What Is Cloud Migration And How Does It Work

Saturday, 14 June 2025, 1:05 pm
Article: Hugh Grant

Cloud migration involves taking the data and applications that are currently running on an on-premise machine and moving them into a distributed network environment. Public cloud servers are far more economical than conventional models, since an organization doesn't have to provide any hardware itself. The cloud provider offers a place to store all of their resources remotely.

Since quite a few companies moved all of their operations to the public cloud over the last couple of decades, the term is starting to take on a new meaning as well. Organizations that move from one cloud provider to another have to undergo a form of cloud migration as well. In either case, at least some of the work can normally be automated, while certain tasks need a more human touch.

Moving To A Cloud Provider Account

Regardless of whether someone's moving off their servers or a different cloud provider's storage location, the first step always involves making a complete backup. Information technology professionals have to be certain that they have copies of everything in case something goes wrong. Using a standard archiving tool can make this process much easier, since it can even copy the access control lists and file permissions associated with every document stored in a particular location.

Once everything is ready for migration, IT department staffers will have to create an account with their new cloud provider. It's a good idea to take some time going through the configuration options to customize the deployment. System administrators might have their choice of operating system environment and even the shell that they use to communicate with the remote server. As soon as they have everything to their liking, they'll be able to extract their backups into the new location.

Some recent developments have helped to make the entire process much easier than it might have otherwise been.

Artificial Intelligence In Cloud Migration

Like so many other areas of computing, cloud migration is becoming faster as a result of AI-based tools. These can predict the amount of storage resources needed for any particular deployment by managing metrics. They can also more or less automate the entire backup process, which is good news for those who have to move entire file system structures onto a new cloud account.

Though much of the media attention has been on the field of generative AI, migration software often takes a slightly different approach. It relies on sophisticated procedural algorithms that examine existing data structures and make recommendations based on their findings. Using them isn't like using a large language model, but they're very efficient once users get accustomed to them. After the cloud account goes live, AI-based software can take on the role of an automated administrator who constantly looks at a specific storage location and calculates the odds of any particular problem occurring. When they detect something out of the ordinary, they'll be able to make corrections even if nobody is around to keep an eye on things.

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