Cloud and Cloud Migrations as Application Incubators

As digital transformation initiatives go, modern cloud ecosystems are not just service delivery platforms; they are application incubators, where services are conceived, deployed, hosted, and/or continuously refined. Despite the cloud’s mainstream adoption only taking root in the early 2000s, nearly half of the global population uses cloud services. As companies increasingly conduct business online, CIOs and IT organizations often seek ways to improve services and operational workflows and optimize application performance. A well-planned cloud migration strategy paired with end-through-end visibility is essential for optimizing workload performance and unlocking innovation in cloud environments and application architectures.

Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Migration: Establishing a Performance Baseline

Savvy companies create competitive differentiation by enabling rapid innovation, often through digital transformation initiatives that include migrating applications to the cloud. This is why it has become a crucial component of enterprise strategy.

86% of organizations regularly migrate applications or data from on-premises locations to the public cloud.

— Enterprise Strategy Group report

Maintaining visibility into application performance before, during, and after any migration is essential to minimize disruptions and downtime to maintain high-quality user experiences and meet C-suite business goals in a global 24/7 business environment. 

Premigration

The initial, and arguably most pivotal, phase in the migration journey from enterprise IT (a private data center, for example) to the cloud involves assessing application performance. This sets the stage for everything else. During this premigration phase, IT teams should establish a baseline of application performance via meticulous evaluation of the actual usage data. This evaluation will help companies quickly troubleshoot service disruptions and workload dependencies post-migration to ensure performance is maintained throughout the journey that lies ahead.

Migration

During the cloud migration phase, deviation from your performance baseline is a critical indicator that something has gone wrong. Cloud visibility solutions that rely on unalterable packet-level data provide real-time insights into data transfer intricacies, resource allocation dynamics, and system interactions with essential service dependencies. This transparency empowers organizations to proactively address potential latencies, bottlenecks, and other performance disruptions before they scale out of control.

Post-migration

The post-migration phase extends the advantages of visibility and monitoring by furnishing valuable insights into the application’s performance seated within its new environment. Here is where performance is defined, user expectations are set, and digital transformation initiatives ultimately ascend toward success or descend into failure. Continuous improvement becomes an operational reality as organizations leverage these insights to fine-tune their strategies, ensuring not only efficient operation but also the ongoing evolution of applications.

What About Repatriation?

Repatriation is not typically considered part of the initial cloud migration plan. However, acknowledging the concept of repatriation is essential, especially in the context of the cloud as an application incubator. Repatriation involves the strategic move of applications or data back from the cloud to on-premises cloud-enabled infrastructure, potentially implementing private cloud solutions on local servers. This approach provides businesses with cloud-like capabilities while retaining control over their infrastructure. Repatriation often becomes relevant for ongoing cost optimization, data governance, and compliance. Cloud costs fluctuate, leading organizations to find that certain workloads are more economically viable in an on-premises environment or with a different cloud provider (cloud-to-cloud migration).

In a hybrid deployment, where applications are distributed between an on-premises environment and the cloud, a compelling case can be made for considering them collectively as part of the cloud ecosystem. This integrated approach combines the flexibility, scalability, and cloud-like characteristics of remote services with the placement of certain components on premises for strategic or security purposes. If applications are split between private and public environments, whether through initial migration strategy or repatriation, the applications’ interdependencies need to be closely monitored for disruptions or anomalies. Without sufficient multi-environment monitoring, management of distributed applications can cause unanticipated IT visibility gaps that may affect service performance.

Modern Application Architecture

Organizations migrating or modernizing applications should constantly assess performance, availability, capacity, latency, data isolation, dependencies, budgets, and other factors to ensure consistent accessibility across user devices and locations. Applications that have been migrated to a public cloud might still need code and database updates. Cloud providers utilize their infrastructure and automation to expedite software delivery, frequently deploying their updates daily. Innovation often defines modern application architectures. Various application architectural approaches—such as event-driven architecture (EDA), progressive web app (PWA) architecture, and micro frontend (MFE) architecture leverage the cloud’s capabilities to redefine the design, development, and deployment of applications throughout their life cycle.

• EDA strategically utilizes events and application components for real-time information processing, enhancing efficiency in dynamic environments. This proves indispensable in responsive and dynamic environments, where critical decisions rely on the timely analysis of dynamic data. EDA not only enhances data processing efficiency within the cloud landscape but also lays the foundation for scalable and adaptive applications.
• PWA prioritizes cross-device and cross-browser applications. Through dynamic alterations in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code, PWAs provide users with consistent and engaging interactions, complete with robust support for notifications. In the cloud environment, PWAs not only elevate user experience but also streamline development and maintenance efforts.
• MFE excels in modularity and reusability for web applications. Leveraging a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and microservices in the back end, MFE facilitates the development of scalable web applications. Its emphasis on modular components enhances development agility, fostering a collaborative approach and ensuring a responsive user experience in the cloud. For instance, refactoring a monolithic application into microservices can enhance its management and efficiency in distributed cloud environments.

As organizations delve into modern application architectures, they are also exploring the innovation potential of distributed cloud environments. By dispersing computing resources across multiple locations, this approach not only fosters enhanced scalability and resilience but also further nurtures the growth of applications within dynamic and geographically diverse ecosystems driven by digital transformations, migrations, and emerging innovations.

A Word About AI and Cloud Integration

The global artificial intelligence (AI) market is projected to reach slightly over $1, 345 billion by 2030. As technology advances, AI integration is becoming more prevalent in cloud architectures, imbuing applications with human-like intelligence that mimics empirical reasoning.

Intelligent automation (IA), another facet of AI integration, can transform routine employee tasks, such as invoice processing. For example, by leveraging AI algorithms for automated data extraction, seamless integration into accounting systems, and the implementation of workflow automation for approval and payment processes, organizations can significantly improve operational efficiency and free up human resources for more strategic endeavors.

Application Performance and Availability Through Cloud Visibility and Monitoring

Enterprise application performance management by NETSCOUT enables companies to monitor and analyze applications for key performance metrics such as responsiveness, errors, quality, and service dependencies. With robust visibility powered by nGenius Enterprise Performance Management solutions and advanced techniques such as scalable deep packet inspection (DPI), NETSCOUT empowers organizations to navigate the complexities of the cloud, driving digital transformation initiatives and safeguarding the availability of modern and evolving mission-critical application offerings incubating in cloud initiatives.

Read our fact sheet to learn six steps for ensuring application performance and availability before, during, and after a cloud migration, including strategies for managing workloads.