If your business still relies on a clunky on-premise infrastructure, you need to move it to the cloud in order to sail ahead of your competitors.
Since cloud technologies have evolved a lot in recent years, it’s high time you consider shifting your services to the cloud. This could help you achieve better agility, scalability, and flexibility.
But what exactly does moving to the cloud mean?
Cloud migration is the process of shifting your business data and applications from traditional on-premise IT infrastructure to a cloud computing environment. It may also involve moving away from one cloud provider to another, for example, migrating business apps from Azure to AWS services.
However, moving workloads and applications to the cloud requires a well-thought-out strategy and few technical skills. That’s where cloud migration tools come in handy.
Below, we have listed some of the best cloud migration services that take away the uncertainty and pain of moving your business contents by offering effective, thorough solutions.
Table of Contents
10. Aspire Systems
Best for: small businesses to migrate and re-architect applications
Aspire Systems has developed a tool called Cloud Migration Enabler to initiate cloud adoption in the most efficient way while minimizing downtime and improving the economy of scale. It helps you reduce physical resource requirements and expenditures and increase productivity.
The company also conducts the cloud readiness evaluation to document a comprehensive state analysis and build a standard migration plan. This evaluation involves analyzing current infrastructure, workloads, server configuration, and security concerns.
Once everything is documented properly, they formulate a customized migration plan. Their experts handle every challenge in the migration process with immense effort, so you don’t have to worry about technical details.
Pros
- Re-design and re-architecture the application to make it suitable for the specific cloud environment
- Works best with Azure and AWS cloud infrastructure
- Testing and quality assurance
Cons
- Consulting services are expensive
9. Zerto
Best for: migrating workloads to any cloud type within a few clicks
Zerto makes it easier to migrate workloads to any storage platform and cloud type, including private, public, hybrid, and multi-cloud. It gives you complete control over how your content is protected, migrated, and stored.
Zerto features a bandwidth throttle tool that allows you to control the rate at which your content is migrated in the background. You can even pre-seed a new target site to make the migration process faster.
The platform keeps your content available within seconds, which means the content you are shifting stays only seconds behind the production. Once the migration is complete, you can test your applications and validate success. If you see any unexpected error, there is an option to restore the content to its original state.
Pros
- Zero risk of data loss
- Almost no downtime
- One-click rollback option
- Automated network reconfiguration after initial setup
Cons
- User Interface can be improved
- A little more pricey than other platforms
8. Navisite
Best for: getting trusted expertise throughout the entire cloud migration process
Navisite’s engineering team guides you through the entire cloud migration lifecycle — from planning and initial evaluation to production cutovers and ongoing support.
It provides three migration services:
- AWS Managed Service gives access to various resources to deploy, run and manage apps in the AWS cloud.
- Azure Managed Service allows you to manage and monitor your Azure cloud deployments
- Oracle Database Refactoring delivers a path away from Oracle while ensuring optimal performance.
The best thing about Navisite is they have highly certified experts who have migrated hundreds of on-premises workloads to various cloud environments. You can rest easy knowing your applications and data are in experienced hands.
Pros
- No business disruptions
- Flexible deployment options
- Pay only for the capacity and services you need
- They have a knowledgeable staff
Cons
- Their ticketing system is quite slow
7. Cuelogic Cloud Migration
Best for: Migrating data with zero security lapses and no loss of data integrity
With Cuelogic Cloud Solutions, you can migrate with confidence. Whether you are shifting applications to the cloud, switching between providers, or looking for a hybrid approach, Cuelogic can help you build and execute the plan efficiently.
It offers customized tools and services for migrating apps, data, and entire infrastructure. You can move workloads with zero security lapses and no loss of data integrity. Everything can be monitored from a single dashboard.
Once you move to the cloud, Cuelogic developers automate most of the infrastructure management and set up automated monitoring tools while tracking crucial metrics. This helps you focus on development initiatives and release more features faster.
