Best Cloud Migration Software
Cloud migration software helps companies upgrade systems and update data by assisting in the relocation of files through the cloud. These solutions, also referred to as migration tools, often provide features for data encryption, data backup, and documentation for migration records on both a systemwide and file-specific level. They often integrate with entire classes of software such as enterprise content management (ECM), or they’re geared towards products for SharePoint migration and Office 365 migration.
Most migration tools can transfer large pools of calendars, contacts, documents, and communications to cloud applications or storage tools. Successfully utilizing a cloud migration tool can save IT departments significant time and simplify future cloud data integration practices. They can also simplify the organization, consolidation, and integration of a wide range of data types.
To qualify for inclusion in the Cloud Migration category, a product must:
Best Cloud Migration Software At A Glance
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Salesforce Platform is the leading low-code development platform that empowers your team to build and extend your Customer 360 with AI, automation, and data. With the Salesforce Platform, you can exec
Salesforce is a cloud-based platform designed for managing customer data, automating workflows, and creating custom user interfaces. Users frequently mention the platform's high level of customization, its ability to integrate with other tools, and its robust reporting and dashboard capabilities as key benefits. Users reported issues with the platform's complexity, particularly for new users, its high cost, especially for smaller teams, and occasional performance issues.
580,855 Twitter followers
All cloud migrations start with MigrationWiz, a fully automated, 100% SaaS migration solution that can be accessed at any time from anywhere. Sign up, configure, and initiate mailbox, document, person
483 Twitter followers
Cloudiway is a comprehensive Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform designed to facilitate seamless cloud migrations and ensure enterprise coexistence. It enables organizations to efficiently transfer
819 Twitter followers
With webMethods.io Integration, it’s never been easier to connect your SaaS apps. A powerful integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS), it provides a combination of capabilities offered by ESBs, data
708,744 Twitter followers
AvePoint is the global leader in data security, governance, and resilience, going beyond traditional solutions to ensure a robust data foundation and enable organizations everywhere to collaborate wit
AvePoint Confidence Platform is a data protection and management tool that offers backup, restore, governance, and compliance capabilities for cloud environments. Users frequently mention the platform's ease of use, reliable backup and restore process, comprehensive data governance, and the ability to manage everything through a single pane of glass as key benefits. Users reported issues such as the platform timing out too soon, difficulty in reinstating large files, complexity in initial setup and configuration, and occasional performance issues like slow restores or lag.
9,777 Twitter followers
Operations Hub connects, cleanses, and automates customer data across the HubSpot CRM, providing operations teams with tools to maintain data quality, ensure system integration, and streamline busines
786,179 Twitter followers
The BigQuery Data Transfer Service automates data movement from SaaS applications to Google BigQuery on a scheduled, managed basis.
31,775,247 Twitter followers
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions makes cloud adoption fast and easy, allowing you to optimize the value of existing on-premises infrastructure, while confidently leveraging the same tools, technologies
708,744 Twitter followers
Rivery's SaaS platform provides a unified solution for ELT pipelines, workflow orchestration, and data operations. Achieve more with less and create the most efficient, scalable data stack for your or
101,340 Twitter followers
Azure Database Migration Service is designed as a seamless, end-to-end solution for moving on-premises SQL Server databases to the cloud.
13,088,482 Twitter followers
Open source email server and solutions from Proofpoint
31,106 Twitter followers
Azure Migrate helps you to discover and assess the suitability of on-premises machines for migration to Azure, and provides sizing and cost estimates for running Azure VMs.
13,088,482 Twitter followers
AWS Database Migration Service helps you migrate databases to AWS quickly and securely. The source database remains fully operational during the migration, minimizing downtime to applications that rel
2,220,162 Twitter followers
AWS Import/Export Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport solution that uses secure appliances to transfer large amounts of data into and out of the AWS cloud and addresses common challenges with
2,220,162 Twitter followers
Learn More About Cloud Migration Software
What is Cloud Migration Software?
Cloud migration is defined as the transfer of a company’s digital operations from legacy systems to the cloud. It also includes the movement of data from one cloud type to another. Although the concept of migration remains the same, there is no actual physical movement of the operations; here data, applications, and IT processes are moved or migrated into the cloud.
To understand the need for cloud migration software, understanding legacy infrastructure is key. A legacy product is an outdated hardware or software system that is still used by companies. Although these products are supported by their vendors in terms of upgrades, software additions, and other features, they are not very efficient. These systems could potentially slow down the business operations, and cause data breaches since security is not stellar. Such issues cause a company to lag behind rather than move forward.
Legacy software can become unreliable and lose support from vendors (also known as end-of-life) who may not issue any more updates for the product. For example, In May 2021, Microsoft announced that they have decided to retire Internet Explorer in 2022 after more than 25 years of it being operational. The move was made due to two reasons—the statistics which show very few users on IE search engine, and in favor of their new product Microsoft Edge. In this situation, IE is a legacy software in which the vendor has decided to stop support. Businesses that have older, legacy websites are being moved onto the newer browser.
