09 Sep Is “Lift & Shift” the Right Approach for Moving Your Legacy Application to the Cloud?
There are still plenty of companies running their key business workflows off of legacy applications.
These applications are often believed to be outdated, obsolete, or growing increasingly unstable as they become less and less compatible with modern operating systems, browsers, and even information technology (IT) structures.
Many businesses rely on these legacy apps and believe that they can’t migrate them to the cloud because of these limitations.
If you need to retain access to the important data and business processes that are powered by your legacy systems, you need to understand all your options for successfully migrating to the cloud.
Can Migrating to the Cloud Improve Performance of Legacy Applications?
Simply stated, migrating legacy applications to the cloud can provide benefits while preserving the historical value of applications to your business. Migration can be a way to modernize your legacy applications while reducing infrastructure costs.
Taking advantage of the cloud can improve scalability and efficiency and reduce dependence on a limited pool of IT professionals who can manage static legacy systems.
Finally, taking your application to the cloud can increase the speed at which operations can be performed which improves your organization’s responsiveness.
When you consider the spiraling costs of maintaining a legacy system in house vs. the benefits of migrating to the cloud, it may be tempting to take advantage of the cloud, but is that what’s best for your organization?
If you’ve looked into the cloud, you may have considered doing a “lift and shift” migration. Touted as one of the easiest ways to get into the cloud, it may sound appealing.
Should We “Lift and Shift” Our Legacy App?
First, let’s define “lift and shift”. Lift and shift allows for moving an application or operation from its current environment to a new one (like the cloud) without any redesign to the application or operational workflow.
That may sound ideal, especially if you’re generally comfortable with the app’s current performance. However, a lift and shift maneuver can leave you vulnerable to serious security or performance issues after migration.
When taken out of their current environment, some legacy applications develop latency issues or other serious problems that are nearly impossible to correct.
Some applications just aren’t well suited to the lift and shift migration strategy, generally. If your legacy app is a resource intensive data analytics type of application it may not be a good candidate for this type of migration.
Could Virtual Desktops Be the Most Effective Solution for Your Legacy Application?
“For the majority of our customers, it’s all about their applications,” says Mason Cooper, Chief Information Officer at CyberlinkASP.
This is why the team of experts at CyberlinkASP take the time to understand your business operations and processes so they can develop the most cost-effective solution for your organization.
It can be difficult to move legacy applications into modern IT systems. Then there are the challenges of getting stakeholders, employees, and even customers on board with new systems.
In many industries, virtual desktops meet these challenges for businesses that rely on legacy applications.
With your legacy application running on a virtual desktop, it means:
- Having access from anywhere – meaning that your workforce can finally take full advantage of the modern work from anywhere approach
- Having the ability to set up multiple sessions within a virtual desktop environment
- Retaining familiar workflows which results in reduced training time for employees
- Freeing your application from OS restrictions by enabling access through managed endpoints
- Safeguarding your application with the most current security tools and protocols.
Ready to Discuss Your Options?
We’ve helped organizations in many industries retain their familiar legacy applications while helping to modernize their functionality. With your application running in a virtual environment, you get all the benefits of high-level security and reliability at scale while reducing your direct IT costs.
Schedule a conversation with one of our cloud migration experts who can help you understand the immediate benefits of moving your legacy applications to a virtual desktop.