Migrating Applications to Azure Cloud Infrastructure: How to Conquer the Mountain

Migrating an application to Azure cloud infrastructure can seem like a daunting task for an independent software vendor (ISV) or software as a service (SaaS) business. It's not always clear how to get started, or what steps need to be taken to ensure a smooth transition.

In this blog post, I will talk about my experience as the founder of IG CloudOps!

Picture the scene: A mountain appears

You have trekked for miles through dense jungle, overcoming all obstacles in your path. Sweaty and exhausted, you finally emerge from the trees and see the outline of a mountain rising before you, shrouded in mist. It is an awe-inspiring sight, and you can barely believe that you have made it this far. You pause for a moment to catch your breath and take in the view, and then you ready yourself for the ascent. Will you attain the summit, or will you fall to be dashed on the rocks where you stand now?

As the founder of IG CloudOps, this is a position I have been in before... and if you work in a software business, then you probably have been as well.

You have built up your business by investing in your team, your software, and your roadmap. Now you have customers on a software product they love, a great team all of whom know the business and have a shared goal of making your software offering the best it can be.

It won't have been an easy path up to this point and you will have faced challenges:

• Balancing investment in the product against margin and growth in the business
• Staying true to your roadmap even when there could be large amounts of cash for developing custom requirements for each customer
• Getting to that first 50 or 100 customers on your platform loving your software

Your success is hard won, you are proud of your software, team and the business you have built and the great service it provides. You have made it out of the trees and are standing in a clearing...

BUT... Suddenly a mountain appears in the mist, and it could upend your business...

Either it will accelerate your business forward by allowing you to realise all the promise of the cloud or it will cost valuable time, money and resources that can't be recovered.

Where do you go from here: Planning the ascent

In fairness, the mountain only usually comes into focus when you start to get the momentum of customers both existing and potential asking for a cloud solution. For many software businesses, this has become reality far quicker than expected and many have partially or full moved across.

But once there, how successful has your Azure cloud migration been?

Is this now your main offering or have you had issues and things are not as you expected?

Problems can arise from a variety of sources when migrating over to the cloud:

• Legacy code designed for legacy environments that don't exist on the Azure cloud
• Legacy architecture means that you can't take full advantage of the expected cloud benefits
• Code problems with custom elements of your software which were hidden with an on-premise deployment
• Redevelopment/migration paths taking far longer and costing far more than expected
• Cost estimates for the cloud services you need for your deployment cost far more than expected and performance issues mean it won't scale without costing you an arm and a leg

It's implemented and working to a level but it's just not quite right. Not making the savings you expected? Need more resources than you thought, or it's more time thirsty than on-premise servers. This is normal, even the public cloud providers acknowledge that this can happen with the largest of businesses when they first move to the cloud.

The future: The final push

This can often mean that software businesses that migrate over to Azure are held back and are not able to get the full benefit of a cloud deployment that they expect. You are then almost in limbo, what do you do next?

• Withdraw and get dashed on the rocks below?

This isn't really an option, effectively your business is dead in the water and the mountain is still there. The mountain isn't going anywhere, and there will be other mountains and after a while, they will surround you and then you have nowhere to go.

• Push through and get to the summit?

This is the only option, for you, your business and your customers! So how do we get you there?

With CloudOps we can implement Azure cloud management and provide the advisory and support you need to get you to the summit. We have done this with multiple businesses and within our own business to ensure you can climb this mountain and any others that come along.

Implement a NoOps approach with a trusted Azure partner and change your view of the cloud. Get the monitoring, maintenance, cost analysis and other insights as standard as well as 24/7 support and advisory services on demand.

So why wait, take a CloudOps test drive and find out how we can help you finish that application migration to Azure.

Or read our article about how to prepare for the uncertainties of a cloud migration to AWS & Azure.