Original: Sid Chatterjee and Chadd Schwartz, November 18, 2019

Translation: Ultrapower Cloud Business

Editor's Note: There have been many articles discussing cloud migration, but do you know the characteristics of the second wave of cloud migration? This article well explains the features of the second wave of cloud migration. As cloud practitioners, are you prepared for this? Analysis shows that cloud business application development is gaining momentum, and cloud migration is no longer as simple as moving bricks. We need to make more efforts to truly leverage the advantages of the cloud.

Original article from: 52.83.57.155//cloud-computing.tmcnet.com/breaking-news/articles/443758-what-companies-need-know-the-second-wave-cloud.htm

Truly groundbreaking technologies often exhibit a phenomenon: they tend to arrive in waves. Typically, the first wave provides the cheapest and simplest new way to accomplish tasks. However, the second wave forms a new surge by leveraging its inherent advantages.

We are now seeing a similar situation with cloud computing: the second wave of cloud migration is coming...

Initially, enterprises wanted to move applications and data to the cloud in the fastest, lowest-cost, and simplest way possible. The first wave of "lift and shift" simply rehosted virtual machines (VMs) from on-premises, moving less critical, less complex applications without true strategic significance to the cloud. Many companies previously used what is now cloud in traditional data centers, but now it runs as an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model on public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Although cloud infrastructure services are sometimes cheaper, there are no technical changes, no application enhancements, or resource optimization. The first wave of migration to the cloud left many enterprises asking: "Is that all?" or "Why are costs on the cloud the same or even higher than my infrastructure service costs?" or "Why isn't it as efficient and agile as before after running in the cloud?"

Cloud computing has developed significantly in recent years. As the second wave of cloud computing forms, enterprises now want to leverage new capabilities to bring new ideas and products to market faster.

To better benefit from cloud services, you need to understand the following content.

Second Wave: Cloud Native Applications

The key to cloud native is how applications are created and deployed, not where. It's about using cloud native services to develop new modern applications, or re-architecting and refactoring existing applications to leverage all the functionality cloud provides beyond the infrastructure level, including functional and non-functional services. With speed and scale, companies can accelerate time to market and save significant development costs, sometimes up to 50%.

Tips for the Second Wave of Cloud

Create a Roadmap

Like any application transformation or migration, a solid plan and strategy is needed. Identifying which applications to migrate from monolithic cloud hosting to cloud native is key. Will you gain benefits such as cost savings, efficiency in application lifecycle management, faster deployment, and more features? Remember that a cloud native approach may not always be cost-effective for your entire application portfolio. Strategic applications related to products and services are worth investing in and moving to the second wave. Non-strategic applications may not have enough value to justify a second wave migration.

Design a Detailed Architecture to Leverage the Cloud

Migrating standalone cloud-hosted applications to cloud native microservices architecture requires disciplined design and architecture. Standard components of the cloud native application delivery model can be used to implement the following concepts:

• Containers are a way to package application code, configuration, and dependencies into a single object. They offer efficiency and speed compared to standard virtual machines.
• Microservices is an architectural approach where applications can be developed as a collection of smaller, composable services. Each component implements specific business functionality, runs its own process, can be assembled in various combinations, and communicates independently of other services.
• Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) allows individual application changes to be merged and released when ready, reducing time to market.
• DevOps is a collaborative tool shared between software developers and IT operators, with the goal of automating and simplifying the software delivery process.

Get Developers Using Cloud Native Methods

Cloud native applications are developed and deployed on cloud platforms very differently from traditional monolithic applications. By using technologies like serverless, developers no longer need to worry about the underlying infrastructure where their applications are deployed. Now they can treat the cloud like a true utility - always available, ready to meet their needs on demand. To implement the most effective cloud native systems, you need to retrain existing developers, hire new experienced cloud native developers, and/or bring in experienced resources from service providers.

Cloud Computing Is Both a Mindset Shift and a Paradigm Shift

It should be remembered that simply rehosting legacy applications and data to a public cloud doesn't produce any operational savings, nor does it achieve the depth and breadth of efficiency available. The second wave of cloud migration is coming, so stay ahead of the curve and competition before it's too late. Before you know it, the third wave of cloud migration will be arriving.