What is a Cloud Migration Strategy? 6’Rs, Phases, Best Practices

• DevOps
• March 8, 2025

by Rushi Patel

Cloud migration strategies have become the base for the digital transformation of most businesses across industries. However, many businesses still face difficulties in the cloud migration process. This blog will help you understand various cloud migration strategies, processes, types, and best practices to ensure a seamless transition to the cloud.

Over time, business areas have increasingly recognized the cloud’s value proposition, especially during events like the pandemic and the acceleration of digital transformation.

In enterprise technology, cloud computing has become the largest value enabler. An analysis of cloud adoption by Forbes Global 2000 companies, conducted by McKinsey, reveals that these companies could collectively generate approximately $3 trillion in value from using cloud-based solutions by 2030.

The increasing adoption of the cloud is evidenced by the growth of cloud computing services, which generated more than 723.42 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2025. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years as more enterprises become aware of digital transformation and the role cloud migration plays in it.

To successfully adopt cloud technology, enterprises must begin with a tailored cloud migration strategy that aligns with both their cloud transition goals and business requirements. So, let us understand more about the cloud migration strategy in detail.

What is a Cloud Migration Strategy?

A cloud migration strategy is a well-defined plan for transferring data, applications, IT processes, services, or any digital assets/resources of an organization from existing on-premises or co-located infrastructure to the cloud. 

These cloud migration strategies address the critical question of how to move your digital assets to the cloud. Since every business has unique reasons and requirements for migration, there cannot be a one-size-fits-all cloud migration plan.

However, having a cloud migration strategy in place provides crucial assistance during the process. These cloud migration strategies are commonly referred to as the 6 R’s strategies. 

Before diving into them, let’s understand why having a cloud migration strategy is beneficial. Here are the benefits of cloud migration strategies:

• Cloud migration eliminates upfront infrastructure costs and reduces ongoing maintenance expenses.
• Businesses can instantly scale resources and capacity to match usage needs or fluctuating demands without hardware limitations.
• Cloud platforms offer faster load times and global access through optimized infrastructure.
• Leading CSPs (cloud service providers) deliver built-in, enterprise-grade cloud security and compliance tools.
• Automated backups and disaster recovery ensure minimal downtime and data loss.
• Cloud services support rapid development, testing, and deployment of new digital solutions and products.
• Teams can securely access data, applications, and platforms from anywhere, enabling flexibility.
• Cloud environments streamline communication and real-time collaboration across teams eliminating silos.

What are the 6 R’s of Cloud Migration Strategy?

For this, most businesses adopt one or a combination of the popular 6R types of cloud migration strategies based on what’s suitable for their requirements. Let’s explore these cloud migration techniques in detail.

Rehost (Lift and Shift)

Also known as “lift and shift,” the rehost cloud migration technique involves “lifting” your existing data assets from your current infrastructure and “shifting” them to the cloud. Since the existing data set is replicated and transferred to the cloud, this migration causes minimal changes (and quickest ROI) to the architecture, ensuring continuity without the immediate need for reengineering.

When to use the rehost cloud migration strategy:

• Ideal for non-critical applications with a simple architecture
• Suitable for migrating difficult-to-modify legacy systems
• Leverages the cloud without the immediate need for re-architecting applications
• Useful when there is a need to move to the cloud rapidly with minimal disruption

Though this type of cloud migration strategy enables your business to benefit from minimal downtime and the least complex migration, you would not be able to leverage cloud-native features like scalability and elasticity since the application would run just as it does in the on-premises infrastructure. 

Given the involvement of minimal modifications, it would incur lower upfront costs, but you may not be able to optimize resource utilization, which could lead to higher costs in the long run.

Replatform (Lift and Reshape)

Unlike the previous type of cloud migration strategy, if you are looking to make some modifications or optimizations(mostly configurational) to a software application without changing its core architecture to improve its performance in the cloud, then re-platforming is the right cloud migration technique for you. These optimizations could include upgrading databases, changing middleware, adjusting configurations, and more.

When to use the replatform cloud migration strategy:

• Suitable for applications that need better scalability and flexibility
• Need to make improvements to your application to enhance performance
• Want to leverage cloud-native features like managed services, auto-scaling, and more

Replatforming would enable you to leverage various native-cloud features that enhance your application or platform’s performance and scalability, but may not unlock the full potential of cloud computing for complex applications.

