Introduction: Understanding Cloud Migration Challenges
Cloud migration is a vital strategy for businesses aiming to scale and innovate, but it comes with its own set of cloud migration challenges. Migrating workloads to the cloud often involves complexities, risks, and costs that organizations must carefully manage.
Gartner highlights that cloud migration initiatives for enterprise applications are frequently hindered by three major obstacles:
- Large application sizes
- High levels of customization
- Insufficient skills
In order to successfully navigate these challenges, I&O leaders must first modernize their infrastructure and applications, transforming them into cloud-ready configurations before migration.
Fortunately, Azure VMware Solution (AVS) offers an effective solution to these problems, providing businesses with the tools needed for a seamless and efficient migration. In this blog, we will explore the primary cloud migration challenges and explain how Azure VMware Solution helps overcome them, ensuring a smooth transition to the cloud.
Top 3 Barriers to Cloud Migration by Gartner
1. Application Size
Challenge: Legacy applications, particularly those over 6TB, are often not designed for the cloud. While virtual machines (VMs) are advanced, migrating large-scale applications can be a daunting task, especially when they don’t fit within the confines of a single VM. According to Gartner, about 85% of enterprise applications predate the cloud and are thus incompatible with cloud-native architecture, making their migration challenging.
How Azure VMware Solution (AVS) Helps: Azure VMware Solution provides the infrastructure needed to migrate large, complex applications to the cloud seamlessly. AVS allows organizations to extend their VMware-based workloads directly to Azure without re-architecting the applications. This enables businesses to migrate large applications while maintaining their original architecture. AVS also supports scaling large VMware workloads across multiple VMs or clusters, making it easier to move applications that exceed traditional VM size limits.
Key Benefits:
- Seamless migration of large applications: AVS supports large, complex workloads by providing scalable resources.
- Lift-and-shift capabilities: No need to re-architect applications, making it easier to migrate legacy apps.
2. High Levels of Customization
Challenge: Many legacy applications come with high levels of customization, such as added fields, custom screens, scripts, or reports, making them difficult to migrate to the cloud. According to Gartner, the greater the customization, the more time-consuming and expensive the migration becomes. Standardizing these applications before migration is crucial, but this requires careful planning.
How AVS Helps: Azure VMware Solution is a powerful tool in addressing the complexity of migrating highly customized applications. AVS supports a lift-and-shift approach, where organizations can move applications directly to the cloud without losing critical customizations. This minimizes the need for re-architecting or rebuilding customized systems.
By leveraging the same VMware tools businesses are already using—such as vSphere, vCenter, and vSAN—AVS reduces the time spent on standardization. Additionally, businesses can preserve their custom scripts, processes, and configurations while shifting workloads to Azure, which ensures continuity without sacrificing the benefits of the cloud.
Key Benefits:
- Support for highly customized applications: Maintain the integrity of custom scripts, processes, and fields during migration.
- No need for complete reconfiguration: AVS reduces the complexity of standardizing applications for cloud readiness.
3. Skills Gap: Transitional and Transformational Skills
Challenge: Cloud providers often focus on providing operational and implementation skills (e.g., building and running the cloud environment), but transitional and transformational skills—such as moving highly customized apps to a cloud-native architecture—are typically outside the scope of the provider’s offerings. Gartner notes that a lack of these specialized skills can result in migration delays and increased costs.
How AVS Helps: Azure VMware Solution bridges the skills gap by offering the infrastructure and tools necessary to migrate both standardized and customized applications to Azure. AVS simplifies the transition by using familiar VMware tools that already exist in many IT departments, reducing the need for new expertise or external partners.
Additionally, Aptly, a trusted partner for AVS migrations, provides the transitional and transformational skills needed to handle the complexities of highly customized legacy applications. This ensures that businesses can modernize their infrastructure and applications into cloud-native configurations, facilitating a smooth transition and minimizing the risk of costly errors during migration.
Key Benefits:
- Support for transitional and transformational skills: AVS helps I&O teams overcome the skills gap by leveraging existing expertise.
- Comprehensive migration support: Specialized partners like Aptly offer additional skills to handle complex cloud migration challenges.