Legacy infrastructure such as servers, storage, networking equipment, and others form the hardware portion of IT infrastructure. These are usually situated on premises, which is normally located at the company’s own premises or building. By having all IT infrastructure on premises, companies are losing out on the numerous benefits that cloud computing has to offer.
To experience cloud computing, firms are moving smaller workloads and applications to understand the benefits first. Migration tools assists firms on their cloud computing journey to begin the migration of their workloads to the cloud.
These are some basic steps that organizations need to understand in order to move to the cloud:
Define goals: A firm should ideally outline and define the goals that they expect to achieve from migrating to the cloud. They should have answers to concerns such as what benefits they will achieve from databases or applications migrating to the cloud, and if these are small workloads or the most critical ones? By asking these questions, a firm can easily design a roadmap for cloud migration plans.
Invest in cybersecurity: Keeping data secure is the need of the hour. When moving to the cloud, the firm needs to ensure a strong security plan in place, to prevent hacks, data breaches. This is because on-premises security differs significantly from cloud security. Deploying a web application firewall or a cloud firewall is a necessary practice.
Copying database: This is also known as replicating databases and applications. The replication process needs to be performed throughout the database migration process so that the data is up to date till its last version.
Production switch: Firms should move any final processes to the cloud, and then the cloud goes live. This marks the end of the migration process.
What Types of Cloud Migration Software Exist?
The following types of cloud migration are also known as the “6 R’s” of cloud migration:
Lift and shift or rehost
This is one of the fastest cloud migration types. In this type, the software being used remains the same but not in the cloud (applications are “lifted” from legacy infrastructure, and “shifted” to the cloud). This method has the lowest upfront costs. This type of cloud migration software allows firms to move out of their data centers and stop managing hardware.
Lift and optimize or replatform
This type of cloud migration is an extension of the rehost type. In this, OS and APIs are optimized during lifting and shifting. Alterations to the code base are minimal and are primarily meant for enhancing the cloud benefits and reshaping the source environment.
Shifting to SaaS or drop and shop or repurchase
In shifting to SaaS, companies identify workloads and applications that are outsourced to SaaS vendors that specialize in these applications. This type is dependent on the application and therefore runs on a case-by-case basis. A good example of applications that can be shifted to SaaS are email applications or moving CRM applications to Salesforce.
Refactoring
Refactoring is also known as rearchitecting. Under this type, legacy applications can be entirely designed again to be supported in a cloud environment. The applications are replicated and moved into the cloud. This is the most low-risk option since companies can still use the legacy application till the replication and movement to the cloud are done. Although refactoring is the most expensive option, it's most suited for future usage.
Retain or hybrid model
In this type, a firm identifies that it does not need to move all applications to the cloud at that point in time, or only needs to move a few of them. Firms can choose to retain their components on IT infrastructure. This could happen for a variety of reasons, sometimes the company may not be ready to move to the cloud, or there can be security reasons, governmental regulations, and several others.
Retire
This involves identifying and shutting down those applications that will not cause any impact on efficiency and productivity. Parts of IT infrastructure can be decommissioned or archived as per importance, and replaced by other services or software.
What are the Common Features of Cloud Migration Software?
The following are some core features within cloud migration software that can help users in several ways:
Cloud services support: This is the key feature of using cloud migration services. A cloud migration tool should support several common cloud services such as OneDrive, Google Drive, and other functionalities. Supporting several cloud services will give a company more leeway to choose a cloud provider for its business needs.
Migrate among different environments: A good feature for cloud migration tools to have is complete support between physical, cloud-based, or virtual environments. This indicates that a cloud migration tool can migrate software not only from on-premises to the cloud but also between different cloud environments as per business requirements.
Smart features: A cloud migration software that can identify and solve blockades without the need for any human intervention is a good feature. For example, when transferring data between two cloud environments, file transfer and speed are of the essence, which is controlled by the service provider. A good cloud migration tool should be set up to allow or disallow special characters, file types, file sizes, and others based on requirements.
Built-in testing: Some cloud migration software provide in-built testing. From this feature, a buyer can validate all the data and confirm, and only then decide to move the data. Data or software can be diagnosed before migration, to ensure no issues are found during the migration process or after.
Continuous data replication: Cloud migration tools should be able to support and perform continuous data replication of a company’s data. This is to ensure that only the latest and most valid data is being migrated to the cloud, and there are no gaps or patches in the data.
Live transfer: This feature is an extension of continuous data replication. In this, live transfer of data indicates the migration of active servers without any need to take them offline.
