Organisations seeking to move applications into the cloud have five options: rehost on infrastructure as a service (IaaS), refactor for platform as a service (PaaS), revise for IaaS or PaaS, rebuild on PaaS, or replace with software as a service (SaaS), according to Gartner, Inc.
"When the CIO issues the simple directive: 'Move some applications to the cloud', architects face bewildering choices about how to do this, and their decision must consider an organisation's requirements, evaluation criteria, and architecture principles," said Richard Watson, research director at Gartner. "However, no alternative offers a silver bullet: all require architects to understand application migration from multiple perspectives and criteria, such as IT staff skills, the value of existing investments, and application architecture."
The alternative migration strategies Gartner suggests IT organisations consider are:
Rehost, i.e. redeploy applications to a different hardware environment and change the application's infrastructure configuration. Rehosting an application without making changes to its architecture can provide a fast cloud migration solution. However, the primary advantage of IaaS, that - teams can migrate systems quickly, without modifying their architecture - can be its primary disadvantage as benefits from the cloud characteristics of the infrastructure, such as scalability, will be missed.
Refactor, i.e. run applications on a cloud provider's infrastructure. The primary advantage is blending familiarity with innovation as "backward-compatible" PaaS means developers can reuse languages, frameworks, and containers they have invested in, thus leveraging code the organisation considers strategic. Disadvantages include missing capabilities, transitive risk, and framework lock-in. At this early stage in the PaaS market, some of the capabilities developers depend on with existing platforms can be missing from PaaS offerings.
Revise, i.e. modify or extend the existing code base to support legacy modernisation requirements, then use rehost or refactor options to deploy to cloud. This option allows organisations to optimise the application to leverage the cloud characteristics of providers' infrastructure. The downside is that kicking off a (possibly major) development project will require upfront expenses to mobilise a development team. Depending on the scale of the revision, revise is the option likely to take most time to deliver its capabilities.
Rebuild, i.e. Rebuild the solution on PaaS, discard code for an existing application and re-architect the application. Although rebuilding requires losing the familiarity of existing code and frameworks, the advantage of rebuilding an application is access to innovative features in the provider's platform. They improve developer productivity, such as tools that allow application templates and data models to be customised, metadata-driven engines, and communities that supply pre-built components. However, lock-in is the primary disadvantage so if the provider makes a pricing or technical change that the consumer cannot accept, breaches service level agreements (SLAs), or fails, the consumer is forced to switch, potentially abandoning some or all of its application assets.
Replace, i.e. discard an existing application (or set of applications) and use commercial software delivered as a service. This option avoids investment in mobilising a development team when requirements for a business function change quickly. Disadvantages can include inconsistent data semantics, data access issues, and vendor lock-in.
"Choosing the optimal application-migration option is a decision that cannot be made in isolation," said Mr Watson. "Any cloud-migration decision is, in essence, an application or infrastructure modernisation decision and needs to be approached in the broader context of related application portfolio management and infrastructure portfolio management programmes. This decision is not solely an issue of migration but is truly one of optimisation: Which cloud platform and migration techniques offer the chance to optimise the application's contribution to stated and implied business and IT goals? Those business and supporting IT goals, described next, should be driving any cloud migration decision - not a rush to experiment with new toys."
Mr Watson will further explore the alternatives for migrating applications to the cloud at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit 2011, taking place at the Lancaster London hotel, on 16-17 June.
About Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit 2011
The Gartner AADI Summit 2011 (formerly known as the Gartner SOA & Application Development & Integration Summit) is designed to help application leaders plan for the rapid emergence of cloud, further integrate service oriented architecture (SOA) and overhaul application portfolios to support business growth and innovation in a more agile, collaborative way.
For further information on the Summit, taking place on 16-17 May in London, please visit www.europe.gartner.com/aadi. Additional information from the Summit will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/..., using #GartnerAADI. Members of the media can register for the Summit by contacting Holly Stevens at holly.stevens@gartner.com.
"When the CIO issues the simple directive: 'Move some applications to the cloud', architects face bewildering choices about how to do this, and their decision must consider an organisation's requirements, evaluation criteria, and architecture principles," said Richard Watson, research director at Gartner. "However, no alternative offers a silver bullet: all require architects to understand application migration from multiple perspectives and criteria, such as IT staff skills, the value of existing investments, and application architecture."
The alternative migration strategies Gartner suggests IT organisations consider are:
Rehost, i.e. redeploy applications to a different hardware environment and change the application's infrastructure configuration. Rehosting an application without making changes to its architecture can provide a fast cloud migration solution. However, the primary advantage of IaaS, that - teams can migrate systems quickly, without modifying their architecture - can be its primary disadvantage as benefits from the cloud characteristics of the infrastructure, such as scalability, will be missed.
Refactor, i.e. run applications on a cloud provider's infrastructure. The primary advantage is blending familiarity with innovation as "backward-compatible" PaaS means developers can reuse languages, frameworks, and containers they have invested in, thus leveraging code the organisation considers strategic. Disadvantages include missing capabilities, transitive risk, and framework lock-in. At this early stage in the PaaS market, some of the capabilities developers depend on with existing platforms can be missing from PaaS offerings.
Revise, i.e. modify or extend the existing code base to support legacy modernisation requirements, then use rehost or refactor options to deploy to cloud. This option allows organisations to optimise the application to leverage the cloud characteristics of providers' infrastructure. The downside is that kicking off a (possibly major) development project will require upfront expenses to mobilise a development team. Depending on the scale of the revision, revise is the option likely to take most time to deliver its capabilities.
Rebuild, i.e. Rebuild the solution on PaaS, discard code for an existing application and re-architect the application. Although rebuilding requires losing the familiarity of existing code and frameworks, the advantage of rebuilding an application is access to innovative features in the provider's platform. They improve developer productivity, such as tools that allow application templates and data models to be customised, metadata-driven engines, and communities that supply pre-built components. However, lock-in is the primary disadvantage so if the provider makes a pricing or technical change that the consumer cannot accept, breaches service level agreements (SLAs), or fails, the consumer is forced to switch, potentially abandoning some or all of its application assets.
Replace, i.e. discard an existing application (or set of applications) and use commercial software delivered as a service. This option avoids investment in mobilising a development team when requirements for a business function change quickly. Disadvantages can include inconsistent data semantics, data access issues, and vendor lock-in.
"Choosing the optimal application-migration option is a decision that cannot be made in isolation," said Mr Watson. "Any cloud-migration decision is, in essence, an application or infrastructure modernisation decision and needs to be approached in the broader context of related application portfolio management and infrastructure portfolio management programmes. This decision is not solely an issue of migration but is truly one of optimisation: Which cloud platform and migration techniques offer the chance to optimise the application's contribution to stated and implied business and IT goals? Those business and supporting IT goals, described next, should be driving any cloud migration decision - not a rush to experiment with new toys."
Mr Watson will further explore the alternatives for migrating applications to the cloud at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit 2011, taking place at the Lancaster London hotel, on 16-17 June.
About Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit 2011
The Gartner AADI Summit 2011 (formerly known as the Gartner SOA & Application Development & Integration Summit) is designed to help application leaders plan for the rapid emergence of cloud, further integrate service oriented architecture (SOA) and overhaul application portfolios to support business growth and innovation in a more agile, collaborative way.
For further information on the Summit, taking place on 16-17 May in London, please visit www.europe.gartner.com/aadi. Additional information from the Summit will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/..., using #GartnerAADI. Members of the media can register for the Summit by contacting Holly Stevens at holly.stevens@gartner.com.
