Cloud computing — it's the buzzword that's been floating around in recent times, and for good reason! Businesses diving into cloud migration services are happily getting rid of hefty hardware and cumbersome data centers, choosing instead to store their valuable applications and data in the cloud. The rewards? Significant cost savings, scalable infrastructure without the massive price tag, and a farewell to the responsibilities of on-premises server repairs and licensing, among many others.

In this article, our team explores various scenarios where businesses might need cloud migration services and shares insights on calculating the costs of these services. Whether you require this type of backend development services or you are looking to embrace the flexibility of the cloud, we've got the ideas you need to make an informed decision.

What is the essence of cloud migration?

When businesses embark on a cloud migration, they transfer their resources — such as data, applications, and IT infrastructure — from physical servers to cloud services offered by providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Microsoft Azure.

These services provide cloud storage, allowing entrepreneurs to store their valuable data on cloud servers for a fee. Cloud providers are responsible for continuously monitoring infrastructure to make sure it operates without interruptions, maintaining robust security measures to protect data, and keeping hardware components functioning optimally to support these cloud services.

Using cloud migration services and moving from physical hardware to cloud storage provides several benefits. Employees can access company data from anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection. The business itself reduces expenses on purchasing and maintaining hardware, as operations become more cost-effective. Additionally, businesses gain the ability to scale their infrastructure resources up or down according to demand, further enhancing operational flexibility.

All in all, by moving technical responsibilities, such as software updates, cloud security management, and backup maintenance, to the cloud provider, companies can focus more on their core activities without being bothered by IT maintenance tasks.

When is your business ready for cloud migration?

Several scenarios indicate your business is ready to embrace infrastructure migration and benefit from this approach. Here they are:

Your organization experiences swift growth

When your organization grows rapidly, you may see a surge in users accessing your websites and applications, requiring more bandwidth to maintain service quality. This growth often leads to additional costs, like hiring and higher salaries, which can strain your resources and limit your ability to invest in new hardware.

Using cloud migration services can help by providing a scalable cloud infrastructure that adjusts resources automatically to meet your current demands. This scalability is particularly beneficial for small and mid-sized businesses operating on limited budgets, as it reduces the need for substantial upfront investments in new hardware.

It's time to replace your aging hardware

Hardware devices such as servers, storage units, routers, and other components often break down and require maintenance and repairs as they age. If your hardware is currently in this state, it may be time to consider transitioning to cloud platforms and migrating at least some of your data to the cloud.

Moving to the cloud allows you to avoid the upfront costs of purchasing, maintaining, and upgrading hardware. The cloud platform offers scalable compute resources, so you pay only for the amount you are going to use. If your hardware assets are reaching the end of their lifecycle and you wish to avoid the expense of maintaining legacy systems, it's an ideal time to start the migration process and move the data from your main server and distributed workloads to the cloud.

You want to strengthen the protection of your corporate data

When using on-premises software, protecting sensitive data depends heavily on your organization's resources and expertise. This involves deploying firewalls, securing data through encryption, performing regular backups, and installing antivirus software. Additionally, physical security measures such as CCTV monitoring, security personnel, uninterruptible power supplies, and protection against environmental hazards are necessary to safeguard your servers.

On the other hand, when you use cloud migration services of Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure, you are partially relieved of these responsibilities. These cloud services offer built-in data encryption and network security, and they comply with security compliance standards like ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, GDPR, and PCI DSS. They also assist users in achieving these compliance standards. In short, by embarking on a cloud migration journey, you can focus more on creative business tasks while entrusting some security-related duties to cloud platforms.

Your business doesn't have a recovery mechanism

Disasters impact national and business infrastructure, which poses a threat to companies that rely solely on on-premises systems. To avoid such risks, businesses must implement a recovery mechanism. This involves creating regular data backups and developing a structured recovery plan. These backups should be stored securely, either on-site or off-site, and be ready to restore IT systems quickly after a disaster.

