Organizations will continually increase their cloud investments in order to drive business forward. One of the ways to achieve this is through migrating to the cloud. By migrating to the cloud, businesses can improve their agility, their effectiveness, and customer experience. With the rise in the frequency and severity of cyber-attacks, ensuring that your organization have stability, flexibility, and security is more important than ever before.
The cloud migration market is expected to register a growth of 28.89% over the five years to 2027. Cloud migration is a multi-phase process; it includes assessment, planning, migration, optimization, and modernization. A cloud migration solution is a tool that can help organizations as they migrate to the cloud. These solutions will streamline the migration process and reduce the margin for error.
For those considering making the move to the cloud, we have put together a list of some of the top cloud migration solutions available on the market. For each of these solutions we will give details on the vendors, and highlight some of the key features being offered. We will then give our recommendations for who would be best served by each solution.
AvePoint are an independent software vendor and a provider of SaaS solutions that facilitate the migration, management, and protection of data in Microsoft 365. AvePoint Migration as a Service (MaaS) uses industry leading technologies and best practices to ensure a safe and seamless migration process.
AvePoint Migration As A Service Features:
- Comprehensively reviews your business needs as well as the current environment
- Assesses, identifies, and fills in governance gaps or hardware requirements
- Ability to test end-to-end migration – you can identify any issues before beginning a full roll out
- Run full and incremental migrations from source to destination, and provide status reports to stakeholders and business users
- Synchronize changes made in the source environment during execution
Expert Insights’ Comments: AvePoint’s suite of migration tools empower you to discover, classify, and move over 8 petabytes (PB) of data from more than a dozen source systems without friction. We would recommend this solution to organizations interested in a thorough, phased migration plan that is backed by leading experts.
The Amazon Web Services Migration Hub acts as a centralized location for you to discover servers that need to be migrated, as well as plan migrations and receive updates on migration status. The platform has network visualizations that allow you to define migration plans, ensuring that the process can be as efficient as possible. At this stage, the platform also provides you with tailored recommendations on your migration strategy and process.
AWS Migration Hub Features:
- Range of graphics and visualizations
- Migration pre-planning tool
- Comprehensive inventorying
- Orchestrate migration across multiple tools
- Refactor applications incrementally
Expert Insights’ Comments:
Information gathered during the AWS Migration Hub inventory process is summarized to give admins an overview of progress, making it a useful preparation tool for complex cloud migrations with lots of moving parts to keep track of. As this is an advanced tool, it can be complex to deploy, so we would recommend this solution for organizations that have the technical resource to properly deploy and configure it. Overall, AWS Migration Hub is a strong migration solution for organizations already using, or looking to move to, the AWS infrastructure.
Azure Migrate provides users with streamlined and simplified migration, modernization, and optimizations services for their Azure services. This unified platform kickstarts the migration journey by discovering and assessing on premises resources in their entirety. The solution can then create a migration plan and provide technical insights to ensure the process is caried our smoothly. The solution allows users to stagger migration to ensure that any issues do not affect the whole organization. All these details can be tracked and managed via the central dashboard.
Azure Migrate Features:
- Comprehensive migration and modernizations services let you migrate Linux and Windows-based infrastructure, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), applications, and data to Azure for a resilient, scalable, and secure platform
- The solution will guide you through the progress of your Azure migration and modernization projects
- Simplify your operations with a single portal for end-to-end visibility into your on-premises and cloud estate
- Use agentless discovery, Azure readiness checks, and dependency analysis for efficient on-premises mapping and identification of resources ready for migration
- Modernize to platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for accelerated innovation and reduced costs
Expert Insights’ Comments: Azure Migrate supports users in discovering, assessing, and migrating applications, infrastructure, and data from on-premises environments to Azure. The solution also checks how suitable on-premises machines are for migration to Azure, thereby ensuring that migration can be seamless, without any unexpected issues. We would recommend Azure Migrate to organizations looking for a cloud migration solution that is both highly intuitive and secure.
Binary Tree, now a part of Quest, has developed a migration and management solution to aid enterprises as they migrate to the Microsoft’s cloud-based infrastructure. Power365 Migration is a comprehensive solution that facilitates the migration and integration of data and resources to the Microsoft Cloud.
Binary Tree Power365 Migration Features
- Migrate OneDrive, OneNote, and SharePoint data
- Automate discovery and migration process
- Secure as per industry standards including ISO 27001, CA Veracode, and Privacy Shield
- Migrate entire mailboxes and email accounts – uses Microsoft Azure for security purposes
- Unify email domains during the migration process
Expert Insights’ Comments: Binary Tree is an effective and powerful solution that reduces manual workload, whilst ensuring that no areas are missed during the migration process. The tool is simple to operate, thereby ensuring that your organization can benefit quickly, without expending significant time or resource adapting to the new system. Users praise the solution for being responsive and able to perform within reduced timelines. We would recommend Binary Tree for small to medium organizations that need a simple, but effective, migration tool.
