Are you looking for ways to migrate the database to the cloud? Rest assured you are at the right place, follow this 10 must know cloud database migration checklist and avoid any issues such as security, latency, or integration.
A decision such as migrating database to cloud is not that simple. Although there are multiple cloud providers in the market, you should know what to look for. One has to consider many checkpoints before taking such decisions.
Why you should migrate database to cloud?
Below are some of the reasons why the cloud database migration is considered:
- Inadequate ability to manage the database server in on-premises
- You would like to deploy your new application in the cloud as a testing environment
- IT is not a central functional unit
- Migrating to the cloud for backup and disaster recovery
- The need for cutting down initial CapEx costs
The infrastructure in the cloud is scalable and there's no need for CapEx investment. The primary advantages of cloud database migration are cost, scaling, availability, and reliability. Organizations are open about migrating their database to the cloud if the security concerns are addressed satisfactorily.
It won't be easy if your application runs in on-premise and your database runs in the cloud. The two networks need to be collaborating to provide fast and optimum functioning. This process should work in most cases, else it will not perform any better than it did in on-premises. Hence the reason for recommending to migrate the entire setup into the cloud.
Let's look at the 10 Must-Know Cloud Database Migration Checklist:
1. Evaluate Database Size: This can be taken care of by the internal IT team. Evaluating the current databases size in your on-premises helps you determine how much storage you need and what instance type is required after migration.
2. Testing Applications: The applications running on the cloud database should be compatible with the cloud infrastructure to provide better performance than the on-premise data center. In the cloud, data centers may not be in the nearby surrounding and there may be high latency issues. Applications should be able to work in such scenarios without any issue. If anything is not working as expected then contact your service provider, and make sure you're both on the same page.
3. Data Privacy: In the beginning, you may want to migrate databases and applications which are not business critical. Always migrate those databases first, which can be hosted in environments that may not be trusted.
4. Carefully Design the Service Level Agreement (SLA): There are applications which has to be run most of the time with less downtime, in other words, the application should be 99.99% uptime. Make sure the scheduled downtimes don't interfere with your business needs.
5. Scalability: The main feature of cloud database migration is its immediate scaling feature. The services in the cloud can be scaled on the fly. Make sure to keep your service vendor informed about your business growth.
6. Identifying the Right OS: First, identify which OS goes well with your current database. As an example, Oracle is available for both Windows and Linux. There is a huge difference in their performance on both platforms. Once identified check if the same version of OS is available in the cloud.
7. Reduce Cost by Deleting Garbage: As the size of the database grows, the cost will also go up. Deleting the unwanted data is crucial since the cost is dependant on the database size.
Overcome Hassles During Cloud Database Migration
Dealing with performance and security issues is the utmost priority during cloud database migration. Let's see how this can be tackled:
8. Security: Since the public cloud environment can reside anywhere, there is no control of the customers over this aspect. Due to this reason your public cloud environment is potentially untrusted. Due to the cloud's shared security model, the cloud provider's service is to provide you with the necessary infrastructure to make the data available and adhere to the security policies. And the security of the data access in the cloud should be taken by an in-house team such that your data is secure and unreadable to the outside world without valid authorization.
9. Application Performance: The application performance may vary in the cloud. After the database migration, the data will travel over a remote network and not just LAN. Due to this, there may be a need for rewriting codes. Some Applications are already compatible with the cloud, and some are not. For example, Oracle has partnered with Amazon but still, Oracle allows other service providers to host its databases.
10. Multiple Database Migrations: If an application depends on multiple databases, then migrating multiple databases is challenging. In such cases, migrating the entire architecture to the cloud is the best solution. The difficult part is finding a vendor who will host the multiple databases. In general, migrating one or two databases to the cloud is much more feasible than multiple migrations.
If you're looking to migrate databases to cloud, contact us.