How Azure VMware Solution Addresses Cloud Migration Challenges?
1. Challenge: Hybrid Cloud Integration
Problem:
Many businesses adopt a hybrid cloud strategy, where some workloads remain on-premises, while others are hosted in the cloud. However, achieving a smooth integration between on-premises VMware environments and public cloud platforms like Azure can be difficult. Challenges include maintaining data consistency, managing resources across different environments, and ensuring seamless application performance.
Solution:
Azure VMware Solution allows businesses to seamlessly extend their on-premises VMware environments to Azure. With AVS, organizations can create a hybrid cloud infrastructure that spans on-premises data centers and Azure, enabling them to manage workloads across both environments using VMware vCenter. AVS also supports workload mobility, allowing businesses to shift workloads between on-premises and the cloud based on real-time demands.
This hybrid cloud capability provides businesses with the flexibility to scale their workloads on-demand while still retaining control over critical on-premises systems. It also enables organizations to integrate Azure’s cloud-native services (such as storage, AI, and analytics) with VMware workloads, expanding their ability to innovate without migrating completely away from their legacy systems.
Key Benefits:
- Seamless hybrid cloud integration
- Flexibility to scale workloads as needed
- Easy management using VMware vCenter
2. Challenge: High Costs of Cloud Migration
Problem:
Cost is often one of the biggest concerns for businesses contemplating cloud migration. Replatforming applications, retraining staff, and investing in new cloud infrastructure can quickly escalate costs. Furthermore, many organizations are concerned about cloud cost overruns due to lack of visibility into resource consumption and inefficient resource management.
Solution:
Azure VMware Solution helps businesses control migration costs by offering a flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing model that aligns cloud costs with actual usage. This approach allows organizations to scale their VMware workloads in Azure based on real-time demand without over-provisioning or over-spending. Moreover, because AVS leverages existing VMware infrastructure, businesses don’t have to invest in extensive retraining or reconfiguration efforts, reducing the costs associated with migrating applications to the cloud.
By extending their VMware workloads to Azure, businesses can also take advantage of cost-effective solutions such as Azure Reserved Instances and Storage options, helping them save on long-term cloud expenses.
Key Benefits:
- Flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing
- Cost optimization through Azure Reserved Instances
- No need for extensive retraining or reconfiguration
[Sources: Microsoft Source: Azure VMware Solution Pricing, VMware Source: VMware Azure VMware Pricing]
3. Challenge: Security and Compliance Concerns
Problem:
As organizations migrate their sensitive data and critical workloads to the cloud, security and compliance challenges become top priorities. Businesses in regulated industries—such as finance, healthcare, and government—must ensure that their cloud infrastructure adheres to strict data protection regulations. The complexity of securing workloads across hybrid environments adds another layer of difficulty.
Solution:
Azure VMware Solution combines VMware’s enterprise-grade security capabilities with Azure’s advanced security tools, creating a robust security framework for VMware workloads in the cloud. AVS integrates with Azure’s security features such as Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel, and Azure Firewall, providing businesses with comprehensive protection against threats and vulnerabilities.
Additionally, because AVS supports compliance with major standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2, businesses can trust that their cloud environments meet industry-specific regulations. VMware’s NSX-T enables network segmentation and micro-segmentation, adding another layer of security by isolating sensitive workloads.
Key Benefits:
- Strong security features from both VMware and Azure
- Integration with Azure’s native security tools
- Compliance with industry regulations and standards
[Sources: Microsoft Source: Azure VMware Solution Security, VMware Source: VMware Security Features in Azure]
4. Challenge: Downtime During Migration
Problem:
Minimizing downtime during migration is crucial for businesses that rely on continuous service availability. Migrating large-scale applications and workloads to the cloud without causing interruptions can be challenging, especially for mission-critical systems that cannot afford downtime.
Solution:
Azure VMware Solution helps businesses achieve near-zero downtime during migration with VMware HCX, a tool that automates the migration process. HCX allows businesses to migrate workloads from on-premises VMware environments to Azure without disrupting service availability. The solution supports live migrations of virtual machines, ensuring that workloads can continue running throughout the migration process, thus minimizing downtime and maintaining business continuity.
