Series 12 · 10 Parts· 1h 59m

Cloud Migration & The 7 Rs

What cloud migration really involves — the 7 Rs, lift-and-shift vs refactor, why migrations fail, and what it costs.

Start reading · Part 1

Contents

01 What Is Cloud Migration? 10 min read Cloud migration is the move of applications, data, and workloads from owned infrastructure to cloud platforms — and the decision of how much to change them on the way.
02 Cloud Migration Strategy and the 7 Rs 15 min read A cloud migration strategy assigns each workload one of seven moves — retire, retain, rehost, replatform, repurchase, refactor, rebuild — and sequences them by value and risk.
03 Lift-and-Shift vs Refactor 11 min read Lift-and-shift moves a workload to the cloud unchanged; refactoring re-architects it to fit. Here is how to decide which one a given workload actually needs.
04 Why Cloud Migrations Fail 12 min read Cloud migrations fail in recognizable patterns — the surprise bill, the big-bang cutover, the unvalidated data migration, the lost knowledge. Here is each one and how to design it out.
05 On-Prem to Cloud Migration 13 min read Moving systems off owned hardware in your own facility is the most common cloud migration — and one of the hardest. Here is what's genuinely difficult and how to sequence it safely.
06 Air-Gapped and On-Prem Modernization 10 min read Some systems can't go to public cloud — by regulation, classification, or a hard requirement to stay disconnected. Here is how to modernize the workloads that must stay in the building.
07 Multi-Cloud and Avoiding Vendor Lock-In 11 min read Cloud vendor lock-in trades a hardware dependency for a provider one that's harder to leave. Here is how much lock-in actually costs, when multi-cloud is worth it, and how to design for portability.
08 Cloud Migration Checklist 12 min read An end-to-end cloud migration checklist covering discovery, strategy, landing zone, data, slice-by-slice cutover, and decommission, turning the whole series into a sequence you can run.
09 Cloud Migration Cost 12 min read Cloud migration cost spans a one-time migration spend and an ongoing run cost that outlives it. Here is how to estimate both, the traps that inflate each, and how to build a number a CFO will trust.
10 Cloud Migration Services and Partners 13 min read Choosing a cloud migration partner comes down to method, not logos. Here are the questions that separate a partner who buys down your risk from one who just moves your boxes.