Cloud migration is a key part of today’s changing IT infrastructure. It is driven by ongoing digital transformation. But what is cloud migration, and how does cloud migration work in 2025?
Cloud migration is the process of moving digital assets. These include data, applications, and IT resources. This shift is from traditional on-premises data centers to a cloud platform.
Moving your technology to cloud-based solutions can provide your business with flexibility, scalability, and cost savings. Cloud migration is already a business requirement for companies of all sizes.
In 2025, it becomes crucial for enterprises migrating legacy applications, data, and devices to tackle challenges like remote work, automation, and global collaboration.
What is Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration means moving your current applications, data, workloads, and other IT resources. This move is from an on-premises data center to a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud environment. In other words, cloud migration is the movement of your business to the cloud.
The reason many organizations find themselves asking what is a cloud migration? The complexity of it all. A cloud migration is more than just moving data. It also means adjusting your business processes, security measures, and operations to fit the cloud.
Cloud migration is a broad term. It includes many projects that improve and modernize systems when moving to or using a cloud environment.
It involves moving to other cloud services like SaaS (Software as a Service) or PaaS (Platform as a Service). This change improves scalability, disaster recovery, security, and compliance. Businesses cut costs, remove hardware limits, and increase innovation with advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, and extensive data analytics.
Why is Cloud Migration Important in 2025?
Here are the top reasons why your company should move to cloud in 2025 as determined by organizations. Scalability lets you quickly increase or decrease capacity to meet your needs. It provides extra space when necessary, without the limits of an on-site data center.
Migration is the best way to achieve your long-term goal of cutting costs. It helps reduce expenses for hardware and physical infrastructure. Flexibility is about being able to enable a distributed workforce or work with teams around the globe with ease.
Cloud providers also have more advanced security and compliance measures that are stronger than most on-premises solutions. This means data privacy and security are important.
You also need to follow the rules. At the same time, you can access these platforms. This helps you bring a solution to market faster than before.
Some great tools to help you enter the market are:
– Artificial intelligence (AI)
– Machine learning (ML)
– The Internet of Things (IoT)
– Analytics on cloud platforms
Another reason why cloud migration is important is business continuity. Cloud-based disaster recovery, data backup, and redundancy help keep operations running with minimal downtime.
How Does Cloud Migration Work?
A complete picture of the cloud migration process that would help you have a successful migration from your premises data centers to your target cloud platform is as follows.
1. Assessment and Planning
How cloud migration works begin with an assessment of an organization’s existing IT environment. The business should determine which of its legacy apps, workloads, and databases are suitable for migration to the cloud.
This also includes planning and preparing the migration. Companies create a migration plan and strategy, addressing performance needs, cost, security, and compliance requirements. A lack of planning can result in potential downtime, higher costs, or security issues.
2. Choosing the Right Cloud Model
Selecting the appropriate cloud deployment model is another step in the migration process. A public cloud, such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure, is an option, in which companies share cloud resources. Public cloud is known for its scalability.
A private cloud is a dedicated cloud environment, in which companies get to keep their infrastructure and data in-house, or with a private cloud service provider. A private cloud is more secure and compliant, and many businesses in highly regulated industries such as healthcare or financial services often choose private cloud environments.
Hybrid cloud model is a combination of public and private clouds, aiming to provide businesses with the flexibility of the public cloud while keeping sensitive data on a private cloud.
3. Selecting Migration Strategies
Cloud migration strategies are chosen based on the workloads, business goals, and budgetary constraints. The business must decide to opt for a simple lift and shift process or a more complex strategy like re-platforming or refactoring.
The process chosen at this stage will determine how smoothly applications will run after migration, and how much a business can benefit from the features of cloud-based offerings such as elasticity and reduced costs.
4. Data and Application Migration
In this step, the data, system, and current applications are actually migrated into the cloud. Data migration itself can be done through automated tools or manual migration, or by some combination of both methods.
