Migrating to the Cloud

Migrating to the Cloud?

There are several reasons for companies to consider migrating to the cloud, for example:

• Cost benefits and improving financial flexibility
• Modernize applications
• Enhanced scalability when needs fluctuate
• Reducing lag issues (network latency) any time & place

However, the benefits, challenges and investments depend on the what.

Is it a database, an office suite, a non-critical application, software development or core applications and platforms that are strategically essential for your company and its customers?

In this article, I focus on migration of the Papyrus Platform to the cloud.

For most of our customers, the Papyrus Platform is a strategic and critical application.

Which cloud deployment model?

There are four cloud computing deployment models: private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud.

Cloud provider’s typical offer three types of cloud computing services; IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. 

Each cloud service model may have different advantages and disadvantages depending on your organization’s needs.

Rehosting

Rehosting involves moving on-premise data and applications to the cloud without significantly changing the underlying code, and is known as the “lift and shift” strategy. It is the simplest, most cost-effective, and least time-consuming way to migrate to the cloud. It’s often considered when there is a need to replace slow servers, outdated networking equipment or when an operating system is out-of-support. 

Papyrus customers didn’t have to wait for cloud. In the last two decades Papyrus supported seamless replatforming between Mainframe, Unix, AIX, Linux, Windows, VMWare and Citrix as well supporting hybrid environments. Since about ten years, we have seen and helped companies replatforming to the cloud, migrating from cloud-to-cloud, for example, switching from Microsoft Azure Cloud Services to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and even reverse cloud migration, which involves transferring applications and data from the cloud to an on-site environment.

Replatforming 

Replatforming involves modifying your applications’ code to make it compatible with and work in a cloud environment. This “move and improve” approach means that the application remains mostly unchanged. 

Cloud-native services such as auto-scaling improve user experience and throughput at less cost when latency or not enough CPU power is an issue.

While traditional applications need significant investment to make their components cloud-compatible, Papyrus Platform has its node-based architecture with queues, supporting vertical and horizontal scaling. Seamless integrating with orchestrators such as Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes. Read more about replatforming in the blog post of Michael Firntrhat, Development Manager at Papyrus Software.

Closing

The Papyrus platform, protects the customer’s investment, allowing them to adapt and modernize their IT infrastructure over the years. Papyrus customers benefit from Moore’s Law in computing power and storage at no additional cost, as no migration is needed when upgrade the software or switch IT infrastructure.

Freddie van Rijswijk

Senior Manager Business Applications