Alternatively, you can use cloud migration services to protect your valuable data. Popular cloud platforms provide built-in, robust failover protocols, high availability, and disaster recovery measures from the start. Major cloud service providers provide you with fault-tolerant servers in multiple regions to protect your business from system failures. During disasters, production servers automatically switch to backup servers and keep operating without interruption.

If you need to roll out a unique application or service faster

Cloud migration offers several benefits, especially when you develop innovative services for your customers. Setting up cloud infrastructure is generally quicker than its on-premises counterpart. When pre-planned, the infrastructure can be configured and ready within a short time, which accelerates the deployment of the developed app. Beyond deployment speed, cloud platforms provide additional capabilities for gathering and storing data, which are necessary for delivering personalized and unique features to your clients.

You plan to run a remote team

On-premise applications often lead to challenges like delayed communication, difficulties in document sharing, and restricted access to information, which can hinder team members working from different locations. In contrast, cloud-based applications enable real-time collaboration and offer access from anywhere with an internet connection. This makes cloud infrastructure and cloud migration services a more viable option for businesses aiming to leverage global talent.

Successful cloud migration cases

Numerous large tech companies have already embraced cloud transformation to address specific business challenges that slowed innovation. Some transitioned from on-premises servers to cloud infrastructure, while others moved from one cloud provider to another.

Spotify

Spotify began a cloud migration journey as their business was rapidly growing and required more storage for music and podcasts. Their system scaled to handle 100 petabytes of data, supported by roughly 100 teams and four data centers in different countries. The business leaders realized:

Initially, Spotify evaluated different cloud migration strategies: working with multiple cloud service providers, using a hybrid setup with both cloud and existing data centers, or committing to a single cloud platform. They ultimately chose Google Cloud Platform for their cloud migration project and transferred all their infrastructure to Google's servers.

At the time, Google Cloud Platform was still evolving and lacked some features. Spotify collaborated with Google engineers to receive cloud migration services and address critical needs like VPN and IAM. Spotify started executing its migration strategy in 2015. By May 2017, they completed all migration phases and redirected all traffic to Google Cloud Platform. In 2018, they shut down all on-premises data centers, freeing up their tech team to focus more on creative tasks.

Betabrand

Betabrand is a retail clothing e-commerce company and another example of successful cloud migration. The company wanted to address scalability challenges with on-premises infrastructure. To handle traffic surges, particularly before Black Friday, they used cloud migration services, Google Kubernetes Engine.

They also conducted test migrations and load testing to make sure their new infrastructure could manage increased demand. This cloud adoption now allows Betabrand's infrastructure to automatically scale during traffic surges, reducing downtime risk. This reliability is essential in e-commerce, where outages can result in significant revenue losses.

Evernote

Evernote, the collaborative note-taking app, offers another story of a successful cloud journey. Evernote's tech team aimed to address issues like complex scalability, the high maintenance cost of on-premises infrastructure, and the need for improved cloud security. To minimize disruption, they executed their cloud migration process iteratively.

They built an initial plan, tested its viability, and quickly refined it. They adopted a phased cutover approach, which allowed them to test migration segments before full commitment. By using Google Cloud Platform service accounts, they achieved “encryption at rest,” enhanced security, and improved disaster recovery capabilities. Evernote used the cloud migration services of the provider and successfully transferred 5 billion notes and 5 billion attachments to Google Cloud Platform in just 70 days.

In conclusion, cloud technology and cloud migration services offer significant advantages for businesses, tackling issues such as scalability, costly maintenance, enhanced security, and improved recovery mechanisms. As many cloud migration stories illustrate, careful planning of the infrastructure migration process is crucial for navigating this complex journey.

Understanding the costs of cloud migration services

To understand what the price of cloud migration can be, let's first look at the steps of this process. The cloud migration process is typically divided into 5 steps:

1. Preparation

   At the outset, an organization should define its cloud migration goals, such as cost savings, improved security, scalability, and performance. This stage involves assessing cloud readiness, evaluating current infrastructure, and calculating long-term cloud costs versus current expenses. Additionally, it's necessary to select a cloud migration service provider.

