Should You Modernize During or After a Migration to the Cloud? 

Many organizations take the opportunity to modernize legacy workloads, databases, and applications when executing a large-scale migration. Migrating and modernizing go together nicely, as organizations can move away from on-premises IT and make vital improvements to architecture. Many legacy applications weren’t built to scale, so simple lift-and-shift migrations often don’t fulfill business requirements for the modern age. Modernization projects help close this gap.

Some of the biggest reasons why companies modernize IT include:

• Optimizing performance to satisfy current and future customers
• Accelerating business transformation to keep pace with market changes
• Optimizing costs by right-sizing resources to usage
• Unlocking full cloud potential by taking advantage of cutting-edge technologies
• Increasing agility and innovation by leveraging unlimited compute and storage
• Boosting security and compliance by keeping up with the latest patches and practices

Businesses in every industry are modernizing IT to achieve one, several, or all of these goals. For organizations yet to modernize legacy IT, now is the time to consider such a project. And one of the biggest questions to answer is when to modernize – during or after a migration?

The right choice depends on several factors, such as the executive team’s overarching priorities and existing IT cloud capabilities. Timeline and budget are also important considerations, as both will vary depending on the approach. Below, we summarize the two main processes — migrate then modernize or modernize to migrate — and share modernization planning best practices so that IT leaders can choose the correct path.

Migrate Then Modernize vs. Modernize to Migrate

The Migrate Then Modernize approach is a two-step process. It’s more common than the one-step Modernize to Migrate process and is often a better fit for smaller organizations or for those still developing their cloud capabilities. Under this approach, companies first migrate their workloads to the cloud before any modernization work takes place. Once in the cloud, modernization projects are easier, as everything is already where it needs to be before updates are made. Many IT leaders like this option for its decreased complexity, especially when they are executing other cloud initiatives and IT projects at the same time. It does, however, tend to be slower than the one-step approach.

The Modernize to Migrate approach is a one-step process that creates value faster, so long as organizations can handle the added complexity. In an ideal world, all organizations would be able to go down this path. However, it’s not the right fit for teams with limited cloud experience. Under this model, teams modernize workloads during the migration process, so that once workloads are in the cloud, there is no need to come back for modernization work. Modernizing and migrating happen concurrently, making it a more efficient, yet more complicated journey.

Planning for a Modernization

All modernization projects require careful planning and clear direction. We recommend three best practices:

• Audit the existing portfolio of assets
• Define enterprise objectives and KPIs
• Create a roadmap and timeline

Companies preparing to modernize should conduct a comprehensive review of their portfolio, identifying all workloads and resources that will move to the cloud. Here, it’s useful to highlight similarities and dependencies across application stacks and then address these resources as a group when migrating and modernizing.

It’s also crucial to articulate what a successful modernization looks like for your organization. The more detail the better, as this enables migration and modernization teams to measure success against tangible goals, timelines, and budgets. It’s easier to set these metrics after conducting a thorough portfolio analysis and getting a sense of what the tech stack could look like after it’s rebuilt in the cloud.

With a strong understanding of the current state of IT and clear goals for the future, it’s now possible to create a realistic roadmap and timeline based on your budget. Every company’s migration and modernization journey will look different. What’s most important is that companies are set up for success, which comes from careful planning and execution.

Modernize During or After Cloud Migration with ClearScale and AWS

ClearScale has helped hundreds of companies execute migration and modernization projects. As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with 12 AWS competencies, including the Migration competency, we know how to guide teams through the process of moving and updating legacy workloads for AWS.

We lead our customers through the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), a proven methodology that helps companies get to the cloud faster, improve performance, and optimize costs. We can execute both one-step and two-step modernizations depending on the client’s goals, budget, and timeline. By involving our expert cloud engineers, companies lower their execution risk significantly while building cloud expertise for the long term.

For example, we helped one client in the marketing technology space migrate 6,000+ servers, 12 data centers, and 8 full-stack applications to AWS in just 10 months. Our team modernized workloads along the way and set the company up to leverage new billing models, accelerate time-to-market for new features, and avoid expensive renewal fees tied to legacy IT contracts. Rather than worry about the actual migration and modernization work, the in-house team was able to focus on how to take full advantage of the cloud with its updated IT ecosystem.

Considering a migration to AWS? Download a copy of our co-branded eBook with AWS – Mastering Cloud Migration: An AWS and ClearScale Guide.

Then, let’s see if you could also benefit from a modernization project. Schedule a consultation with us to share your business requirements and learn more about your options.

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