Cloud Migration Tool Buyer’s Guide

Enterprise IT has encountered persistent roadblocks when moving to the public cloud, from grappling with an ever-changing list of security threats to a C-suite that may push back against prioritizing cloud migration as a mission-critical business component.

Therefore, many organizations take an approach where they start their journey to the public cloud with applications that can handle a lift-and-shift migration. In lift-and-shift migrations, a cloud migration tool typically delivers a full cloud and migration and data synchronization for source servers to public cloud VMs. Tools in this category take applications and servers as-is, and move them wholesale to the target environment.

Lift-and-shift migrations are appealing to enterprises because they are less complex and require fewer resources than a full-scale migration, a report by cloud consultancy Glasshouse said, which often necessitate the re-architecting of applications.

If you are considering a cloud migration, ITPro Today has launched a buyer’s guide to help you select the best cloud migration tool for your needs. The guide compares key features across seven cloud migration tool vendors who were responsive to our solicitation. Vendors did not pay for consideration in the buyer’s guide.

Related:10 Leading Public Cloud Migration Services Providers

In the guide, we consider factors such as which cloud and hypervisors are supported by the respective tools, so you can decide which are most compatible with your existing environment.

[For more complex cloud migrations, be sure to check out ITPro Today’s list of 10 leading public cloud migration services providers.]

“A consideration for migration should be compatibility of the cloud environment with existing applications. Part of simplifying the process is also the availability of automated tooling to migrate the applications,” Ovum analyst Roy Illsey said in Application Migration to the Cloud report last year. Illsey was consulted on the factors of comparison that we included in the buyer’s guide.

The guide also looks at how long migration projects can take with each tool, as well as information on prices, all so you will be armed with the information you need to approach your CFO.

“Beware of the cost of free because it comes with a lot of limitations,” RiverMeadow CEO Jim Jordan said. RiverMeadow is one of the vendors included in the buyer’s guide.

“When you’re going to the cloud, the longer it takes to get there, the worse your business case gets. Speed absolutely matters.”

Though time-to-market is an important factor for enterprises moving to the cloud, it is critical for enterprises to undergo proper pre-planning and testing ahead of the migration. As Glasshouse notes, while a cloud migration tool is “extremely valuable” it is not a silver-bullet to enterprise cloud migration.

“In reality, enterprise migration projects will incur a number of migration approaches, along with specific migration tools to satisfy migration use-cases, operational constraints, and business requirements,” Glasshouse said.

If you are moving your entire data center to the cloud, your migration will likely take some extra expertise in areas like networking or security. Some cloud migration tools are available with managed services, or the option to work with partners, to help manage a larger-scale project, noted in the buyer’s guide.

To compare seven cloud migration tool vendors against the critical factors when moving applications from on-premises to public cloud, download ITPro Today’s free buyer’s guide.