Refactor/Re-architect

Refactoring enables you to make significant changes or even completely redesign your existing application architecture to maximize cloud benefits such as scalability, resilience, and cost efficiency. This type of cloud migration strategy goes beyond rehosting and platforming as it allows you to fully utilize cloud-native features and capabilities like microservices architecture, serverless computing, and more.

When to use the refactor cloud migration strategy:

• When maximizing scalability, performance, and agility are crucial
• Organizations aiming to optimize costs over the long term
• Suitable for applications with complex architectures
• Ideal for applications that require significant modernization

By enabling a complete redesign of your application, including architecture, this strategy offers significant improvements in performance, responsiveness, and adaptability to evolving business needs. However, it is a complex cloud migration strategy that requires considerable time and investment.

Additionally, it may increase the risk of encountering issues during the software development phases when redesigning the app or platform.

Repurchase

Repurchase, also known as “Drop and Shop,” is a cloud migration strategy where you “drop” the existing on-premises application and “shop” for a commercially available or pre-built cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) platform to move it. This approach is also known as “SaaSification” due to its focus on adopting subscription-based SaaS solutions.

When to use the repurchase cloud migration strategy:

• When the current application is outdated and lacks modern features
• Applications that are not core to your business functionality
• If your primary goal is reducing IT management costs
• When there is a need for rapid deployment, and a SaaS solution is readily available

Repurchasing would offer you potentially lower overall costs, faster implementation, automatic updates, robust security, scalability, flexibility, improved UI, and more. 

While integrating the new SaaS solution into the existing infrastructure may add complexity, an off-the-shelf SaaS solution has limitations when it comes to the level of customization. Also, due to vendor lock-in, switching to a new CSP can be complex and time-consuming.

Retire

As the name suggests, this cloud migration technique involves decommissioning or discontinuing applications or digital assets that are either no longer necessary or relevant for organizational operations based on the assessment of existing applications for cloud readiness. Obsolete systems are identified and eliminated in a phased manner to ensure that no critical functionalities are disrupted.

When to use the retire cloud migration strategy:

• Applications that are no longer used by the organization
• Outdated systems that do not support current business operations
• IT assets that consume resources without providing commensurate business value
• Systems that pose security risks
• Applications that do not comply with current regulatory requirements

By decommissioning such existing apps or IT assets, you can eliminate maintenance and cloud resource usage costs, reduce potential security vulnerabilities, and focus resources on strategic applications.

Remember that retiring applications is a strategic decision requiring adopting a systematic approach involving inventory assessment, identifying applications to be retired, data backup and archiving, and continuous decommission monitoring.

Retain

Retaining is a cloud migration strategy where you, upon evaluating the existing on-premises architecture and applications, decide which ones to keep in the current environment and not migrate to the cloud, due to factors like compliance, latency, or technical limitations. It is a conscious choice made by the team based on the criticality of the application, cost considerations, and the complexity of dependencies.

When to use the retain cloud migration strategy:

• Applications dealing with highly sensitive data
• Applications are subject to regulatory compliance
• Legacy applications that are difficult or costly to refactor
• Applications that are part of a short-term project
• Simplify integration and avoid potential compatibility issues

Retaining certain digital assets or applications in the existing environment can be beneficial, as it allows you to eliminate potential risks, avoid compatibility issues, and make cloud migration more cost-effective. 

However, it may also cause the retained applications to struggle with scaling efficiently, increase operational costs over time, and miss out on some of the benefits of native cloud features.

What Are the Steps of Cloud Migration

Transitioning to the cloud can be complex and require careful planning and execution. Here are some critical cloud migration steps that you can adopt to ensure a seamless transition, minimize downtime, and maximize the benefits of cloud computing technology:

1. Prepare For Cloud Migration Process

Before cloud migration, it is essential to conduct an assessment of the existing environment. It involves a feasibility study, inventory assessment, and skills evaluation to ensure a seamless transition. This phase provides an overview of the current IT infrastructure, potential security vulnerabilities, and other critical aspects, enabling your team to define clear objectives and goals and lay the foundation for smooth migration.