Carbonite provide robust data protection solutions for businesses, as well as a selection of backup, disaster recovery, and workload migration technology. Carbonite Migrate empowers users to migrate virtual, physical, and cloud workloads between environments easily. The solution also supports organizations in mitigating data migration risks such as excessive downtime, loss of data, operational disruptions, and compatibility issues.
Carbonite Migrate Features:
- Admin console allows you to automate and manage migration
- Scalable continuous replication with minimal impact on performance or bandwidth
- Data is secured in-flight with AES 256-bit encryption
- Freedom from lock-in to any specific hypervisor, cloud vendor, or hardware
- Create custom job configurations, automate workflows, and orchestrate activation via comprehensive SDK
Expert Insights’ Comments: Carbonite Migrate makes sure that data, files, and systems setting are continually replicated, with a high degree of precision, so that downtime is reduced. You are able to perform environmental tests without disrupting live operations. We would recommend Carbonite Migrate to organizations looking for easy management, whilst reducing the chances of costly downtime.
AppDynamics is an application performance management and IT operations company that was acquired by Cisco in 2017. Their cloud migration solution works to simplify and streamline the process of moving to the cloud through continually monitoring performance in real-time whilst working to mitigate risk, optimizing resources effectively, and ensuring team members are aligned on business critical KPIs.
Cisco AppDynamics Features:
- Provides pre- and post-migration business performance metrics
- Dashboards show service level agreement compliance in real-time
- Provides AI root cause analysis and anomaly detection to prevent technical issues from impacting migration
- Dynamic scaling improves application performance, user experience KPIs and reduces application latency
- Validate port migration success with pre- and post-cloud migration analysis
Expert Insights’ Comments: Migrating to the cloud with the help of Cisco AppDynamics means your end-to-end migration journey is supported with actionable insights provided based on key metrics. The assistance doesn’t end there, analytics are provided post-migration too. This comprehensive coverage helps users to effectively detect any UX issues that may arise. We would recommend Cisco AppDynamics to any organizations looking to gain end-to-end visibility in order to plan with accuracy, migrate with confidence, and validate success.
Cloudsfer – created and powered by Tzunami Inc. – is a leading cloud file transfer service that provides safe, efficient, and smooth content migration and synchronization between cloud services. This migration solution works for both on-premises to cloud and cloud-to-cloud migration. The platform is compatible with more than 20 cloud services.
Cloudsfer Features:
- Transfer multiple users simultaneously
- Maintain permissions between systems and keep the sharing settings in the target system – you can apply custom permissions when needed
- Domain mapping
- Keep original metadata of files such as dates & authors – file version history log gives you complete visibility
- Automatic Delta execution – transfer only newly modified data to your target cloud system
- Complete scalability – Cloudsfer can handle any size of migration and can develop a custom solution tailored to your needs.
Expert Insights’ Comments: Cloudsfer have provided content migration services for both small and large-scale projects for over 16 years and have successfully migrated more than 20 thousand users. The solution is fast, accurate, and secure, with a powerful and user-friendly interface. We would recommend this solution to any organization looking for a solution with a strong feature set and a dedicated team which both work to provide users with an optimized solution for straightforward and smooth file migration.
CodeTwo is a desktop migration tool for Microsoft 365 environments. The solution is easy to configure without the need for PowerShell scripting and has advanced data filtering options. This ease of use enables you to migrate specific data quickly and efficiently, whilst ensuring that no files or areas are overlooked.
CodeTwo Office 365 Migration Features
- Migrate systems strategically in batches
- Automated delta migration feature – this identifies and migrates any new data, without duplicating information that has already been imported
- Able to migrate any IMAP-compatible server (such as IBM Notes or Google Workspace) to Exchange Online
- Support for cutover, staged, and hybrid migration
Expert Insights’ Comments: The platform is easy to set up and roll out across a whole organization, thereby ensuring that no network areas are missed. We would recommend CodeTwo for medium sized organizations that need a reliable and robust data migration solution to help migrate services to Microsoft environments.
Google Cloud Migration Center is a unified migration platform that works to streamline and accelerate the end-to-end cloud migration journey from your on-premises environment to the Google Cloud. The tools within Migration Center enable you to estimate your cloud costs, scan and assess your infrastructure, and plan your migration without making changes to your applications or workloads.
Google Cloud Migration Center Features:
- Generate a quick cost estimate of your future cloud costs based on the size and configuration of the resources in your current on-premises environment
- Create an asset inventory – automatic scanning of your on-premises environment, as well as the ability to execute manual inventory scans
- Analysis lets you get a holistic view of your environment to assess your infrastructure
- Comprehensive directory of best practices to plan a migration and prescriptive recommendations on what you should migrate and how
Expert Insights’ Comments: This solution boasts a strong feature set with a variety of tools for different migration scenarios – this helps you to plan your migration easily, whilst lowering the likelihood of any associated risks. We would recommend Google Cloud Migration Center to organizations looking for a comprehensive cloud migration solution, especially those who would benefit from the built-in cost estimation, discovery, and analytics capabilities.