Visual tools: Cloud migration software provides a single-pane-of-view software for its user. The user obtains complete visibility into the migration process and workflows. Application, services, workloads, and others can all be tracked and monitored. Data center information is tracked to ensure migration is useful and beneficial for the company. Some cloud migration services also support the creation of reports and dashboard analytics for effective IT infrastructure management.
What are the Benefits of Cloud Migration Software?
Assist in cloud migration: Cloud migration software is developed and used to take care of a business’s cloud computing needs and functionalities. Whether shifting from on premises to public, private, or hybrid cloud, or between cloud to cloud environments, using migration software will help to move the data and workloads seamlessly and ensure optimization. The numerous benefits of moving to cloud computing, such as low infrastructure costs, faster deployment times, reduced data footprint, automatic backup support, enhanced computing, scalability, and several other reasons are compelling firms to move to cloud environments, and cloud migration tools can help support this movement.
Speed up application deployment: Cloud migration is taken up by various organizations in order to speed up application deployment. Since there is no need for on-premises infrastructure, businesses can skip steps such as purchasing the right servers, installing OS, uptime or downtime of data centers, and others. The company has the freedom to immediately migrate into the cloud via the software, and begin working without being concerned about additional tasks and costs.
Combination and deployment: Most cloud migration software has dual benefits—they can combine data from various sources within the enterprise and move this data to the cloud data center selected. A firm does not need to invest in other additional software to combine data.
Security support: Cloud migration solutions offer several security restrictions. These have been put in place to ensure that data, processes, systems, and other applications being migrated are safeguarded during the migration process.
Develop a migration hub: Cloud migration tools also support the creation of a hub. This hub acts as a central point for different stakeholders to start, execute, and track the migration activity. The hub also ensures that compliance is maintained with migrations.
Planning and analysis: Several cloud migration tools can now analyze business data, and suggest best practices to deploy and organize it. The tool can be used to plan, analyze, and derive cloud cost models, which supports the organization’s team to make data-driven and well-informed business decisions.
Who Uses Cloud Migration Software?
Migration architect: A migration architect is the main persona who will lead the cloud migration project. At the system level, the migration architect will be responsible for planning the migration and oversee the entire process till project completion. The architect will need to define necessary refactoring required, design migration plans and strategies, and migration priorities.
Database architects: As data is being migrated into the cloud, database architects can use the software to ensure that the right databases are being migrated and that there are no issues and gaps in the data migration process. Database architects will closely work with cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to develop and design resilient plans for database migration. They act as a support team for the implementation project.
IT teams: The IT team of the organization will primarily oversee the cloud migration project, hence will be on hands with the software. This team will need to ensure business requirements (such as budgets, SLAs, KPIs are being met), devise long-term IT strategy plans, and identify operational requirements.
Cloud service providers: Cloud service providers can offer cloud migration options. The cloud being migrated too needs to be reliable, scalable, consistent, and available as required. Some of the biggest names in cloud platforms include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud, and several others.
Business owners: Migrating from on-premises infrastructure to cloud or even between clouds is an investment decision. Business owners need to ensure that there is a significant return on investment (ROI) in the long run, and hence are deeply involved with the cloud migration process. Business owners need to observe the total cost of ownership (TCO) in order to support a business case for migration.
Challenges with Cloud Migration Software
Cloud migration software services can come with their own set of challenges.
Migration of large databases: One of the main challenges that the software faces is the huge task of moving large workloads and databases to the cloud. In order to function in the cloud, several times databases need to be moved to another platform to ensure optimized and efficient cloud computing capabilities. Moving large data sets into or between clouds is a time-consuming task since massive databases take a long time to move via the internet. Cloud migration, therefore, is a time-consuming activity for large databases.
Ensuring business continuity in real time: A downtime for any organization can cost billions of dollars if not brought back to working capacity well in time. Sectors like banking, healthcare, stock markets, and others cannot afford downtime, which could cause drastic negative impacts. In such a situation, cloud migration services need to be able to support migrating applications into the cloud platforms in real time, without impacting business continuity. The migration service should be able to work in the background supporting data transfer to the cloud, as employees continue working on their daily functions.
Costs for migration: Although moving to cloud computing will help in reducing costs, the costs associated with using migration software are significant. Some of the main costs include rewriting legacy application architecture to suit the cloud, investment costs associated with people and tools to ensure migration happens smoothly, bandwidth costs, training costs, licensing costs, and several others.
Cloud sprawl: One of the biggest challenges that companies face is that in the excitement of moving to the cloud, they end up moving entire databases and applications without having a plan in place. This leads to cloud sprawl, wherein an organization does not have a complete view of all the cloud infrastructure during migration. This happens because the organization is migrating several cloud instances, providers, services, and therefore is unable to view or maintain accountability for all cloud components.
