There are a multitude of reasons organisations undertake workload migration projects. These may include data centre consolidation, cloud adoption, workplace modernisation, and corporate mergers and acquisitions. Whatever the trigger, migrating critical workloads is a challenging proposition, one that involves considering people, process and technology to ensure workload migration success.
In essence workload migration in an IT context involves the relocation of applications or data from one environment to another. This could include anything from moving hardware platforms to the adoption of hybrid cloud, to moving from one public cloud to another, and even the modernising of container platforms.
Whatever the category of workload migration you’re planning, migrating critical workloads involves several steps that will require thorough planning spanning multiple different functions. These include IT operations, security, business operational continuity, and more.
For most organisations however, the million-dollar question is “How do I move applications and data without impacting customers and users while mitigating organisational legal and brand risk?”
This is no easy task when a workload migration project involves multiple component level migration workstreams for each infrastructure or component that constitutes the workload.
The good news is that with the right plan, a tried and tested migration methodology, and the right migration tools, transitioning workloads can be a painless process.
Workload Migration is the act of migrating a workload, typically a programme or service, from one environment to another. For example, from an on-premises datacentre to the public cloud, from one cloud provider to another, or as is becoming more popular, from the cloud back to on-premises infrastructure.
In other words, it’s the strategic transfer of digital operations encompassing applications, data and system processes, from one environment to another. Ideally with minimal disruption to business functions.
As organisations advance their digital transformation plans, they frequently need to redeploy workloads to new environments to cope with evolving customer and internal demands. That means taking strategic decisions about where best to accommodate workloads and ensuring seamless mobility for apps and data between different clouds and on-premises setups. Bottom line, workload migration and portability will both prove essential, especially if you want to fully embrace the benefits of the cloud.
It goes without saying that when it comes to the undertaking of any workload migration, organisations find they need to navigate multiple layers of complexity. That’s because transitioning workloads isn’t just about physically moving an application or service. Ensuring that workloads are properly integrated and function properly in their new setting is also a ‘must have’. What’s more, any data housed in systems will also need to make this journey – a process known as legacy data migration. This is a task that involves ensuring the completeness of data during its transfer and adapting or converting this data to ensure its usable in its new home.
Getting workload migration right is essential, particularly if you’re driving digital transformation programmes that involve cloud adoption and the modernising of a fleet of applications.
For many organisations the ability to migrate applications is part and parcel of being able to take advantage of the features and price/performance models of multiple cloud providers. Similarly, it’s also important for achieving the hassle-free migration back to on-premises infrastructure should this make sense for business or technical reasons.
Without workload migration, organisations can find themselves locked into a single cloud provider and at the mercies of their policies, pricing or performance characteristics. For this reason, organisations need to be certain they have the right skillsets to undertake a workload migration. Most importantly, making these migrations both efficient and cost-effective is mission critical.
Problem is that the technical, organisational and operational hurdles that companies find they need to overcome can make workload migration more difficult and time-consuming than originally expected. According to one report, 86% of organisations that had moved one or more applications to a different IT infrastructure said that it was both more complex and costly than they had anticipated.
As we’ve already discussed, workload portability and migration are central pre-requisites for successfully undertaking application modernisation. But one of the biggest challenges of migrating applications and data arises from the fact that an application doesn’t typically reside on a single virtual machine (VM). In reality, an app often spans many VMs and incorporates multiple layers, everything from front-end webservers and middleware application layers through to back-end databases. But that’s not all.
Other common challenges to address during workload migration include:
When it comes to migrating workloads, you’ll also need to consider things like data gravity, the ease of moving apps and data into a new hybrid architecture or simply how best to extend apps from one location to another. All of which will need to be factored in when considering workload migration and placement.
While workload migration can be challenging, it is vital for enabling efficient and successful IT operations and making the right decisions about where to place workloads during the migration process will prove critical. Indeed, according to Gartner, 85% of workload placements will be sub optimal by 2027. So, the ability to move or place workloads where they make the most sense is key for any IT leader that wants to substantially elevate IT with regards to efficiency, reliability, cost savings, quality of customer service, increased business value, and more.
When it comes to workload migration a structured approach or workload methodology is critical for successfully ensuring efficiency, security and performance throughout the migration process. Let’s look at the key steps involved.
Workload migration can place additional pressure on already hard-pressed IT teams. It’s a difficult procedure that involves multiple technical specialisations and the risks of getting it wrong are significant.
For example, a badly planned migration could lead to data loss, downtime or security breaches if the right mitigation measures aren’t in place. Similarly, assuring the confidentiality and accuracy of your data throughout the migration process can prove to be a major headache.
Truth is, there is no ‘cookie cutter’ template for internal IT teams to follow. Every deployment will be unique and especially challenging should it combine on-premises, private and public cloud environments. Which is why working with the right partner for cloud, application, data, and workload migration can help ensure you don’t encounter unanticipated disruptions that will stop your business-as-usual operations from running. What’s more, an inefficient workload or data migration strategy will prevent the unnecessary loss of time, resources, money or potentially worse, brand equity in the marketplace.
To streamline the workload migration process, organisations should look to work with a migration partner in the form a cloud MSP who can help both minimise risk and accelerate the delivery of business value. Ideally, this partner of choice should offer both technical expertise and a well architected migration framework that makes the migration process itself faster, easier and more cost-effective compared to a self-managed migration. As a bonus, working with a cloud migration MSP will also enable you to release internal teams to focus fully on the day-to-day running of the IT environments on which your business depends.