In a nutshell, this phase involves assessing the existing IT environment, ensuring the availability of skilled personnel, creating an initial inventory of applications and data, establishing defined roles and responsibilities, and more.

2. Develop a Comprehensive Cloud Migration Plan

The next phase, as the name suggests, involves planning your cloud migration – essentially determining how you are going to execute it. This involves making decisions on every aspect of the cloud migration process. 

It begins with choosing a Cloud Service Provider (such as Google Cloud, Azure, or AWS) and the type of cloud computing model (public, private, hybrid, or multicloud). It also involves selecting a cloud migration strategy that fits your needs, typically based on the 6 R’s framework.

Develop a comprehensive migration plan to ensure better execution, identify potential risks in the migration, and prioritize applications and data based on considerations like criticality, dependencies, and complexity. Allocate resources based on workload requirements and develop a communication plan to keep stakeholders informed.

Don’t forget to devise a security strategy and risk mitigation measures for your cloud environment. Also, design the cloud architecture with scalability in mind to handle future growth.

The sequence of these activities may vary depending on your team’s preferences; however, each activity plays a critical role in ensuring a successful cloud migration.

3. Migrate Your Data And Applications

It is the most critical phase in the entire cloud migration journey, as it involves the actual transfer of data, applications, and workloads from on-premises infrastructure to the preferred virtual cloud environment. 

This cloud migration step includes activities that ensure a seamless migration of assets to the cloud. These activities are:

• Provisioning Cloud Resources: This involves creating virtual services, allocating storage spaces, configuring network connections, implementing security measures, and more.
• Pilot Testing: Perform a small-scale migration to identify potential issues and test the migrated workloads before full-scale migration.
• Data Transfer: This involves data preparation, selecting the transfer method, data encryption, executing the data transfer, and verifying data integrity and completeness.
• Application Migration: This includes transferring code, updating configurations, and testing/validating the application’s functionality and performance.
• Testing: Conduct performance testing, security testing, and other necessary tests.
• Cutover: Redirect user traffic and operations to the new cloud environment. This includes the final synchronization of data between the on-premises and cloud environments, either as a one-time event (cutover) or through a phased approach.

4. Validate Post-Cloud Migration Success

Once your applications and data have been migrated, the focus shifts to ensuring long-term success in the cloud. This phase involves actively managing and optimizing the cloud environment to deliver consistent performance, security, and value.

Continuous monitoring of application health and performance helps detect and resolve issues early, ensuring a seamless user experience. Implementing robust security practices like regular patching and threat detection is critical to protecting your cloud assets from evolving risks.

Analyzing resource usage enables cost optimization by identifying underutilized services or opportunities for rightsizing. It’s also essential to routinely test and refine data backup and disaster recovery plans to maintain business continuity during unexpected events.

Finally, providing timely support and training during this transition helps users adapt to the new environment, ensuring smooth adoption of cloud-based workflows and tools.

5. Optimize and Modernize

Once the cloud migration is complete, continuous improvements are essential. This includes cost management, performance tuning, optimization, security enhancements, automation, DevOps practices, adoption of cloud features, and more. These efforts enable your business to extract maximum value from your cloud migration.

To streamline operations and eliminate complexity, many organizations choose to partner with a cloud managed services provider for expert support and hassle-free cloud management. If needed, businesses can also leverage application modernization services to ensure their digital products not only benefit from cloud computing but also remain aligned with evolving user needs.

Learn about the 10 Biggest Cloud Computing Challenges 

Cloud Migration Best Practices To Follow

It’s not just about achieving smooth cloud migration; it’s also about maximizing the benefits for your organization from this transition. Adhering to cloud migration best practices not only facilitates a seamless migration but also sets the foundation for long-term success. 

Define clear objectives

To have a cloud solution that matches your business requirements, it is essential to clearly outline the objectives you want to achieve through this transition to the cloud from a business perspective. 

These objectives could be:

• Increase scalability
• Reduce IT/hardware cost
• Enhance cross-departmental collaboration
• Increase billing predictability
• Increase security and performance
• Meet changing business demands

Identify migration priorities

For a retail company, a top priority might be managing increasing traffic, whereas a well-established enterprise might focus on breaking departmental silos and enhancing collaboration. These goals often require different cloud migration strategies, underscoring the importance of identifying migration priorities before proceeding with the transition.