2. Planning

   With objectives set, organizations develop a detailed cloud migration strategy, specifying the order in which workloads will be migrated and any necessary changes to applications. During planning, it's essential to evaluate each application to determine whether its code needs modification. These changes enable applications to take advantage of cloud-native features.

3. Migration

   The phase involves moving data, applications, and workloads to the cloud environment. Each element is carefully monitored and tested in the new environment. The tech team managing the migration, should run updates and sync the system after each migration task is accomplished. This helps to make sure data stays accurate during and after the migration process.

4. Operation

   After cloud migration is completed, organizations manage cloud-based workloads and focus on performance, resource management, and maintaining cloud security and compliance. This phase includes real-time monitoring and adjusting operations based on performance data and regulatory compliance needs.

5. Optimization

   When the cloud migration is accomplished and everything works smoothly, it's necessary to track efficiency and performance of the cloud infrastructure. Organizations can search for cost-saving opportunities and implement new cloud-native features.

When we look at this cloud migration services, it gets clear that we can't avoid working with tech specialists, and require comprehensive cloud migration services to run this procedure successfully As a result, cloud migration expenses fall into two categories: pay-as-you-go payments to the cloud migration service provider, and labor costs, whether for an in-house team or through cloud migration consulting agencies.

Popular cloud migration service provider and potential costs

All popular cloud migration solutions vary in their delivery models and pricing structures. The cost of cloud migration services largely depends on the complexity and scale of your migration project, the chosen migration strategy, the level of service provided, and other specific factors. Meanwhile, ongoing usage costs are influenced by the amount of resources your company uses, the types of services accessed, the geographic location of your cloud infrastructure, and additional services you use. You should calculate the price for cloud infrastructure individually, and calculators from cloud service providers can assist you in making accurate estimates.

AWS Cloud

Price calculator: https://calculator.aws/

AWS provides a wide range of cloud services, including compute, storage, database, machine learning, and analytics tools. It offers flexible payment models like pay-as-you-go, subscriptions, and commit-to-usage discounts. AWS's services are not the cheapest, with costs around $0.0832 per hour or $2.00 per day for 2 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM.

In addition to standard offerings, AWS provides cloud migration services that facilitate moving your company's data to the cloud. These services include the AWS Migration Hub, which helps to track application migrations across multiple AWS and partner solutions. AWS Database Migration Service helps transfer databases to AWS with minimal downtime, while the AWS Server Migration Service aids in migrating on-premises workloads to AWS with ease. These services are particularly beneficial if you are planning a cloud migration soon.

AWS also provides a suite of AI services and robust security measures, complying with standards like GDPR and HIPAA. Therefore, businesses can trust AWS for secure and reliable cloud computing.

Azure

Price calculator: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/tco/calculator/

Azure is a favored choice for enterprise customers due to its seamless integration with Microsoft's suite of productivity tools like Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. As a leading cloud service provider, Azure offers over 200 cloud services across compute, storage, networking, analytics, developer tools, AI, and machine learning.

For cloud migration services, Azure offers a centralized hub to assess, track, and carry out your migration process. These services support database migration from various sources to Azure and SQL databases, and they provide disaster recovery to keep applications and workloads running during outages.

Azure's AI features are specifically designed for enterprises using Microsoft products. Additionally, Azure offers high-performance computing capabilities for advanced AI needs. The cloud platform complies with major standards and regulations, including ISO series, SOC 1/2, GDPR, HIPAA, and FedRAMP.

Google Cloud

Price calculator: https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator/

Google Cloud Platform stands out for its strong focus on data analytics, machine learning, and AI. It offers over a hundred cloud computing services across categories like compute, networking, storage, AI, IoT, and developer tools. Regarding pricing, using 2 vCPUs and 8GB RAM costs approximately $0.70 per hour or $1.68 per day.

