Migrating Legacy

Applications to the
Cloud: How to Pick
the Right Strategy
Migrating Legacy Applications to the Cloud Table of Contents
22

Table of Contents

01
Introduction.............................................................................. 3

02
Lift and Shift: Get Out of the Datacenter......................4

03
Shift to SaaS: Save Time and Trouble........................... 6

04
Application Refactoring: App Modernization.............8

05
Replatforming: Develop Apps in the Cloud..............10

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01

Introduction

Organizations migrate their legacy applications to the cloud for reasons as diverse
as the companies themselves. The cloud has become synonymous with progress
in the business world. It allows companies to get closer to their customers than
ever before, move at the speed of the market, focus their staff on innovation, and
much more. Every migration takes hard work, and finding the right way to move
applications to the cloud makes that work pay off.

We have identified four primary types of cloud migration, based on the way
different companies want to use the cloud to accomplish their goals. The most
important part of any cloud migration is making sure the migration gets your
company where it needs to be

The four types of cloud migration are called lift and shift, shift to Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS,) application refactoring, and replatforming.

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02

Lift and Shift: Get Out of

the Datacenter

The lift and shift approach is for organizations looking to

get out of the datacenter and stop managing hardware.

Lift and shift provides the same software that your organization used in the
data center, but now in the cloud. There isn’t any learning curve for the cloud
applications, since they work exactly the same as before. This is the fastest
method for migrating applications to the cloud, and the one that causes the least
disruption. It only requires the involvement of the infrastructure and security teams,
leaving everyone else free to pursue their work uninterrupted. It’s also the option
with the least upfront cost. Moving the application to the cloud allows it to handle
peak performance, without your company having to pay for it.

Lift and shift comes with its drawbacks, however. This cloud migration can’t take
full advantage of the speed and versatility the cloud can provide. Since the process
doesn’t change the application – it just moves the code to a new location – the
shifted version of the application doesn’t usually have better performance than
the original. It’s also unlikely to lead to long-term savings. This model is best suited
to companies with a regular peak schedule and slow, predictable changes in the
market. Food delivery companies with their regular peaks on Monday, Saturday,
and Sunday are a good example of the former. Tax companies are a good example
of the latter, since tax rules change on a yearly basis and new rules are released a
year in advance, giving the companies plenty of time to prepare.

“You don’t move to the cloud to save money. You do it to

save time.”
– Tony Stafford, Vice President of Technical Solutions

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Migrating Legacy Applications To The Cloud Lift and Shift: Get Out of the Datacenter 5

However, tax and food delivery companies aren’t the only good candidates for this
strategy. We worked with a construction company to lift and shift its huge logistics
application to the cloud. The construction company’s goal was to get out of the
data center. The application was a mixture of custom and off-the-shelf code that
the CIO had neither the time nor the money to break up – something that would be
required for other methods of migrating to the cloud. Lift and shift accomplished
the company’s goals with low upfront costs and no need to make changes to the
application.

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03

Shift to SaaS: Save Time

and Trouble

Companies that want to stop devoting time and

resources to applications outside their core business
should think about shifting to SaaS.

Shifting to SaaS means outsourcing one or more applications to a cloud services

company that specializes in managing those applications. Organizations do this
on an application by application basis and only shift the applications they need to.
Static applications can remain on-premises. Shifting to SaaS frees employees up
to focus on core competencies and the things that make a business unique and
competitive. Outsourcing applications to SaaS also means that you need fewer
licenses for business tools. However, it’s extremely important when shifting an
application to SaaS that you pick the right service.

The main drawback of shifting to SaaS, while you can personalize it, is that
customizing it can lead to problems. Interjectory code added to a SaaS tool can
cause you to lose the support model and update model provided by the SaaS
company. This means that if you start shifting applications directly related to your
industry, you can lose the customizations that give your business a competitive
edge. Shifting to SaaS should only be used for routine functions – not for anything
that needs to be unique.

Email is a good example of a routine business function that can be shifted to

SaaS. For example, we worked with a manufacturing company that built engine
components. The company was sick of managing its own email. While it needed
to have email for all its employees, the customers didn’t care what the email
service looked like – so long as it worked. We helped them find a hosting service
that freed the company of needing to worry about their email so it could focus on
manufacturing.

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04

Application Refactoring:
App Modernization

App modernization is a preferred approach for

organizations that have specific applications which
could benefit from the cloud.

With refactoring, organizations can replicate their legacy applications whole and
intact onto a cloud platform. What makes it low risk is that legacy applications can
run in parallel while new applications are constructed, with the immediate benefits
of agility and speed to market. This approach focuses on the applications that
benefit the most from a cloud platform.