Pros
- No business disruptions
- Integrate DevOps within your cloud migration journey
- Personalized training and adoption plans
- Up to 30% cost-savings
Cons
- Limited experience (haven’t serve many big clients)
6. NetApp Cloud Sync
Best for: Quickly converting and copying your file-based datasets to the Cloud
NetApp provides a simple cloud replication and synchronization tool for transferring workloads between on-premises and cloud object stores. It moves your files between any platform and object storage in a secure way.
The data broker manages the sync relationships between sources and targets. Once you configure the sync relationship, the tool will automatically evaluate your source system and split it into several replication streams to push to your selected target location. It will sync any altered data based on the schedule you set.
NetApp also offers Big Data Analytics that helps you make informed, data-driven business decisions.
Pros
- Intuitive web-based GUI
- Continuous sync of massive workloads
- Detailed audit and reports
- Cost-efficient
Cons
- Customer support is slow
5. VMware Cloud Solutions
Best for: Quickly moving workloads to Azure and AWS
Typically, the migration process consists of three stages: plan, build and migrate. At each stage, the VMware Cloud Migration provides you with the tools and instructions required to complete your migration.
It offers three major products:
- VMware Cloud Foundation provides integrated cloud infrastructure and cloud management services to run apps in both public and private environments.
- VMware HCX streamlines app migration and workload rebalancing across data centers and clouds.
- VMware Cloud on AWS accelerates your cloud migration with consistent vSphere-based infrastructure delivered on Amazon AWS.
As a customer, you can choose from many different providers, such as Azure VMware Solution, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, Google Cloud VMware Engine, and more.
Once you have shifted virtual machines from on-premise data centers to the cloud, you can test the result with application users.
Pros
- Consistent and reliable in its working
- Several options to migrate, run, and test applications
- Eliminates the burden of infrastructure management
- Promotes the utilization of native AWS services
Cons
- Limited VMware administrative control
4. Cognizant Cloud Migration
Best for: Migrating enterprise applications effortlessly and seamlessly
Cognizant Cloud Migrate provides a comprehensive set of resources that helps businesses implement their cloud strategy with a structured, risk-mitigated approach for full-stack migration.
These resources include automation and security tools that ensure seamless migration of data and applications to any cloud-based environment. The AI-powered tool named AppLens, for example, facilitates a zero-maintenance migration approach.
Infrastructure-as-Code Generator makes it easy to create code for cloud resources such as storage, database, virtual private clouds, containerization services, and more.
Cognizant’s self-service platform is built on a serverless architecture. It supports a number of content migration tasks, enabling you to containerize and migrate applications to the cloud without modifying them.
Pros
- Intuitive user interface
- Responsive customer service team
- Utilizes full-stack discovery and assessment methodology
- Provides a unified pricing model
Cons
- Doesn’t disclose detailed information unless it is specifically requested by users
3. Accenture Cloud First
Best for: Restructuring architectures, applications, and data for cloud
Accenture Cloud First helps you navigate the complexities of the cloud migration process. Their advanced cloud migration framework comes with pre-configured industry-specific tools, techniques, and automation across all cloud models and various delivery methods (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS).
myNav, for example, analyzes multiple variables, such as operational model and business outcomes, to recommend an optimal solution for your needs. myWizard automates recurring tasks, compresses timelines, and provides a single point of control.
Accenture can also provide a dedicated team to help you select the right cloud strategy, operating model, and roadmap. They execute a seamless migration to Cloud in a secure and cost-efficient manner.
Pros
- Thoroughly scans your infrastructure and determines the best fit
- Discover dependencies to prioritize applications
- Great customer support
Cons
- More dynamic frameworks needed
2. PlateSpin Migrate
Best for: Quickly moving workloads to Azure and AWS
Micro Focus PlateSpin Migrate allows you to move heterogeneous workloads across x86-based virtual, physical, and cloud infrastructures in your data center. It detaches the workload infrastructure from its software (OS, apps, and data), enabling any-to-any migrations.
With PlateSpin, you can easily configure, run, and test workloads, even before the actual cutover. There are options to increase the migration speeds and success probabilities, which could help you minimize the overall cost of your migration projects.
