Cloud-to-Cloud Migration: Aarno contributed a technical article in iX Magazine

iX Magazine article: Cloud-to-Cloud Migration

Our CTO Aarno Aukia has contributed an article in iX Magazine 4/2019 on cloud-to-cloud migration.

The challenge of Cloud-to-Cloud Migration

There are many reasons to change the cloud provider or the cloud model. But migration is not an easy task. There are different migration options based on the underlying data.

• For different reasons, it may be necessary to change the cloud model or provider.
• There are different migration methods depending on the nature of the application being migrated.
• The use of open source products such as Docker and Kubernetes allows faster migration and vendor independence.

Mastering the Migration

By Aarno Aukia, published in iX Magazine 04/2019.   The question is no longer if, but which services should be used from a cloud and when, and which systems, services and applications are best suited for this purpose. By outsourcing infrastructure and operating services, companies can concentrate on their core competencies such as software development or core business processes. In addition to the personnel capacities freed up in the core areas, they also benefit from the agile provision of services through self-service, automation and pay-per-use. In order to survive in this dynamic world and to meet the expectations of application development and software operations, software development and operations today must work together according to DevOps principles and have a common goal in mind: customer benefit.   Before a company decides on a suitable cloud for its data and applications, it should be clear what the implications of the choice are. How can the use of open source in a company avoid vendor lock-in in the cloud? Which locations can the cloud provider offer? Is the preferred location included? Does the cloud provider offer all the technologies that are important? How big and reliable is the provider? And what happens if the provider no longer operates the cloud? Will the company be able to access its data without much effort?   When it comes to selecting a public or private cloud, it is usually the case that a public cloud offers more flexibility in terms of greater scalability, more functions and a larger selection of peripheral systems. Going private cloud is interesting for industries with high security requirements where environments need to be physically separated. But a private cloud can also be the cheaper alternative to the public cloud in the long term, especially if the required resources are more or less precisely determined in advance and no major performance peaks are to be expected as with the Christmas business.   For this reason, many large companies today use a multi-cloud strategy: depending on requirements, budget and long-term perspective, a public and/or private cloud is used.
The motives for choosing a cloud provider are different. Many users can access AWS, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure via inexpensive offers or test accesses. Others choose an alternative or regional provider because they value a nearby location and personal contact. Whatever the original decision, whether it was price, reliability, ease of access, security requirements or compatibility, the starting point may have changed in the meantime. Perhaps the architecture of the application or business requirements has changed in such a way that a change of vendor is necessary. Or the cloud provider’s decision requires it to look for alternatives.

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Read the full article in iX Magazine 04/2019 (in German).

About iX – Magazine for professional information technology

IX – Magazine for professional Information technology is a computer magazine founded in 1988 and published in German. According to its own description the name derives from the operating system Unix. The edition is published by Heise-Zeitschriften-Verlag. It has about 170 pages and is published monthly. The target group are professional administrators and programmers. In contrast to its sister journal c’t, the iX is mainly aimed at professional readers. The advertising slogan “Not everyone understands – which is also better” tries to sharpen this demarcation by forming an elite group of readers.