How to Buy Cloud Migration Software
Choosing a cloud migration software is an extremely important task when embarking on a cloud transformation journey. The best cloud migration tool will ensure that all the requirements of migrating to the cloud are met, the data has been safely moved, processes have been streamlined and the firm can continue business processes without any halts or negative impacts. However, there are a few important steps that need to be taken before choosing a cloud migration software:
Develop a plan of action: This is the key step before embarking on a cloud migration plan. Having an understanding of the present position and what is to be achieved from this migration will help the buyer in defining KPIs such as response time, compute usage, memory usage, and others. This plan outlines what are the goals of the migration to be accomplished. KPIs that were developed for application in legacy infrastructure might not apply once the migration is completed, hence illuminating the best KPIs is important in this step. In addition, the plan needs to be holistic—account for several factors such as timelines, priorities, funding, resource availability, and others.
Identify applications to be moved: A company needs to do a deep dive into all their applications, workloads, software, and services to identify which of them need to be migrated. It is not necessary that all the applications need to be moved in one shot or need to be moved at all. Some applications might perform better on a public cloud than a private cloud or even on legacy infrastructure—identifying such differences is key. It is good to ask questions such as—is a redesign of applications required and if yes, what is the level of complexity required, which is the best cloud environment for different applications, does the cloud service provider also provide cloud migration capabilities, and so on. Answering these questions will help determine what should or shouldn't be migrated.
Identify the cloud service provider: Choosing the right cloud provider is a necessary step since these providers will help to guide during the migration process. The provider should support cloud migration at a global scale if required at a later point in time. In addition, the buyer needs to choose a single cloud provider or if they plan to go multi or hybrid cloud.
Ensuring data security: As the data transfer process happens, it could be a potential point of security and data breaches, causing a company’s data to be accessed by unknown parties. Managing this risk is crucial.
Execute cloud migration: Once the above steps are completed, the migration process can begin. Migration will depend on the complexity of the architecture of applications, data, workloads, and others.
Once the above steps have been completed, firms can opt for a cloud migration software that will help them achieve their cloud computing requirements.
Compare Cloud Migration Software Products
Create a long list
This step involves creating a long list of cloud migration software providers that assist buyers on their cloud migration journey. Some key factors to consider include system automation, tracking server volumes, efficiently managing a company’s database, striving to minimize downtime, security support, data privacy, and others. Some other features include monitoring capabilities and alert systems. The best cloud migration tools help to move and synchronize files during the entire migration process. Some tools may also have disaster recovery and error and bug tracing as a feature; some are complex while others offer very basic services.
Create a short list
Once the long list of cloud monitoring tools has been identified, it is time to remove software that does not meet all the business criteria. For this, it is important to fall back on the assessment made earlier on what is to be done before choosing a migration service. Based on the assessment, buyers can further shorten their list and only choose those software vendors that meet all the business requirements.
Conduct demos
Once the list has been reduced to a couple of vendors, buyers may begin to request a demo. The demo will give them an idea of how the cloud migration software will work once the actual process begins, and the time required to move applications to the cloud. Having a demo on resources and applications is a good way to ensure the best fit. At this step, the buyer should ask several questions to the vendor as to the benefits, after-service support, staff training, and other additional features that can be provided.
Selection of Cloud Migration Software
Choose a selection team
Choosing the right team to work together on choosing cloud migration software is a critical part of the process. This team will be in charge of identifying pain points to finally overseeing the entire implementation and migration process. The team should include a mix of different personas who have the required skills, interest, and time. Some roles include project manager, system owner, decision makers, and others. From the technical team, there should be an IT admin, a cloud admin or engineer, and a technical lead.
Negotiation
When choosing cloud migration software, bringing in negotiation factors is very important especially on pricing and licensing. When migrating to the cloud, some software publishers allow buyers to move licenses from on premises to the cloud or between cloud environments. But this might not always be the case, which could put the buyers at a non compliance risk for the remainder of the contract and would require purchasing a cloud license for specific software. Hence, it is important to negotiate to include possible additional costs that might come in for the remainder of the contract. Other ways to negotiate include opting for multi-year contracts.
Final decision
Once all the steps are complete, the final decision is made weighing all factors and scenarios. Cloud migration providers can try to move smaller applications first for a small set of sample users. Based on this feedback, it can be used for enterprise-wide cloud migration.
Cloud Migration Software Trends
Cloud plans are being expedited or extended—no slow down in investments
Companies are investing significantly in their cloud migration plans in order to differentiate from competitors and support cost-effective practices. IT leaders are expediting their cloud adoption plans to enable a remote workforce but also secure data value.
From migration to modernization
Earlier, migration and modernization were viewed as two separate strategies. The conversation now is not just around how to migrate to the cloud, but also on how to modernize applications once migrated. Using an end-to-end method to accelerate modernization activities is a growing trend observed. Several vendors are now looking at identifying software providers and partners that are focused on migrating workloads in addition to modernizing legacy applications to the cloud.