This is also where data integrity and security will be key issues regardless of the migration approach (lift and shift, partial re-platforming, or full refactoring) as they will need to include database synchronization, security/compliance, and application configuration for performance, among others.
5. Testing and Optimization
After the migration’s technical completion, various tests confirm that cloud-hosted apps work correctly. Validation, integration checks, performance benchmarks, and post-migration reviews are part of this phase. Functionality and operations are verified for migrated workloads and key parameters.
Optimization may also take place here to enhance performance. Cloud teams may adjust resources and optimize cloud settings. This also includes ensuring cost-effectiveness and alignment with security policies and compliance guidelines.
- Going Live
The final step in how cloud migration works is taking the system live. After successful testing, applications, users, and processes are fully transitioned to the cloud infrastructure. Going live requires meticulous planning to ensure a seamless switchover.
Support and monitoring of workloads in production are critical after the migration’s completion. Users can troubleshoot and optimize the cloud setup even further if necessary. Proper execution of the go-live phase allows a business to unlock cloud migration’s value proposition.
This includes flexibility, scalability, improved disaster recovery, and operational cost savings.
Types of Cloud Migrations
When it comes to cloud migration types, there are a few paths that organizations can take. This list will introduce the most common types of cloud migrations. In many scenarios, an organization may use one or more of these migration types in their journey from a premises data center to the cloud platform.
- Lift and Shift (Rehosting)
The first and the easiest cloud migration strategy is known as Lift and Shift or rehosting. This process involves moving existing applications or software to the cloud as is. This cloud migration method has no modifications or changes to the current architecture of the application.
Businesses use this method when they have the least possible time. While lift and shift helps an organization create a cloud-based environment, it will not help them enjoy the benefits of cloud-native features.
- Replatforming
This cloud migration process is when a business makes small changes to its applications so that it can run more smoothly in a cloud service environment. It differs from refactoring as it does not alter the key architecture of the software.
Replatforming involves changing small elements like tweaking a database or changing the operating system. This migration strategy provides the best of both worlds in terms of speed and optimizing performance. It also allows businesses to enjoy a range of benefits such as scalability, better performance, and cost.
3. Refactoring (Re-architecting)
Refactoring, or re-architecting, is a more involved migration option, but the results can be worth it. The application is redeveloped as a cloud-native application. This means making the best possible use of the cloud’s features and benefits, like microservices and serverless options or dynamic scalability.
The end result is a highly cloud-optimized application with major advantages from the cloud in flexibility, performance, and long-term costs. Refactoring is the go-to option for those seeking to make their apps future-proof and take full advantage of cloud’s modern capabilities, like PaaS.
- Repurchasing
Repurchasing a migration solution means replacing your existing application with a SaaS application. Rather than moving a system to the cloud, a business instead chooses to switch to a cloud-native tool that can handle the same tasks.
A business, for instance, might have an on-premises CRM system, but opt to migrate to Salesforce or HubSpot instead. In these cases, the company doesn’t have to worry about maintaining infrastructure at all.
- Retiring
Retiring is the process of decommissioning applications that may be either outdated or redundant and may be retired or removed in the process of migration. In the process of cloud migration, legacy application landscapes are identified and retired instead of being transferred to the cloud platform.
Retiring legacy application landscapes are retired, meaning the application will be decommissioned instead of migrating to the cloud service provider, effectively saving costs and efforts, as well as streamlining the migration process.
- Retaining
Retaining is an alternative solution for businesses that decide to retain a few of their applications in the premises data centers. For various reasons, not all workloads can be migrated to the cloud.
However, a number of workloads have to be retained in the premises due to compliance and security concerns or even technical issues in the migration of applications to the cloud platform.
Cloud Migration Strategies for 2025
Cloud migration strategy is a critical first step for data center migration and helps data center teams run a smooth migration from premises data centers to cloud platform. The chosen cloud migration strategy can set the stage for a successful transition based on technical requirements, budget, and vision.
The following cloud migration strategies have gained immense popularity and continue to be successful in 2025.