In addition, organizations can use the AVS infrastructure to run disaster recovery plans in the cloud, further reducing the risks of downtime during migration and providing added business resilience.
Key Benefits:
- Live migration of virtual machines with minimal downtime.
- Seamless workload migration without service disruptions.
- Business continuity with disaster recovery in the cloud.
[Sources: Microsoft Source: Azure VMware Solution HCX, VMware Source: VMware HCX for Azure VMware Solution]
5. Challenge: Choosing the Right Cloud Provider – Aptly Technology
Problem:
Finding the right cloud provider for your VMware workloads can be a complex decision. With so many options available, it’s crucial to choose a provider that offers seamless integration, strong support, and cost-effective pricing tailored to your business’s specific needs.
Solution:
Aptly AVS Migration Service is the right choice for businesses looking for a smooth transition when migrating VMware workloads to Azure seamlessly. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Aptly provides expertise in Azure VMware migrations with a proven track record of success. Our comprehensive cloud expertise ensures that your migration strategy is customized to your unique infrastructure, business goals, and growth trajectory.
Aptly offers 24/7 expert support, cost-efficient solutions, and a customer-centric approach to guarantee that your migration is not only seamless but also optimized for the long term.
By choosing Aptly Technologies for your AVS migration, you gain access to:
- Best Methodologies and Step-by-Step Approach: Aptly applies industry best practices and a structured, phased approach to ensure a smooth, secure, and efficient migration process.
- Innovative Solutions: Cutting-edge technology for optimized cloud strategies.
- Seamless Integration: Aligning VMware environments with Azure for minimal disruption.
- Proactive Risk Management: Comprehensive planning and monitoring throughout the migration.
- Microsoft Gold Certified Partner: Trusted partner with expertise in AVS migrations.
- Comprehensive Cloud Expertise: Tailored solutions for your unique infrastructure needs.
- Customer-Centric Approach: Transparent communication and personalized support.
- 24/7 Expert Support: Round-the-clock assistance for smooth operations.
- Cost Efficiency: Proven strategies to reduce cloud costs and maximize ROI.
Partner with Aptly Technologies for your AVS migration to ensure a secure, cost-effective, and successful transition to Azure.
Real-World Use Cases of Azure VMware Solution in Cloud Migration
1) Avianca, a leading South American airline with over a century of excellence in service, safety, and punctuality, embraced Microsoft Azure VMware Solution to simplify its cloud migration and modernize its IT infrastructure.
This approach allowed the airline to seamlessly integrate legacy systems with modern technologies, enabling business continuity, cost efficiency, and regulatory compliance. By leveraging Azure, Avianca streamlined its operations, enhanced innovation, and maintained its reputation for delivering exceptional customer experiences in the dynamic air travel industry.
2) Investors Bank faced latency issues with its IT infrastructure and needed a cloud transition that preserved its competitive edge and customer experience. AIS conducted a cloud economic assessment and utilized Azure VMware Solution to seamlessly migrate the bank’s data center to private cloud virtual machines, adding secure storage solutions.
As a result, the bank can now swiftly migrate application workloads, optimize costs, streamline access, enhance collaboration, and better meet customer needs.
Conclusion
Migrating VMware workloads to the cloud presents significant challenges, from complexity and security concerns to managing costs and ensuring minimal downtime. However, the Azure VMware Solution (AVS) offers a comprehensive and efficient solution to overcome these obstacles, ensuring businesses can transition to the cloud with confidence.
By choosing Aptly Technologies for your AVS migration, you are partnering with a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that brings a wealth of experience in Azure VMware migrations. Our expert team provides innovative, cost-effective, and personalized solutions tailored to your business’s needs. With seamless integration, 24/7 support, and proactive risk management, we make sure your migration is smooth, secure, and optimized for long-term success.
With Aptly’s AVS Migration Service, your business can scale, innovate, and achieve operational excellence in the cloud—without the typical migration headaches. Let us help you navigate your cloud journey with ease and efficiency, ensuring a bright and future-ready future on Azure.