Refactoring is about prioritization; it provides lots of opportunities to save over time

by minimizing spending on things you won’t need once you’re in the cloud. You can
save money on the platform itself as well by switching to cloud native services that
cost less than the ones you use on-premises. For example, switching from Oracle
WebLogic to cloud-native JBoss can cut costs.

Refactoring isn’t just about cutting costs. It also allows you to make changes
to your enterprise very quickly, which means that you can keep up with your
customers. Refactoring lets you respond faster and prioritize updates. One big box
store we worked with started out with its applications so hard coded that it took
months to do simple things like changing the font or background color. Refactoring
got them moving.

“This is when you make a decision to develop in a whole

new paradigm.”
– John Himebook, Vice President of Development

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Migrating Legacy Applications To The Cloud Application Refactoring: App Modernization 8

With refactoring, you move a select group of your applications to the cloud. Picking
the right platform for the applications is extremely important. Look for a tool that
addresses speed to change and can fulfill all of your needs, not just some of them.
It’s also vital that you refactor your applications in the right order.

Refactoring usually requires outside help. We worked with a company that wanted
to refactor its entire application suite into modern technology. The project would
have taken four years for the company working on their own, but we were able to
cut that time down to eighteen months. We provided the company making the
migration with its unique model for retraining.

Rather than building the solution in a silo, as most consultancies do, we

partner with the company doing the upgrade and training by introducing their
development team to the project as domain experts. When introducing the new
technology, we rotate through everyone who needs training. Slowly, over time, we
dial back how many consultants they have helping until the local IT people are able
to handle everything on their own. This means that the IT staff learns by doing, so
there is no awkward learning curve. At every point in the process, there is someone
trained to handle difficulties on-site.
.

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05

Replatforming: Develop Apps in

the Cloud

Replatforming is for organizations looking to embrace

benefits of the cloud, enterprise-wide.

These organizations want their core competencies to be scalable, elastic, robust,

resilient, redundant, and available. This is the hardest option to implement, requires
the most planning for the future, and comes with the most upfront cost, but it’s the
only option that lets you utilize the full strength and flexibility of the cloud.

Replatforming is replacing the application at the code level to make it cloud

native. This is a complete reimagination of the application and usually requires a
complete rewrite. However, for those looking to get into containers or microservice
architectures, this is the way to go.

“It is the market speed response.”

– John Himebook, Vice President of Development

When considering replatforming, think about how fast your organization can
change. Then think about how fast it needs to change to keep up with customers
and the market. By making applications truly cloud native, they can be updated
and those updates pushed out at the speed of the cloud. This boosts the speed to
change across the board for all aspects of the business. Replatformed applications
can also be designed to be more modular and thus easier to maintain. Refactoring
the application can save development time down the road, since modules of code
from your first refactored application can be used to extend the capabilities of new
applications.

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Migrating Legacy Applications To The Cloud Replatforming: Develop Apps in the Cloud 10

Unlike refactored applications, refactored platforms can work across multiple

cloud providers. This makes it easier to port from one mobile platform to another,
which positions replatforming as the ideal strategy for those looking to develop
mobile applications.

We worked with a healthcare company building a net-new mobile application for

patient management, which included sending push notifications on appointments
and subscriptions. The company wanted to build this application as a cloud-native
company. However, they already had internal patient managing applications for the
nurses and doctors that complemented the new applications. The company used
replatforming to get their legacy patient management application to the cloud, so
the application would be ready and waiting while it developed its net-new mobile
application.

Determine your goals before you select your approach

Each of the four primary methods we identified comes with its share of
advantages, but also with its disadvantages. Finding the method that matches your
organizations goals and needs is the first step to a successful migration.

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Migrating Legacy Applications To The Cloud About Shadow-Soft 11

ABOUT SHADOW-SOFT
To succeed in business today, it’s not enough to dabble in technology, you must
master it – and that’s where Shadow-Soft comes in. We are mavens in open
software and open standards. It’s how we help our customers “Take the Power
Back” from proprietary vendors and own their technology future.

We do consulting and managed services across these specialties: DevOps,

Application Infrastructure, and Cloud. We work with commercial and public sector
customers to solve their unique technology challenges.

Through this core expertise, we help customers modernize and optimize

infrastructure, deploy Agile and DevOps methodologies, provide orchestration
and automation, and maintain these environments on public or private clouds. We
are headquartered in Atlanta, with offices in Reston, Virginia and Charleston, South
Carolina.

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