Lift and shift migration to the cloud: What is it and when is it worth it?

Moving IT infrastructure to the cloud is the future of almost every company. This process can seem extremely costly in both time and resources. However, if you choose the right strategy and method, migrating to the cloud doesn't have to be difficult at all and will bring invaluable benefits to your business. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to migrate your infrastructure is to move it from your existing on-premises environment to the cloud with little or no changes to applications and systems. This process is called the "Lift and Shift" approach.

What is lift and shift migration to the cloud?

Lift and shift migration is a cloud migration strategy that involves moving an application or system in its original state from an on-premises environment to a cloud environment. Lift and shift is a direct migration where the current virtual machine size matches the closest instance type in the cloud. The goal of a lift and shift migration is to get an application or system up and running quickly in the cloud. The application is "lifted" from its current environment and "moved" to the cloud without any significant changes to its architecture or code. This is also one of the main characteristics of lift and shift migration that differentiates it from other migration methods. In other approaches, making changes to the code or application architecture is an integral part of a successful migration.

The lift and shift approach does not involve decoupling the application from its operating system. It's about matching the compute, network and storage requirements of your existing application with the resources of the cloud platform.

Pure lift and shift - Migration without refactoring or redevelopment. It is sometimes called "rehosting".
Lift, shift & optimize - A migration that requires minimal effort to optimize, usually after the migration.

Lift and shift migration works best to meet tight migration deadlines and eliminates the complexity of data reorganization/restructuring. If you haven't yet migrated to the cloud, need to do it quickly, or have limited resources, be sure to read on. Lift and shift may just be the ideal strategy for you.

Benefits of lift and shift migration

The benefits that a lift and shift strategy can bring to your organisation are related to many factors. However, if you approach moving your infrastructure to the cloud consistently, it can bring you substantial benefits:

Speed

Because lift and shift migration involves moving an application or system as is, it is usually faster and less complex than other migration strategies. It can help organizations migrate their applications to the cloud quickly, minimizing downtime and business interruptions.

Cost efficiency

Lift and shift migration is usually cheaper than other migration strategies as it does not require extensive code or architecture changes, thus reducing development and testing costs.

Continuity

With lift and shift migration, end users are "minimally disturbed". The application or system they work with can be migrated to the cloud without affecting the day-to-day operations of the organisation.

Reduced risk

In some situations, lift and shift is less risky than recoding the application. Especially in cases where you don't have the resources to perform code updates without performance degradation.

Easier planning

Of course, any migration to the cloud requires planning, and lift and shift is no exception. However, it requires the least amount of project strategy and resources compared to other cloud migration strategies.

Lift and shift migration challenges

The benefits that lift and shift brings go hand in hand with other challenges. It is these that need to be considered when deciding whether a lift and shift strategy is ideal for your organisation.

Limited optimization

Since the application does not change significantly when moved to the cloud, it may not be fully optimized for the cloud environment. You can often lose the potential that the cloud brings with it.

Performance and latency

Legacy platforms and other applications that were originally hosted locally may run less efficiently or with higher latency when migrated to the cloud.

Security risks

The cloud environment brings new security challenges. When you move an application to the cloud as it is, rather than examining it for weaknesses beforehand, you also move any bugs or vulnerabilities. When such weaknesses make their way to the cloud, they can become significant security risks.

Unpredictable costs

Although proponents of lift and shift migration cite the relatively low cost of the migration process as one of its main advantages, most of the savings it brings are initial rather than long-term. In terms of ongoing costs, a migration strategy usually involves a shift from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx).

Lift and shift versus other migration methods

The drivers for choosing a cloud migration approach can be anything from using a least intrusive approach, application compatibility, risk management, ROI, performance requirements, etc. There are different types of cloud migration and then there are cloud migration strategies. The three categories of cloud migrations are:

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
Software as a service (SaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Lift and shift is an IaaS migrationbecause you are taking your on-premises application as it is and moving it to a new infrastructure - the cloud environment. Then you pay for the cloud infrastructure on a per-use basis.

Lift and shift vs. PaaS: PaaS migration involves significant effort in redesigning the application to fit into the platform offered by the service provider. Architecture changes may be required to accommodate new components or replace old components. Lift and shift migration, on the other hand, is simple and can be done immediately after analyzing the infrastructure support matrix in the cloud.

Lift and shift vs. SaaS: Migrating to SaaS is even more challenging because it's a migration from one application to another rather than a migration to the cloud. All aspects including access control, data management, security, etc. must be rethought and adapted to SaaS designs. Lift and shift, in contrast, provides the original application experience and often also uses the same authentication and security mechanisms that were used locally.

Use cases for lift and shift migration or when is lift and shift really worth it?

Lift and shift is not a "panacea" and even if you are in a time crunch or have limited resources it may not be the universal solution to your move to the cloud. However, there are a few key situations where lift and shift can be a much more viable strategy than alternative cloud migration models.

Lift and shift definitely consider if:

Want to move to the cloud applicationsthat businesses receive from third party suppliers and cannot be transcoded or otherwise change.
Are you using Legacy Appsthat were created before the cloud became common. These often cannot be refactored or replatformed to work more efficiently within a cloud architecture. However, most of these legacy system applications can work effectively when hosted in the cloud if you leave them as they are.
Want to migrate to the cloud local backup and recovery resources. This allows businesses to benefit from scalability and greater cost efficiency. However, refactoring or replatforming can affect the content of backups, so lift and shift will make more sense.
You run mission-critical applications such as local virtual machines (VMs). Migrating local VM tasks to VMs in the cloud that serve similar purposes is relatively straightforward. In contrast, setting up cloud native VMs from scratch is a complicated process.
Getting started with cloud adoption. Lift and shift may be a suitable initial strategy because of its relative simplicity.
You have to maintain its local existing infrastructure for sensitive workloadsbut you want to start using the cloud. Using lift and shift to kick-start the implementation of a hybrid cloud deployment can be the ideal way to do this.
Yours local infrastructure costs are skyrocketingbut you're not quite ready to rebuild your apps yet. In this case, it may be worth "parking" your applications in the cloud for a short time until you are ready or able to rebuild.

Lift and shift is sometimes the best migration model, but the right cloud transformation strategy varies by company, workload, and use case. The best way to achieve cloud benefits and cost savings is to use the fastest and cheapest cloud strategy that doesn't compromise either performance or capabilities in the long term.

Interested in Lift and Shift migration to the cloud?

Did you find yourself in one of the described use cases of lift and shift migration to the cloud? Want to know if a lift and shift strategy would be a good fit for your organization? Feel free to contact us to arrange a no-obligation consultation.

Conclusion

Lift and shift migration is a popular method of moving applications to the cloud. It offers several benefits, including cost reduction, increased agility, and easy scalability. However, it also comes with some challenges, such as limited optimization and security concerns.

At Aspect we have experience with migration to the cloud and we know that every organisation has different needs. Our experienced cloud team of more than 30 experts can help you evaluate your current infrastructure and determine the best cloud strategy for your organization. We can help you prepare for migration, design your cloud environment, and plan and execute your migration with minimal disruption. Our security experts can also help identify security issues and ensure your application is secure during and after the migration.

If you are considering migrating to the cloud, contact us today to find out more about our services and how we can help you.