Migration Strategy - Legacy Applications into Cloud - Devops

"Sometimes it's now or never" is the quote coming in my top of the head. Yes, always software development companies show resistance in migrating their legacy software applications and platforms into cloud infrastructure. Hence with my past and current experience, I would like quickly summarize the list of key considerations into account while select cloud Infrastructure services for any application platform or services.

• Always select Two cloud infrastructure locations within the country limits as two availability zones to ensure data related compliance requirements are met. One of the locations to also act as primary disaster recovery location.
• Take the bet on "as a service" offerings from cloud providers as compared to IAAS or PAAS because it reduces the complete overhead of maintaining those infrastructures and platforms, which will also bring down financial CAPEX costs significantly.
• Should split 50% of workloads in between two locations to provide active-active configurations for applications and services.
• Plan and consider storage tiers and sizing during the due diligence phase in order to overcome surprise cost overheads.
• Full-Fledged backup considerations depending upon customers requirements should be vetted during due diligence phase.
• Open the target infrastructure for maximum possible automation roadmap.
• Always consider enabling auto-healing like auto-scaling or auto-on/off for application platform infrastructures.
• A high-end infrastructure monitoring and management solution had been constructed to handle hybrid cloud platform and legacy application services and devices in the targetted platform.
• Business-oriented migration strategy and planning should be created during the planning phases.
• Consider and make sure the Cloud platform or as a service architecture is futuristic technology transformations like  Server-less Computing, Digital, and Internet of Things etc.
• Last but not least, Make sure cloud hardware and software were sized suitably for server workloads and network components which include:
• 1) WAN/LAN Switching Fabric
• 2) Perimeter & Internal Firewall with proper IAM and security rules in place
• 3) Intrusion Detection and Prevention at important Ingress/ Egress Zones
• 4) External/DMZ (demilitarized zone) and Internal Elastic / App Load Balancer are in configured to channel the traffic flow into the services and applications.
• 5) Remote Client Terminal Connection to access organization’s resources
• 6) Site to site VPN (virtual private network)
• 7) Support functions for IP Addresses, DHCP, DNS