Discovery and Migration Assessment
Automated discovery of servers, dependencies and usage, plus a business case per application. Cloud migration services start here, because good plans need real data.
Portfolio map →DevOps & Cloud · Cloud Migration
Cloud Migration Services Planned Wave by Wave
We move applications, databases and file shares from data centres or other clouds to AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. Each workload gets the right strategy, a rehearsed cutover and a tested way back.
- 100+ global brands served
- ISO 9001 & ISO 27001 certified
- India · Singapore · USA
Live CI/CD pipeline
simulated demoerp-databasecommit 7f300c · main
- ⟳Discover
- 2Replicate
- 3Sync
- 4Cutover
- 5Verify
- ○Row counts
- ○Lag < 5s
- ○Backup taken
- ○Rollback ready
- on-premqueued
- pilotqueued
- cloudqueued
14
Deploys today
38 min
Lead time
0
Failed changes
- Lower licensing cost after a JIRA Data Center move to AWS
- 50%
- Lower licensing cost after a JIRA Data Center move to AWS
- Uptime on the migrated JIRA environment
- 99.9%
- Uptime on the migrated JIRA environment
- Faster infrastructure scaling after the same migration
- 3x
- Faster infrastructure scaling after the same migration
- every cutover rehearsed with a tested way back
- Rollback-ready
- every cutover rehearsed with a tested way back
Cloud migration services move workloads off ageing hardware or an expensive platform without breaking the business that runs on them. The hard part is rarely copying data. It is choosing the right path for each application and switching over without surprises.
Our team starts with discovery. We map servers, dependencies, licences and data flows, then group workloads into waves. Each wave has a landing zone ready, a rehearsed cutover and a rollback plan that has actually been tested.
This guide explains what cloud migration services cover, the strategies we use, the risks to plan for and how to compare providers. It includes an ICANIO JIRA Data Center migration to AWS that cut licensing cost by 50% at 99.9% uptime.
What Are Cloud Migration Services?
Cloud migration services are the assessment, planning, engineering and cutover work needed to run existing systems in a public cloud. The source can be a private data centre, a colocation rack, a hosted platform or another cloud provider.
A migration is a portfolio exercise, not one big move. A typical estate holds dozens or hundreds of applications. Some should move as they are. Others need a new database engine, a container platform or a full redesign. A few should simply be retired.
The industry groups these choices as the 7 Rs: retire, retain, rehost, relocate, repurchase, replatform and refactor. Good cloud migration services apply them per workload, based on business value, technical debt and how much change the team can absorb.
Migration also changes how systems are run. Backups, monitoring, identity and cost control all work differently in the cloud. We plan those operating changes as part of the move, not after it.
Working definition
“Cloud migration services are the structured assessment, planning and execution work that moves applications and data to a cloud platform in controlled waves, with each workload matched to the right migration strategy.”
Foundations
Four Rules for a Calm Migration
- 01 →
Discover Before You Decide
Dependency maps and utilisation data come first. Assumptions about what talks to what are the top cause of failed cutovers.
- 02 →
Land on Solid Ground
Accounts, networks, identity and guardrails are built as code before the first workload arrives.
- 03 →
Move in Small Waves
Low-risk systems go first. Each wave teaches lessons that make the next one faster and safer.
- 04 ↺
Always Have a Way Back
Every cutover has a rollback trigger, an owner and a time limit, agreed before the change window opens.
Core capabilities
Cloud Migration Services We Deliver
Our cloud migration services cover the full journey, from first inventory to the day the old hardware is switched off.
Landing Zone Design
Multi-account structure, network topology, identity, logging and guardrails written as infrastructure as code. New workloads land in a secure, governed home.
Built as code
Rehost and Replatform
Virtual machines move with replication tools, and databases shift to managed services where it pays. Our cloud migration services keep code changes small for these waves.
Fast wins →Refactor to Cloud-Native
Monoliths split into services and containers where scale or speed demands it. Our SaaS modernisation work moved a legacy desktop tool onto Azure Kubernetes Service.
Cloud-native →Database and Data Migration
Change data capture, replication and validation for large databases and search clusters. Cloud migration services must prove every row arrived intact.
Zero data loss goal →Cutover and Hypercare
Runbooks, rehearsals, DNS switching and a hypercare window with our engineers on call. We stay until the new environment is stable and handed over.
Rehearsed
Architecture
How Our Cloud Migration Services Are Structured
We run cloud migration services as a factory with four layers. Insight from each wave flows back into planning for the next.
01
Discover & Plan
- Asset inventory
- Dependency mapping
- 7 Rs decision
- Wave plan
02
Landing Zone
- Account structure
- Network & VPN
- Identity & SSO
- Guardrails
03
Migration Factory
- Server replication
- Database sync
- Container builds
- Cutover runbooks
04
Operate & Optimise
- Monitoring
- Backup & DR
- Cost tagging
- Decommissioning
Closed-loop feedback: Every wave ends with a short review. Timing, defects and surprises feed the runbooks, so later waves move faster with fewer issues.