Here at Bell Integration, we have decades of delivering datacentre, cloud, application and workload migration services that enable organisations to accelerate their IT modernisation projects. Taking care of everything from configuring workloads for your target destination to ensuring that the security and data protection that preserves compliance is in place, our time tested approach ensures a smooth cutover with no impact on end users.
Addressing the entire end-to-end migration cycle, our proven methodologies, practices and automated tools dramatically reduce risk and speed up the delivery of workload migrations. The benefits of working with Bell include:
Our mature vClarus methodology and toolset combines all the governance tools, people, and processes required to architect a tightly defined migration project complete with all the insights and controls you need to not only make informed decisions, but flawlessly execute your workload migration.
Unlike traditional error prone spreadsheet and cumbersome project planning methods, vClarus is an end-to-end platform that delivers deep insights into current systems and requirements. By eliminating knowledge gaps, vClarus provides a single point of truth for all data relating to your migration. This both improves consistency and productivity and ensures zero omissions when it comes to planning and execution.
“Bell Integration executed a fault-free migration to our new Azure and Microsoft 365 environments, with zero disruptions,” confirms Leon Howgill. “From Day One everything simply worked – there were no dramas or disruption – and our working environment literally evolved overnight.” – ARM
Workload Migration – Auditing your current estate
The discovery phase lays the foundations for a successful workload migration, and we utilise the latest discovery techniques to analyse your existing estate, that includes your in-house reporting tools and documents. After which, we map the interactions, links, and interdependencies between applications, including technical, shared infrastructure and business workflows, as well as establishing all application owners and business units that are reliant on individual workload services so that everyone is in flow of information, all of which is essential for undertaking effective workload and data migration scheduling.
Following this analysis, vClarus produces a Strategic Service Map showing the end-to-end hierarchy for each service which is navigable and in real-time. This gives you a fully graphical representation of your services, applications and infrastructure.
Workload Migration – Formulating workload migration principles and migration approaches
Depending on the business and applications/infrastructure interactions, we formulate a workload and data migration approach that establishes each migration principle. These approaches can be industry standard but are often bespoke, or hybrid. For example, like-for-like can be achieved by cloning or rebuilding, resulting in the same end state but via different means and with different benefits. We also document any workload migration constraints, change management criteria and change windows alongside establishing rigorous testing criteria.
Workload Migration – Building migration passports
Next, we use vClarus to build a Workload Migration Passport for each migration approach. These templates contain all migration tasks, owners, timings (for example T-4 weeks before service cutover) and migration entity type.
Workload Migration – Migration schedule
We construct a workload migration schedule using conveyors, essentially a move group for items that have a shared cutover date. These conveyers take into consideration application relationships, the most suitable Migration Passport, and any business constraints such as blackout windows and peak activity. All of which is designed to de-risk and minimise disruption during workload and data migrations.
vClarus also auto generates all migration tasks, associating passport tasks with each item to be migrated on each conveyor. This removes hundreds of hours of manual planning effort. For example, if you have 50 tasks in a passport and a set of conveyors containing 1,000 servers, vClarus will automatically generate 50,000 migration tasks along with a specific date on which each task needs to be performed.
These tasks are reported hierarchically in aggregated dashboards that deliver highly detailed management reporting as well as detailed task lists and reports for project managers. Each task is allocated a Red, Amber or Green (RAG) status that is generated by vClarus.
Workload Migration – Migration execution
Finally, all your workload migrations are tracked in vClarus using the RAG dashboards to provide truly transparent progress reporting while maintaining a dynamic planning and replanning capability. This means that any rescheduling that’s needed in response to external factors can be automatically regenerated and tracked on the fly. The execution process features go and no go checkpoints, as well as communications to end users and business owners alongside testing and sign-off. We then complete a fully documented post workload migration handover to your teams or continue on to workload optimization in the cloud based on SOW.
Giving organisations a fixed price, fixed outcome and risk averse approach to ensuring that future workload requirements can be satisfied, and that end-state migration objectives are fully aligned with present and future business goals, our tried and tested vClarus methodology accelerates the migration and transformation of workloads.
Over the years we’ve helped thousands of companies successfully migrate workloads, applications, and data from one operating environment to one or more target environments, everything from public and private clouds through to colocation facilities, edge locations and owned and operated data centres.
Our vClarus framework simplifies decision-making, streamlines planning, maintains strict governance guardrails and gets you where you need to go faster. By consolidating key migration best practices and utilising in-depth analysis, we ensure that potential challenges are identified early, and that the right workload migration method is utilised for every workload. Plus, our end-to-end programme features governance and progress tracking that minimises delays and negative impact to exiting operations.
Providing a highly structured and coordinated step-by-step process that leaves nothing to chance, we make it possible to map out your project and establish key workload migration milestones, ensuring that your new environment is optimised for performance and operational ROI.
With Bell Integration you’ll be able to:
With careful and detailed planning and the right strategy, you can execute a workload migration programme that is delivered on-time, on-budget, and will deliver all the business benefits the organisation anticipates and needs. Call or submit an inquiry via web form for your free workload migration consultation today!
Bell's vClarus platform maintains compliance throughout the discovery, design and migration process, providing a single depository for the data, avoiding multiple data points with conflicting information and speeding up the transition, reducing risk and cost.
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