Incremental Migration
Phased or incremental migration is the process in which the whole workload is not moved to the cloud in one go, but rather is gradually moved in smaller stages. Phased migration reduces the risk by ensuring the validity of each stage before proceeding further.
Usually, the less critical application is moved to the cloud first, then other workloads are incrementally moved, which are complex or more sensitive.
Migration in this manner helps provide a stable and secure way to move and also ensures good compliance. It also allows more time for teams to better tailor the process as needed.
Hybrid Migration
In a hybrid migration process, the migration involves both cloud-centric platforms and data centers which are based on premises. Hybrid Migration provides much more flexibility in which a business has the ability to keep some of their workloads on premise in cases where they are sensitive or need to maintain high compliance policies.
This can allow them to then move to the public or private cloud for other processes and procedures.
Big Bang Migration
The big bang approach means that the migration is implemented as a single task. In this case, all workloads, data and existing applications will be transferred to the cloud. The risk of this approach is greater compared to the others.
If not carried out with proper care and planning, the business operations can suffer. However, when a business needs a fast and quick exit from aging data centers, or needs to achieve time-critical transformation requirements, a strategy based on moving all assets to the cloud in a single wave can work well.
With the right migration plan, testing, and support after migration, a faster lift-and-shift can bring substantial value.
Application Modernization
Application modernization is a proactive cloud migration strategy when a business transforms and modernizes their legacy applications for the cloud. In this case, the business typically rewrites and re-architects their existing applications with the use of PaaS to make the applications cloud-native.
When legacy applications are modernized, the new applications are built to take full advantage of the capabilities in the cloud. This migration strategy allows the cloud platform to realize the maximum long-term value and potential of a cloud-based ecosystem.
Data-First Migration
When taking a data-first migration approach, a business initially migrates its data to the cloud, prior to migrating its applications. This is preferred by organizations with large, complex or sensitive data that requires specialized handling and treatment to preserve integrity, privacy and security/compliance standards.
With the data migrated and secured in the cloud, a company can more confidently move applications knowing that workloads are linked to centralized cloud data, which leads to less downtime and an easier application migration by eliminating data-related issues upfront.
Challenges in Cloud Migration
- Security and Compliance:Ensuring that the cloud setup adheres to regulations.
- Downtime Risks:Temporary service disruptions during migration.
- Cost Overruns:Without a clear migration plans, costs can escalate.
- Legacy Compatibility:Some existing applications may not be cloud-friendly.
Cloud Migration Best Practices
- Build a Detailed Migration Plan:Map dependencies and set timelines.
- Prioritize Security:Implement robust security and compliance protocols.
- Test before Full Migration:Minimize risks with pilot testing.
- Monitor Post-Migration:Ensure applications perform optimally.
- Train Your Team:Equip employees with cloud skills.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Cloud migration is the process of moving your workloads from on-premises data centers to the cloud for the benefit of flexibility, cost savings and scalability.
It’s important to know what is cloud migration, how does cloud migration work and to be aware of the various cloud migration strategies to help your business stay competitive in 2025.
Whether you are going for a lift and shift approach or will fully refactor legacy applications, a well-planned migration is key to a successful transition. With security and compliance in place, cloud services are the future of your business.
Looking for a cloud migration partner that can take your business on your cloud migration journey? Diggibyte is here to guide you along the way with expert consultation, smooth transition, and custom cloud services that align with your business objectives. Reach out to us today!
FAQs
1. Why is cloud migration important for businesses?
Cloud migration offers scalability, flexibility, cost savings, better security and compliance, and enables businesses to support remote work, automation, and global collaboration.
2. What are the common cloud migration strategies?
The main strategies include Lift and Shift, Replatforming, Refactoring, Repurchasing, Retiring, and Retaining, along with approaches like Incremental Migration, Hybrid Migration, and Data-First Migration.
3. What are the main challenges in cloud migration?
Common challenges include ensuring security and compliance, managing downtime risks, handling legacy application compatibility, and avoiding cost overruns without a proper migration plan.