Migrating Applications to the Cloud

Chapter 3. The Benefits of Cloud Migration

Cloud migration is not a zero-sum calculus—an either/or choice between on-premises infrastructure, converged or otherwise, and public cloud infrastructure. Rather, it has a pragmatic both/and dimension. Looked at this way, migration gives an organization an opportunity to use public cloud infrastructure as a means to complement or extend on-premises resources and to offset extreme spikes in demand. Other, less concrete benefits include improved flexibility, greater agility, and business resilience. For example, a business that can pragmatically negotiate unexpected or unpredictable conditions is by definition a more agile and resilient competitor.

But cloud migration—and migration to the PaaS cloud, especially—levels the playing field for the business, too. Cloud providers incur the responsibility of not only maintaining but investing in and enhancing their platforms. IT, and IT-driven innovation, is a core competency for cloud service providers. In the last decade alone, hyperscale cloud platforms have been the focus of thousands or even tens of thousands of years of human effort. Cloud service providers have introduced features and capabilities that not only simplify the nitty-gritty of IT operations, but—more importantly—deliver benefits for businesses and their customers. These include:

Potentially faster time-to-market

IT is all cloud service providers do, all the time. One consequence of this is that cloud service providers are ...