Challenges we solve
Problems Cloud Migration Services Solve
Most migration projects stall for the same handful of reasons.
- 01
Hardware at End of Life
Support contracts expire and refresh quotes arrive. A planned move avoids buying another five years of servers.
- 02
Licensing That Grows With Headcount
Per-user or per-core pricing climbs with every hire. Re-architecting on cloud can change that cost curve.
- 03
Hidden Dependencies
An old batch job or hard-coded IP breaks after cutover. Discovery tools and traffic analysis find them first.
- 04
Long Downtime Windows
Big-bang moves need a whole weekend offline. Continuous replication shrinks the switch to minutes.
- 05
Skills Gaps
In-house teams know the old stack well and the new one less. Pairing during migration builds that skill.
- 06
Cost Shock After the Move
Lifted servers run 24x7 at full size. Rightsizing and tagging from day one keep the first bills sane.
Types of Cloud Migration Strategy
Most estates use several strategies at once. These four cover the bulk of real workloads.
- 1Rehost (lift and shift): Move virtual machines as they are. Fastest route out of a data centre, with optimisation left for later.
- 2Replatform (lift and reshape): Swap pieces for managed services, such as a self-run database for Amazon RDS or Azure SQL, without rewriting the app.
- 3Refactor (re-architect): Redesign for containers, serverless or microservices. Highest effort, best fit for products that must scale.
- 4Repurchase or retire: Replace an app with SaaS, or switch off systems nobody uses. Often the cheapest migration of all.
Rehost vs Replatform vs Refactor
Each strategy trades speed against long-term benefit. We usually combine them across waves.
| Factor | Rehost | Replatform | Refactor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed to migrate | Fastest | Moderate | Slowest |
| Code changes | None | Minor | Major |
| Uses managed services | No | Partial | ✓ Yes |
| Ongoing cost benefit | Low | Medium | High |
| Best for | Exit deadlines | Quick wins | Core products |
Benefits of Professional Cloud Migration Services
A well-run migration pays off long after the last server is switched off.
- No more hardware refresh cyclesBecause capacity is rented and scaled on demand.
- Higher availabilityBecause workloads can span zones and regions by design.
- Faster deliveryBecause new environments take minutes instead of purchase orders.
- Clearer costsBecause every resource is tagged to an owner from the start.
- Stronger recoveryBecause backups and disaster recovery are built into the platform.
- Lower riskBecause each wave is tested and reversible before it goes live.
Delivery
Our 5-Phase Cloud Migration Plan
Week 1–3
Discover
Inventory, dependency mapping, utilisation data and a business case for each application.
Week 3–5
Plan & Land
Strategy per workload, wave plan and a landing zone built and tested as code.
Week 5–8
Pilot Wave
A small, low-risk group moves first to prove tooling, runbooks and rollback.
Week 8–24
Migration Waves
Remaining workloads move in planned waves, each with rehearsal, cutover and hypercare.
After cutover
Optimise
Rightsizing, reserved capacity, decommissioning and handover to run teams.
Case study
Case Study: JIRA Data Center Migration to AWS
A growing engineering organisation faced rising per-user JIRA Cloud licensing and limited control over its environment and data residency. ICANIO moved it to a self-hosted, highly available JIRA Data Center on AWS, provisioned through infrastructure as code. Licensing cost fell by 50%, uptime reached 99.9% and infrastructure scaling became 3x faster.
“Per-user licensing costs more as a team grows and caps how much control that team has.”Read the full case study →
01
Infrastructure as Code
AWS CloudFormation
The whole environment was provisioned from templates, not by hand.
02
High Availability
ALB · Multi-AZ RDS · EFS
Load balancing, a multi-zone database and shared storage across nodes kept the service online.
03
Security Perimeter
AWS WAF · VPC isolation
Web filtering and network isolation hardened the new self-hosted setup.
More DevOps & Cloud Services
Specialist services within our devops & cloud engineering practice.
- Main serviceDevOps & Cloud Engineering →CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, cloud migration and SRE for faster, safer releases.
- CI/CD Pipeline Automation →Automated build, test and release pipelines that make deployments frequent and boring.
- Kubernetes Consulting →Container platforms on EKS, AKS or GKE designed for scale, security and cost.
- Infrastructure as Code Services →Terraform and CloudFormation modules that make environments repeatable and reviewable.
- DevSecOps Services →Security scanning, policy and secrets management built into every pipeline stage.
- Cloud Cost Optimization →FinOps practices, rightsizing and tagging that make cloud spend visible and smaller.
How to Choose a Cloud Migration Partner
Migration partners vary widely in method and honesty. We recommend testing them on five points.
- 1Discovery depth. Ask which tools they use to map dependencies, and what they do when data is missing.
- 2Strategy per workload. Beware anyone who proposes lift and shift for everything, or refactor for everything.