The activities that would help you to identify migration priorities are:

• Understand existing infrastructure
• Assess criticality
• Define migration scope and timeline
• Determine in-house vs outsourcing
• Map out dependencies 
• Analyze the potential business impact
• Evaluate the technical complexity
• Assign key roles and responsibilities

Establish a disaster recovery plan (DRP)

Unexpected outages or disruptions can be prevented even in a cloud environment that promises high availability and redundancy. Having a DRP enables your business to minimize downtime, reduce data loss, or maintain operational resilience.

To establish a robust DRP, consider the following:

• Identify cloud-specific risks
• Define Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)
• Define Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)
• Implement regular backups
• Utilize cloud-specific DR features
• Conduct security audits

Train your employees

An untrained workforce can contribute to increased resistance during an enterprise’s transition to the cloud. To equip your employees with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate cloud migration successfully, consider the following:

• Assess the current skills and knowledge levels of your employees.
• Develop customized training programs that cater to different roles within your organization.
• Provide practical exercises and simulations for hands-on practice.
• Encourage employees to pursue relevant certifications from cloud service providers.
• Utilize e-learning platforms to deliver comprehensive training modules.

Choose the right cloud service provider

From scalability, interoperability, security, cost efficiency, Support, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and more, choosing the right CSP is essential to ensure maximizing the benefits of cloud migration.

Here are the considerations to make when choosing the right cloud service provider:

• Identify the needs of your applications in terms of compute power, storage, security, scalability, and more.
• Analyze the type of cloud computing you intend to migrate to.
• Look for established providers with a proven track record.
• Evaluate the range of services offered by each provider.
• Compare pricing structures (pay-as-you-go, reserved instances, spot instances).
• Ensure the provider adheres to the necessary compliance standards.
• Assess the security practices and certifications offered.
• Consider the provider’s infrastructure capabilities.
• Look for CSPs that offer hybrid cloud solutions.

Focus on automation

Cloud migration is a time-consuming task involving many manual efforts by the team. Automation is the best way forward to not only ensure seamless cloud migration but also reduce the possibility of errors, minimize downtime, and more.

Here is how you can implement automation in your cloud migration journey:

• Use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like AWS CloudFormation, Azure Resource Manager, etc.
• Use configuration management tools.
• Set up CI/CD pipelines to automate the build.
• Implement automated testing frameworks.
• Use auto-scaling features.
• Set up automated backup processes.
• Employ automated tools for data migration, like AWS Database Migration Service (DMS).

Test and measure migration success

It helps organizations validate the effectiveness of their migration efforts, ensure operational continuity, optimize costs, enhance security, and drive ongoing improvements in cloud deployment.

Here’s how to do it effectively:

• Define success metrics
• Implement multi-phased testing
• Use automated testing tools
• Monitor performance metrics

Monitor cloud usage, performance, and security

Monitoring empowers you to gain multifaceted benefits from cloud migration, ensuring operational excellence, achieving cost efficiencies, enhancing security posture, and delivering a seamless user experience in the cloud environment.

Here’s how you can conduct cloud usage, performance, and security monitoring:

• Provide real-time visibility
• Monitor resource utilization trends
• Track cloud usage and performance metrics
• Continuously monitor security metrics
• Track resource usage patterns
  Learn more about cloud cost optimization.

MindInventory: Your Go-To Partner for Cloud Migration Services

As a reputable cloud engineering services and solutions provider, we possess the expertise to deliver a wide range of solutions, including cloud-native app development, DevOps, CI/CD, and more. 

We hold expertise in providing cloud integration services, serverless computing, and more. 

Our certified cloud engineers, experienced in SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, empower enterprises to leverage cloud technology as a catalyst for business growth.

What sets us apart is our tailored approach. We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. Whether you’re migrating legacy systems or building new cloud-native applications, we design custom migration strategies that align with your business goals, technical landscape, and compliance needs.

Let’s make your cloud migration a smooth, secure, and successful journey, backed by the right cloud migration services partner. Contact us today to take the next step toward smarter cloud transformation.

FAQs on Cloud Migration