IBM acquired the resource-simulation software company Turbonomic in 2021. The IBM Turbonomic platforms offers users straightforward cloud migration planning, thereby allowing them to optimize cloud management and simplify the cloud migration process.
IBM Turbonomic Features:
- Analyzes application workloads in real-time – effective for both on-premises and cloud tasks
- Ability to create custom plans and configurations to support your workloads
- Examines billing and price adjustments negotiated with your cloud provider to form a migration plan those accounts for the discounted price
- Provides a guided workflow to make it easier to configure difference scenarios for your organizations specific use case
Expert Insights’ Comments: IBM Turbonomic software provides organizations with the cloud migration planning tools they need to accelerate digital transformation, whether they are pursuing a cloud-first, hybrid, or multi-cloud strategy. This solution is easy to use and implement, with effective data visualization tools. We would recommend this solution for organizations looking to safely accelerate cloud migration projects using straight-forward and accurate planning tools.
MigrationWiz is a leading workload migration solution developed by BitTitan, a cloud technologies company based in Bellevue, WA. The platform is accessed through a centralized interface that allows admins to have visibility over migration status and events. To operate the platform, admins can simply load email addresses, assign licences, define the source/destination, and begin. This simple process makes the solution a useful tool for a range of organization types.
MigrationWiz Features
- Compliant with security standards including ISO, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and FERPA
- Scalable solution can be deployed to organizations of all sizes
- Migrate documents, mailboxes, and Teams accounts
- Fully automated, reducing human workloads
Expert Insights’ Comments: MigrationWiz is simple to use and scales to suit your solution, ensuring there is minimal downtime across the migration process and that your migration runs smoothly even as your business continues to grow. We would recommend MigrationWiz for organizations of all sized that are looking for a reliable and consistent cloud migration solution.
ShareGate was founded in 2009 and is now used by over 75,000 admins to monitor and manage their IT migration process. ShareGate Desktop is their cloud migration solution for Microsoft 365, which allows you to migrate to Microsoft environments, merge tenants, and move channels within Teams. The platform gives you the flexibility to transfer data wholesale, or to select specific files, tabs, and accounts. You can map data destination to identify errors or misconfigurations before initiating the migration. Any errors that do arise are flagged with information on remediation; you can select these misconfigurations and re-transfer those items individually.
ShareGate Desktop Features:
- Move content between sites and tenants
- Test and validate migration before and after move
- Automatically map users and migration destination
- Identify and review migration errors with ease
Expert Insights’ Comments: This fully featured platform has a good deal of configurability and flexibility, meaning that you can tailor it on deployment to fit exactly the needs of your specific migration. The solution allows organizations to automate and streamline migration processes, thereby reducing workload, whilst maintaining security and accuracy. We would recommend ShareGate Desktop for medium sized organizations that need a reliable and efficient cloud migration solution.
FAQs
What Is A Cloud Migration Solution?
Cloud migration solutions facilitate the process of moving an organization’s important digital asset’s – such as their applications, infrastructure, and data – from an on-premises server to a cloud computing environment.
Typically, companies are simply moving their digital assets from on-premises servers to the public cloud, but cloud migration can also mean moving data and applications from one cloud provider to another. You may wish to migrate to a new cloud system to improve security, or to a cloud provider who can provide more functionality.
What Are The Benefits Of Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration is an increasingly popular business strategy due to the benefits migrating to the cloud can bring, some of which include:
- Scale up or down easily. Cloud-based infrastructure is easier to scale, in accordance with fluctuating business needs, than legacy, on-premises infrastructure. This removes the need to overprovision software and hardware licenses to meet rare (and often difficult to accurately foresee) peaks in demand.
- Reduce data center spending. Businesses choosing to adopt cloud-based resources and migrate their data, development platforms, and applications to the cloud will be able to spend less on infrastructure. There is no longer a need to manage and service on-premises technology, thereby saving is expenses and staffing.
- Continual innovation. Cloud providers keep their data centers on hardware that is modern and regularly patched against evolving security risks. This cloud-based infrastructure will be continually updated to ensure that the provider does not lose customers, thereby improving your service.
- Save money with the pay per use model. Many cloud providers will base your payment model on the services that you use each month. This means that in quiet months, you won’t be paying for services that you don’t need. Equally, when there are busier periods, you don’t need to worry about not having the capacity.
- Analyze your tech environment. Before the migration can begin, you need to review your IT architecture, applications, and data management. This will help you to decide which assets are worth moving to the cloud. This review process can help you to weed out anything that is no longer serving a purpose.
