What is Migration?

A migration in software is shifting of data or software from one system to another. Depending on the project, a migration could involve one or more kinds of movement: Data migration, application migration, operating system migration, and cloud migration

Migration projects commonly involve many moving parts and requirements that are highly specific to an organization’s needs. Careful planning, combined with an infrastructure automation strategy, can make IT migrations easier.

Why Migration ?

Migration is moving data from one kind of storage to another. This is often done as part of an upgrade to expand storage capacity, improve performance, streamline data management , reduce costs, reduce physical footprint, or add new capabilities.

A few common examples of IT migration include:

• Upgrading an application or operating system (OS)
• Moving data from one kind of database to another
• Replacing one data storage system with another
• Moving from on-premise infrastructure to  cloud infrastructure
• Replacing a monolithic application with containerized  services

Types of Migration :

DATA MIGRATION : 

Data migration is moving data from one kind of storage to another
Data migrations unfold in three phases: planning, execution, and validation.
They can involve transferring large amounts of data across a network, or physically moving drives from one place to another.
Data can be migrated one of two ways:

• Online migration transfers data across the Internet or a private network.
• Offline migration transfers data by physically shipping a storage device from one place to another.

Database migration : Organizations might move data from one database to another as part of a database upgrade, because they’ve changed vendors, or because they’re moving to new infrastructure, such as the cloud.

Moving from one database to another can require making sure the source database’s schema is compatible with the target database, and converting it if necessary. Many cloud database providers offer tools that can automate this process.

Application migration
Application migration is moving software applications from one IT system to another.
They can be Re-host migration eg .moving an application from  an on-premise server to a virtual machine
Rearchitect eg this could mean breaking a monolithic application into containerized microservices so it can scale better in a cloud environment.
Retire, or replace, in which an application is abandoned in favor of something else, such as a SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution.

Cloud migration
It is all about shifting systems from traditional on-premise data centers to cloud environments, or from one cloud environment to another. It can also involve building a hybrid cloud, through which applications and data can scale across multiple infrastructures. Cloud infrastructure has many appeals, including easy scalability and cost savings

Process of a successful cloud migration
1. Plan your journey. This planning state involves an analysis of your current infrastructure and applications.
2. Run a pilot. Testing a production-ready environment over a period of several months can allow time to make sure the new environment meets your requirements.
3. Make the move. The actual migration means bringing existing workloads over to the new environment, based on a schedule that meets the needs of your users.