- 3Rollback discipline. Ask to see a real cutover runbook with go and no-go criteria.
- 4Multi-cloud fluency. The partner should explain AWS, Azure and Google Cloud trade-offs without bias.
- 5Life after cutover. Check who handles cost tuning, monitoring and incidents in the following months.
The best cloud migration services leave you with fewer systems, clearer costs and a team that knows the new platform. That is how ICANIO measures a finished migration.
Security and Compliance During Migration
Data is most exposed while it moves. We encrypt in transit and at rest, use private links or VPNs for replication and restrict who can reach the transfer tooling.
Landing zones enforce guardrails from the start: logging to a central account, blocked public storage, and least-privilege roles. Identity is federated with your directory, so leavers lose access everywhere at once.
ICANIO works under ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified processes. For regulated data we check region choices against residency needs and map controls to frameworks such as HIPAA, PCI DSS or GDPR before moving a byte.
Building the Business Case for Migration
We compare today's full cost, including hardware, power, space, licences and staff time, with a rightsized cloud estimate per wave. The model uses your utilisation data, not vendor averages.
Then we add the benefits that are harder to price: faster environment setup, better disaster recovery and the option to adopt managed analytics or machine learning services later. These often decide the case.
After cutover we track actual spend against the model each month. Gaps trigger rightsizing or commitment changes, so the promised savings from cloud migration services turn into real ones.
Technology stack
Our Cloud Migration Toolkit
We use native provider tools where they work well and proven third-party tools where they do not.
Clouds
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
Discovery
- AWS Application Discovery
- Azure Migrate
Dependency mappingUtilisation exports
Server Moves
- AWS Application Migration Service
- Azure Site Recovery
Migrate to Virtual Machines
Data Moves
- AWS DMS
- Azure Database Migration
Native replicationSnapshot restore
Landing Zone
- Terraform
- CloudFormation
- AWS Control Tower
- Azure landing zones
Operations
- CloudWatch
- Azure Monitor
- Prometheus & Grafana
Backup policies
Inside Our Cloud Migration Projects
Cloud Migration Services FAQs
What do your cloud migration services include?
Our cloud migration services include discovery, business case, strategy per workload, landing zone build, data and server migration, cutover, hypercare and early cost optimisation.
How long does a cloud migration take?
A pilot wave usually moves within eight weeks of kick-off. Full estates take several months, depending on the number of applications and how much refactoring they need.
Will our systems go offline during migration?
We aim for minimal downtime. Continuous replication keeps the target in sync, so the final switch often takes minutes. Each cutover window is agreed with you in advance.
Which cloud should we migrate to?
It depends on your workloads, skills, contracts and data rules. Our cloud migration services compare AWS, Azure and Google Cloud for your case and recommend one or a mix.
Can you migrate manufacturing and IoT systems?
Yes, with care. Plant systems, IoT gateways and digital twin back ends often need low latency, so we keep edge pieces on site and move analytics and history to the cloud.
Do cloud migration services reduce cost straight away?
Not always on day one. Lifted servers can cost more until they are rightsized. We build tagging and rightsizing into every wave, so savings arrive within the first billing cycles.
DevOps & Cloud by Industry
How we deliver cloud migration services and the wider devops & cloud practice in each sector.
- ManufacturingDevOps & Cloud for Manufacturing →Smart factories, connected lines and predictive maintenance.
- Transportation & LogisticsDevOps & Cloud for Logistics →Fleet health, route optimisation and supply chain visibility.
- Healthcare & Life SciencesDevOps & Cloud for Healthcare →Clinical platforms, medical AI and HIPAA-ready systems.
- Retail & E-CommerceDevOps & Cloud for Retail →Commerce platforms, shelf intelligence and demand forecasting.
- Fintech & BankingDevOps & Cloud for Fintech →Payments, reporting portals and secure data platforms.
- Education & E-LearningDevOps & Cloud for Education →Learning platforms, placement portals and AI assessment.
Related Specialist Services
- App DevelopmentSaaS Development →Multi-tenant SaaS products with billing, onboarding and scale designed in from day one.
- Support EngineeringIncident Management Services →Structured triage, response and post-incident reviews that shorten every outage.
- Digital TwinProcess Digital Twin →Live models of production lines and plant processes to find bottlenecks and tune throughput.
Key Takeaways
- Cloud migration services work best as a wave-by-wave portfolio, not a single big move.
- Choose rehost, replatform, refactor or retire per workload, based on value and effort.
- Build the landing zone as code and rehearse every cutover with a tested rollback.
- Track cost and uptime against the business case after each wave goes live.
Conclusion
A migration succeeds when users barely notice it happened. That takes honest discovery, the right strategy per workload and cutovers that have been practised before the real night.
ICANIO cloud migration services bring that discipline to AWS, Azure and Google Cloud moves of any size. Contact us to map your estate and plan a first wave with clear success measures.
By ICANIO DevOps & Cloud Engineering Team · Published · Updated
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