As a prominent cloud migration service provider, Google Cloud Platform provides essential tools to assist businesses in their migration journey. Google Cloud Migrate facilitates the transition of workloads into GCP, while the BigQuery Data Transfer Service automates the movement of data from software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications into the BigQuery data warehouse. Additionally, Cloud SQL is designed to ease the deployment, management, and scaling of relational databases within the cloud environment.

Other features of Google Cloud include advanced AI tools, such as Vertex AI. This platform offers pre-built models and drag-and-drop functionality and makes AI accessible even to users with limited expertise. Also, this cloud migration service provider is compliant with essential security regulations.

Oracle Cloud

Price calculator: https://www.oracle.com/ee/cloud/costestimator.html

Oracle offers over 100 cloud services tailored for both small and enterprise-level businesses. These services encompass infrastructure such as compute, storage, and networking, as well as developer tools, data management, AI, and security. Oracle's offerings are cost-effective and have straightforward pricing. For instance, Oracle charges approximately $0.037 per hour or $0.89 per day for 2 vCPUs and 8GB of RAM.

Oracle offers tools that help move on-premises workloads to Oracle Cloud with minimal changes. Their solutions support application migration and efficiently transition enterprise applications to the cloud, making sure data migration occurs with minimal downtime.

IBM Cloud

Price calculator: https://www.ibm.com/cloud/cloud-calculator/

IBM Cloud is renowned for its hybrid cloud and multi-cloud capabilities that match companies seeking customization. Its service portfolio includes offerings in compute, storage, networking, database, analytics, machine learning, and developer tools. Like other cloud platforms, IBM Cloud can operate on a pay-as-you-go model, offering 2 vCPUs and 8GB RAM for $0.079 per hour or $1.90 per day.

IBM Cloud offers cloud migration services with a range of tools and solutions. IBM's Migration Factory provides a structured approach to migrating workloads and supports large-scale data transfers with secure, high-capacity storage. It facilitates database transitions with real-time replication tools and offers pre-integrated, containerized software solutions using IBM's platform. These resources provided by IBM simplify the cloud migration process.

Cloud migration consulting services and their potential cost

As you recall, cloud migration involves numerous intricate technical tasks like assessing cloud readiness, crafting a migration strategy, selecting a suitable cloud provider, and executing data and application migration. These tasks require the expertise of specialists in cloud computing or the assistance of a consulting agency, which constitutes an additional expense for any company planning migration.

Apart from migration services, cloud computing advisors can help you with the following tasks:

• Provide cloud IT solutions tailored to business requirements.
• Protect businesses against cyber threats like malware, viruses, and hacking attempts.
• Offer backup and disaster recovery services.
• Collaborate with clients to educate them on the most suitable cloud solutions for their needs.

The cost of a cloud computing project can vary based on several factors, such as the project's complexity, the agency's hourly rates, location, business size, and the level of customization needed. Below is a table from Clutch that illustrates the average costs for consulting and cloud migration services.

Our Ronas IT team offers comprehensive cloud computing services. Through our DevOps expertise , we can set up the necessary infrastructure for your IT project, whether you're working with us directly or collaborating with a third-party team. Additionally, if you're looking to develop your own app and ensure compliance with major security regulations, we're here to assist you in achieving those goals.

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Cloud infrastructure vs. on-premises: what is more cost-effective?

If you're still unsure about pursuing cloud migration, let's compare the expenses associated with each option.

As you can see, both variants have their individual list of expenses. However, when it comes to cloud computing, it also allows for a shift of many responsibilities from the entrepreneur owning the infrastructure to the provider of the cloud service.

While cloud computing suits many businesses, on-premises software benefits organizations in environments with unreliable internet connectivity or those seeking to maximize recent infrastructure investments.

Wrapping up

Cloud infrastructure and cloud migration services offer significant benefits to businesses. They help reduce infrastructure costs and free up your employees' time for more creative tasks. Before transitioning, conduct a cost analysis to determine which option best suits your business. Remember, by migrating, you join tech giants like Spotify, GitHub, and Waze, who have embraced cloud infrastructure for its scalability, robust data recovery capabilities, and essential security measures in today's cybersecurity landscape.