Beware the 'lift and shift' approach to cloud migration

Many established businesses need to modernise and consolidate their applications, but the process is often more complex than anticipated. Mr Price Group has successfully rationalised its applications from around 330 to 120, with further consolidation expected. Marilize Redelinghuys, head of retail modernisation, shares her insights on the subject.

When upgrading a legacy application, several factors must be considered from the outset. Understanding the application, data, architecture, and business processes is crucial, as they are interconnected. She advises prioritising the identification of burning issues, which sets the tone for the initial steps. Redelinghuys also discusses retirement, re-hosting, refactoring, or rebuilding options, emphasising that the decision should be based on business and technology strategies, resources, time, and funding.

However, she cautions against viewing cloud migration as a trivial task. Transitioning an application to the cloud does not guarantee success, as factors like business maturity, change management, organisational processes, and internal technical capabilities must be taken into account. Redelinghuys advocates for a "horses for courses" approach, recommending commercially available Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions for applications aligning with standard business processes, while homegrown Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions are more suitable for key competitive advantages.

The term "lift and shift" often raises concerns in Redelinghuys' mind, as it typically signifies a high risk of transferring technical debt into the cloud. While technical debt is generally undesirable, she acknowledges that in certain circumstances, such as meeting deadlines or objectives, it might be necessary to carry it forward.

However, she stresses the importance of transparency and documentation, planning to address the debt later. Redelinghuys identifies business disruption and change fatigue as the most significant risks of rushing the modernisation process. She advises allowing the new system to settle before initiating further changes and emphasises the need for trust in the new system before embarking on additional modifications.