Replatforming is a crucial step for modernizing applications and infrastructure. This cloud migration strategy involves modifying an existing application or workload to run in the cloud without having to rewrite its core architecture. It could be a good option for organizations that want the benefits of cloud, such as improved performance, elastic computing, and redundancy, but don’t want the cost and complexity of rewriting code.
By providing applications with cloud-native functionality, this migration approach allows you to leverage cloud capabilities such as auto-scaling, managed storage, and infrastructure as code (IaC) to boost productivity and innovation. Since it doesn’t require major redevelopment, it can also be a cost-effective migration approach. Refactoring, on the other hand, requires making changes to an existing application at the code level, which is typically more costly and complex.
Google Cloud databases are built to work in the cloud, and features like elastic computing, containers, microservice architectures, cloud storage, and cloud security can help you replatform applications to leverage core cloud capabilities. Here are five steps for success when replatforming in the cloud:
1. Start with a comprehensive assessment
Before a cloud migration, it’s important to first assess and identify which applications and workloads are best suited for replatforming to Google Cloud. For instance, you’ll need to assess whether the application is compatible with Google Cloud; in some cases, refactoring or re-architecting may be the better option.
If the workload is compatible, determine its complexity, its compliance requirements, its criticality to your business operations, and how ready it is for the cloud. What are the system and network-to-network dependencies? How much downtime can it handle? Does it comply with your security, compliance, and governance requirements? Understanding dependencies, performance metrics, and technical requirements can help to smooth the migration process.
2. Optimize for Google Cloud’s native services
During this phase, you’ll want to make sure your environment is optimized before migrating anything to the cloud—though optimization is an ongoing process as your environment continually evolves. Replatforming isn’t going to fix any existing software flaws, so those should be fixed before the migration process or you’ll simply migrate the same issues over into a new environment. You’ll also want to look for and remove any duplicated code to reduce inconsistencies and errors.
You can use monitoring tools (either from Google or third-party vendors) to analyze resource consumption and match those needs with instance type. Look to minimize any dependencies, reduce compliance challenges, and configure automatic scaling, which scales resources to match demand. Automated tools can help to ensure consistency throughout this process.
3. Prioritize security and compliance from the start
You’ll want to consider security and compliance early in the replatforming process to protect data and maintain compliance. That includes identifying and classifying sensitive data, enforcing authentication rules, and encrypting all data before transferring it to the cloud. Google Cloud’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) provides fine-grained policies that can help you manage access and control resources. While data at rest is encrypted by default, Google Cloud also encrypts and authenticates data in transit at one or more network layers.
For sensitive data, consider a phased migration approach instead of migrating everything all at once and conduct regular vulnerability scans. Google Cloud Security Command Center (SCC) can help you detect, investigate, and respond to security threats during the migration process via a centralized dashboard.
4. Design for performance and scalability
Architect applications for optimal performance and scalability by leveraging Google Cloud’s autoscaling, load balancing, and monitoring capabilities. For example, Google Cloud autoscaling automatically adds or removes virtual machine (VM) instances from a managed instance group (MIG) in response to load changes. Google Cloud also offers several load balancer options for the migration process, which can dynamically distribute traffic across resources.
There are a number of tools in the Google Cloud ecosystem to help monitor the migration process. Google Cloud Observability provides integrated monitoring, logging, and trace services for applications and systems on Google Cloud, including Cloud Logging, Log Analytics, and Cloud Monitoring. You can also use monitoring metrics to configure autoscaling.
5. Validate, test, and optimize continuously
Rigorous testing, validation, and performance tuning throughout the replatforming process helps to ensure your application is running as intended in the new environment. Testing can identify and fix any bugs, which in turn can reduce the risk of slow performance or system failures.
Google Cloud has several tools for continuous monitoring, feedback, and optimization. For example, Google’s Cloud Monitoring offers automatic out-of-the-box metric collection dashboards for Google Cloud services, including hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and integrates metrics and metadata with default dashboards. Google Cloud Observability is a platform that provides end-to-end visibility into application performance, configuration, and operation, including components to monitor, troubleshoot, and improve application performance.
Next steps
By doing a comprehensive assessment, optimizing for cloud native services, prioritizing security and compliance, designing for performance and scalability, and validating, testing, and optimizing continuously, you can set your organization up for a successful replatforming in Google Cloud. However, migrations can be complicated, especially if you don’t have in-house resources. That’s where a Google Cloud partner like Pythian can help, with a deep bench of expertise and experience that can guide you in finding the best migration path for your applications and workloads.
Reach out to Pythian for expert guidance on your replatforming journey!
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