Workload Migration
What is Workload Migration?
Workload migration is the process of moving a program or application from one environment to another. Because workloads vary in complexity, the amount of work that any given software imposes on computing resources varies greatly. That means choosing where to run workloads, and moving them to achieve higher performance, is critical to efficient operations.
Why is workload migration important?
The huge rise in e-commerce volume has accelerated the pace of digitalization, and keeping up has become imperative for organizations trying to compete. Simply put, the profit/loss equation depends on an organization’s ability to achieve optimal performance of their critical applications. Companies whose legacy infrastructure cannot handle the rapid increase in demand may not be able to deploy new services or expand into new markets unless they migrate workloads to the cloud.
How does workload migration work?
Migrating a workload can be as simple as “lift and shift,” with no modifications made to the workload before moving it to the cloud, or as complicated as rebuilding the workload from scratch and redesigning it to use microservices in a complex matrix of tasks. Determining how or whether to adjust the workload to take best advantage of cloud involves several aspects within an enterprise: technology, process, and people. Determining operational needs, migrating application code and data, and retraining or upskilling must all be mapped out and designed to make the transition as seamless and efficient as possible.
What are the benefits of workload migration?
The benefits of workload migration vary as much as the workloads themselves. That means there is no one-size-fits-all scenario, where you can be sure to benefit if you move a particular workload to the cloud. However, the use of cloud technology has become critical to business success because it allows organizations more options for deploying workloads, improves resource efficiency, and increases overall business agility. Specific benefits include:
Cost
Moving workloads to the cloud decreases the operational and maintenance costs of running servers and storage infrastructure on-premises.
Lower infrastructure burden
By placing workloads on the cloud, organizations can reduce the size of their on-premises infrastructure.
Scalability
With an extensive array of resources, services, and automation available on the cloud, large, complex workloads can flexibly respond to user demand.
Availability
Workloads on the cloud can be accessed from anywhere, and cloud-based archives can accelerate recovery times after a data loss or failure.
Performance
Workload performance measures, such as the number of transactions per second and bandwidth usage, can jump significantly when applications are deployed on the latest equipment offered by a cloud provider.
What are the challenges of workload migration?
While moving workloads to the cloud can deliver many benefits such as reducing costs, gaining flexibility, and increasing speed to market, the process does come with uncertainty and risks that need to be carefully considered and controlled to make the effort worth it. For example, applications moving to a hybrid cloud often require modernization to fully leverage the benefits of the cloud. That means that migrating applications may take more than simply rehosting in a new hybrid cloud. Instead, they may need modifications during the migration process to ensure optimal operation. Other considerations include:
Complexity
You will need a detailed assessment of applications to build the dependency mapping, design the architecture needed, and plan for a phased migration.
Security
Migrating large amounts of data between on- and off-premises environments presents security concerns, especially in maintaining compliance with data sovereignty regulations.
Management
Because various cloud technologies work differently, managing workloads in a distributed/hybrid environment is inherently complicated, and having the skills in-house has become increasingly challenging.
Service levels
How well your cloud provider delivers on your service level requirements for latency and performance depends entirely on the strength of its underlying infrastructure, which may not be adequate for your workload volumes.
Costs
Cloud service providers have varying fee structures, with some charging high data egress fees that can quickly add up.
HPE and workload migration
With years of expertise in guiding clients through their workload migration journeys, HPE Workload Migration Services provides a proven, repeatable process to address the entire application migration lifecycle. Starting with a detailed assessment to design and plan, build and migrate implementation, HPE experts use a data-driven methodology to capture all functionality and capabilities in your workloads, helping you evolve and migrate with confidence. The HPE Edge-to-Cloud Adoption Framework helps you to successfully navigate the complex process, focusing on ways to optimize each move, down to the sub-component level, so that each step of the workload is planned and accounted for.
Our experts work with you to resolve key issues such as how to move applications and data without impacting customers and users, determining the best deployment model for each workload. With HPE, you can overcome the business and technical challenges of migrations of almost any type, on any infrastructure. Take advantage of our decades of experience across generations of platforms and technologies to build an intelligent, accurate migration strategy with clear and predictable costs for your business that will accelerate your migration and help drive your business outcomes.