Overall, this platform has been proven very effective in migrating large numbers of servers across infrastructure boundaries. It supports more than 55,000 hardware drivers and automatically recognizes the need for testing in every server migration job.
Pros
- Integrated testing for safer migrations
- Block-level replication
- Anywhere-to-Anywhere migration for all servers
- Enables up to 40 simultaneous server migrations
Cons
- Relatively expensive
1. Carbonite Migrate
Best for: Real-time replication from any system to any system
With Carbonite, you can easily migrate physical and virtual workloads to many popular cloud environments with minimal risk and near-zero downtime. It provides plenty of options at every stage of the migration progress. For example, there are settings to
- Replicate data at regular intervals
- Perform unlimited tests in the new cloud server without disrupting operations
- Reduce downtimes to seconds as you cut over the new server
- Ensure every file and configuration is replicated correctly
Throughout the process, the tool continuously replicates changes from the sources, preserving an exact copy of content and configurations on the target server.
Carbonite supports almost all popular cloud platforms, including AWS, VMware, Azure, and Google Cloud. It also offers native integrations for Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware ESXi and vSphere.
Pros
- Near zero downtime
- Works with almost all cloud platforms
- Comprehensive SDK for integration, automation
- AES 256-bit encryption
Cons
- Difficult to use in a multi-cloud environment
Services Offered By Major Cloud Providers
11. Google Cloud Migrate
Google Cloud Migrate allows you to migrate and run your applications on Google Cloud without rewriting them, changing images, or modifying management processes. It utilizes streaming technology to minimize migration time.
The service provides helpful recommendations so you can select appropriate instances types. It has built-in testing and rollback options.
12. Azure Migrate
Microsoft Azure offers numerous resources and tools that can help ease, and in many cases fully automate, shifting workloads to the Azure cloud.
It includes Azure Migrate Service for automatically migrating virtual machines, Azure Data Migration Assistant for automating data transfers, and Azure Data Box for shipping data in bulk to an Azure datacenter. It also has a central dashboard that tracks your progress and provides valuable insights.
13. AWS Migration
AWS migration service makes it easy to move your websites, applications, database, storage, physical server, and virtual server from on-premises environment or other public cloud to Amazon Cloud.
The company offers AWS Prescriptive Guidance, AWS Migration Acceleration Program (for large businesses), and various Migration Tools & Services to simplify and accelerate every single step of the migration process.
Read: 8 Different Types Of Cloud Computing
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main stages of cloud migration?
Migration strategy involves five main stages:
- Re-host: Also known as “lift and shift,” rehosting involves moving your existing physical or virtual servers to the cloud without doing any major alterations.
- Re-platform: involves shifting applications to the cloud with few optimizations such as moving on-premises infrastructure to managed services.
- Re-purchase: is a faster way of accessing cloud with slight changes in the existing licensing model.
- Re-factor: involves modifying apps in order to leverage PaaS and SaaS-based technology, which makes the migration process cost-efficient.
- Retire: involves removing or clustering unused applications with other dependent applications to save high costs.
What are the benefits of migrating to the cloud?
The major benefit of moving to the cloud is it gives you access to virtually limitless computer resources at reasonable costs. The other benefits are:
- Pay only for the resources you use
- Quickly develop, test, and launch business applications
- Most cloud providers offer data backup and disaster recovery tools
- You don’t have to worry about the maintenance of equipment
Read: 5 Different Types Of Data Center [With Examples]
What are the most common cloud migration challenges?
Sometimes applications do not work as well as originally expected. In most cases, that happens due to poor latency, interoperability, dependencies on non-cloud apps, or concerns about security.
Also, migrating to the cloud can be a costly endeavor, especially if you fail to accurately analyze the potential financial impact beforehand. The price should factor in the cost of moving to the cloud, using the cloud platforms, and long-term monetary risks that result from slow adoption.
Such budget surprises can be avoided by working with your cloud vendor to carefully examine business objectives and requirements, the current state of your IT operations, and available cloud options.
