Cloud migration monitoring: A step-by-step guide for a seamless transition to the cloud

Stages of cloud migration

On-premises monitoring and assessment

Before embarking on the cloud migration journey, it’s critical to gain a comprehensive understanding of your current on-premises environment. This step involves assessing the workloads, applications, databases, and infrastructure that will be migrated to the cloud. It also includes identifying performance benchmarks and monitoring the health of existing systems to set migration targets.

1. Inventory and categorize assets

Start by documenting all your on-premises applications, workloads, databases, and infrastructure components. This includes legacy systems, mission-critical applications, and non-essential workloads.

You can use Site24x7's Service Maps feature to view applications and services based on their dependencies, the number of requests to each, and response times. If you're using ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Cloud, you can leverage Site24x7's CMDB integration with it to view all the dependent resources in your current infrastructure. This can give you insight into how you want your cloud instances to be deployed so that they are utilized properly as well as optimized for cost.

2. Monitor and evaluate resource utilization

Leverage Site24x7 to assess CPU, memory, storage, and network usage across your on-premises infrastructure. This data will help you right-size your cloud resources, avoiding over provisioning or underutilization.

Site24x7's application performance monitoring provides insights into application performance, database queries, and hardware and network usage so that required steps are taken to optimize workloads before the migration. For example, imagine you’re migrating an e-commerce app. Site24x7 might reveal that your database server chokes under peak traffic, averaging 80% CPU utilization with query response times creeping past 500ms. Armed with this data, you can address bottlenecks—like optimizing queries or scaling the database—before the move.

3. Identify migration targets and risks

Some applications may not be cloud-ready and might require modifications, replatforming, or even retirement. It’s important to identify these early. For example, organizations with older ERP systems may need to re-engineer parts of their software.

Risk assessment includes evaluating data security, compliance concerns, and potential downtime during migration. Site24x7 can help identify high-latency applications or vulnerable services that need attention before transitioning to the cloud.

4. Set performance benchmarks

Leverage Site24x7 to record baseline performance metrics for your on-premises systems, including latency, throughput, and response times, or error rates. These performance benchmarks will serve as a comparison after the migration to ensure that workloads perform as expected in the cloud.

For example, an organization migrating its fraud detection system to the cloud can use pre-migration transaction latency benchmarks to compare against cloud-based performance post migration.

Planning and executing the cloud migration

Once you've evaluated and monitored your on-premises environment, the next step is to plan the migration itself. This involves selecting the right cloud service provider, choosing a migration strategy, and preparing your workloads for the cloud.

1. Choose the right cloud model and provider

Depending on your industry, you may choose a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud. Some industries might prefer private clouds for enhanced security and compliance, while small- to medium-sized businesses might leverage public clouds for cost-effectiveness.

Select a cloud provider (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP) based on your specific needs, such as region availability, pricing, and specialized services. If your workload involves AI or ML, GCP's AI services might be ideal. For industries requiring robust compliance frameworks, Azure might offer the best solutions. However, ensure that the cloud(s) you are migrating to is monitoring-ready. Site24x7’s multi-cloud monitoring helps businesses track workloads across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI, ensuring seamless performance and availability across platforms.

2. Select the right migration strategy

The most common cloud migration strategies include:

• Lift and shift (rehosting): Moving applications without modifications.
• Replatforming: Making slight modifications to optimize cloud benefits.
• Repurchasing: Transitioning to a SaaS model (e.g., switching from an on-premises ERP to to a cloud-native one like Salesforce).
• Refactoring: Re-architecting applications to be cloud-native.
  

A financial institution might opt for lift and shift to quickly move non-critical workloads to the cloud, whereas a software development company might prefer replatforming to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities.

3. Data migration planning

Data migration is one of the most critical aspects of cloud migration. Identify the right tools (e.g., AWS DataSync or Azure Migrate) and decide whether you will migrate the data in bulk or in phases. Ensure that your sensitive data is encrypted during transit and in storage to maintain compliance with industry standards like HIPAA or the GDPR.

4. Pilot testing

Run pilot migrations with non-critical workloads to identify potential bottlenecks or issues before moving mission-critical systems or customer-facing applications.

During pilot migrations, test your applications’ performance, database compatibility, and security configurations in the new cloud environment to ensure they meet your operational standards. Leverage Site24x7 to monitor pilot test results, identify performance gaps and configuration issues, as well as compare performance with the baselines set earlier using milestone markers before initiating full-scale deployment.

5. Observe during migration

The migration phase is crunch time—data’s moving, apps are shifting, and downtime’s the enemy. Site24x7’s real-time monitoring keeps you in control. Its cloud monitoring suite tracks AWS, Azure, and GCP resources, giving you visibility into instances, storage, and network traffic as they transition. Pair this with synthetic monitoring to simulate user interactions—like logins or API calls—ensuring your app stays functional mid-move. If a hiccup occurs (say, a data transfer stalls), Site24x7’s instant alerts via email, SMS, or Slack let you jump on it before users notice.

Take an AWS migration: Site24x7 integrates with CloudWatch for high-level metrics, then dives deeper with agent-based monitoring for system-level details—e.g., CPU, memory and disk I/O. This dual lens ensures nothing slips through the cracks, whether it’s a misconfigured EC2 instance or a latency spike during cutover.

Post-migration monitoring and optimization

Once the migration is complete, it's vital to monitor continuously and optimize your cloud infrastructure to ensure that everything is functioning as expected. This phase is crucial for maintaining performance, cost efficiency, and security.

1. Monitor cloud infrastructure and applications

Post migration, use Site24x7 to track application performance, system uptime, and resource utilization. Site24x7 supports monitoring for all major cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI. Monitor key metrics like CPU usage, memory utilization, network latency, and error rates to ensure that your cloud applications perform as well as, or better than, they did on-premises.

Site24x7's application performance monitoring (APM) digs into code-level issues—like slow database queries or memory leaks—helping you fine-tune apps for cloud efficiency.

2. Ensure compliance and security

Some industries, especially healthcare and finance, require strict adherence to compliance frameworks such as HIPAA, the PCI DSS, or SOX. After migrating, verify that your cloud infrastructure meets these regulatory requirements.

Site24x7’s log management centralizes logs from VMs, apps, and cloud services, letting you spot anomalies—like unauthorized access attempts—fast. Paired with its network monitoring, you can ensure the security of firewalls and VPNs stays tight, keeping your cloud fortress secure. You can also leverage Site24x7's Guidance Report feature, which provides suggestions on availability, security, and cost.

3. Optimize cloud costs

Cloud cost management is an ongoing process. Monitor and optimize resource allocation to avoid overspending. For instance, auto-scaling features should be configured to dynamically adjust resources based on traffic demand, especially in industries like retail or e-commerce with fluctuating traffic patterns.

Use cost management tool like ManageEngine CloudSpend to analyze and manage your cloud expenses. In some cases, reserving instances for long-term workloads can significantly reduce costs.

4. Perform regular audits and tuning

Regularly audit the performance of your migrated workloads and tweak configurations to improve efficiency. Cloud platforms offer various performance-boosting features, such as load balancing, caching, and auto-scaling, which can be fine-tuned to match your operational needs.

For example, an organization can use Site24x7 to audit their Azure-hosted app, identify a memory bottleneck, and then tune auto-scaling to handle traffic spikes efficiently. Regular checks ensure thei organization'scaching setup keeps response times low without overusing resources.