining its complexity, modularity, adaptability, and reliance on specific technologies. Understanding the extent of your technical debt and legacy code is crucial. This analysis will highlight the necessary adjustments for a successful cloud transition, ensuring your architecture aligns with cloud capabilities and optimizes performance in the new environment.

For a clear migration strategy, some of the steps to be followed - 1. Compare current and targeted architecture states 2. Based on above, decide on migration approaches - lift and shift, rebuild, etc. 3. Also decide on the infrastructure migration - rehost and retain etc. 4. Evaluate the value proposition based on cost and efforts. 5. With the FRs and NFRs, some tradee-offs could be analysed and a concise decision can be made.

Um ponto importante a se considerar aqui não é apenas escolher um dos "R's" para a migração, e sim entender melhor esse sistema a sistema. Muitas vezes, vale uma composição nova pensando em evoluções tecnológicas. Não é preciso apenas seguir a hype de migrar tudo mudando a arquitetura de tudo, ou reconstruir do zero. Já vivenciei diversos cenários em clientes de todos os tamanhos onde a consequência dessas escolhas vira complicadores futuros, como lock-ins desnecessários, custos elevados de migração e ongoing, ou até projetos sem fim, onde se cria uma obsolescência na arquitetura que "paga a conta" enquanto a arquitetura futura nunca chega.

Implementation and testing the migration strategy have broadly three phases - 1. Pre migration phase 2. Formal migration implementation phase 3. Post migration phase Each phase, requires different steps using automation, monitoring, tracking etc. Test the systems in each phase is equally important. These phases requires continuous iterations to improve the results.

As per my understanding a system architecture is ready for cloud if it addresses following criteria’s: 1. None of the system architecture is fail proof so it should have the flexibility to plug and play things using cloud technologies. 2. Your system should be able to handle uncertain volume of traffic means scale fast and should also be aware of the expected volume so that you can rate limit things. 3. Each and every component of your system should have a proper health check defined because the moment you go inside cloud visibility of the system health is utmost important. 4. Your whole system should be config driven.

In my experience, you have to ensure alignment with cloud best practices and principles. Evaluate scalability and compatibility with cloud-native services. Conduct a thorough security audit and optimize for efficiency. Assess team skills and consider Dockerizing your application for cloud agnosticism. This ensures flexibility, allowing seamless migration across cloud platforms while maintaining consistency in deployment processes. Comprehensive preparation in infrastructure, security, compatibility, and Dockerization contributes to a successful cloud migration strategy.