Application Migration

Data center migration is the process of moving or relocating an existing data center environment to another type of environment, such as the cloud or an off-premises location. Data center migration also refers to the adoption of cloud or third-party-managed data center platforms instead of on-premises data center facilities. The process involves systematic planning for migrating the physical, logical and operational components of the data center to the new facility or platform.

Data center migration may be necessary because of business mergers and acquisitions, aging on-premises facilities, outdated or inadequate data center equipment, or consolidation mandates following company reorganizations. Best practices for data center migration include ensuring the new facility can meet expected performance requirements; the new platform is compatible with current applications and workload solutions; the migration testing is successful; and the relocation is scheduled for minimal impact to current business operations. Contracts with hardware and software providers should be reviewed for renegotiation or termination, as the new data center may eliminate the need for some old components. Before the move, document all data center inventory, including warranty information, serial numbers, system logs, live workloads, scheduled backups and current software versions. Disaster recovery and backups may need to be adjusted for the new location.

Data center migration is often part of an organization’s IT infrastructure transformation to become more agile, innovative and efficient. Many businesses migrate to a software-defined infrastructure (SDI) to support new business processes such as DevOps. Software-defined infrastructures offer the flexibility needed to improve time-to-market while ensuring service availability. SDI solutions help reduce costs by leveraging existing or low-cost hardware, cloud computing architectures, centralized management and open source software. Software-defined infrastructure is better suited than traditional hardware-defined infrastructure for migrating to a shared, on-demand IT services environment. SUSE offers a full SDI reference architecture that is modular and flexible, supporting DevOps methodologies and data center automation.

Interoperability is the capability for different IT systems and devices to exchange data and process or use the exchanged data, regardless of its source. Interoperability usually refers to the basic ability of computerized systems to connect and communicate with one another without restrictions, even if they were developed by different manufacturers in different industries. The ability to exchange information between applications, databases and other computer systems is crucial for digital transformation.

In healthcare, interoperability makes it easier for different medical service providers to share patient information. It can also make healthcare more efficient by avoiding redundant patient tests and helping specialists communicate with referring doctors, thus improving medical outcomes. In computer software, syntactic interoperability refers to two or more IT systems communicating with each other using specified data formats and communication protocols such as XML or SQL. Semantic interoperability refers to the automatic interpretation of the exchanged information in order to produce useful results, as defined by the end users of both systems.

Interoperability may also describe the capability of different programs to exchange data via a common set of exchange formats, to read and write the same file formats, and to use the same protocols. A high degree of interoperability is required in mixed IT environments. The ability for programs, databases and applications to work with Windows, Linux and other operating platforms is key to an efficient data center. Interoperability is also required for directory and identity federation in mixed Linux and Windows environments. Microsoft recommends SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to customers who run Windows and Linux together.

Cloud migration is the process of moving data, applications, digital assets and IT resources from an organization’s on-site computers to the cloud, or moving them from one cloud environment to another. The migrated items are accessible behind the cloud’s firewall. Cloud migration sometimes involves moving data or other IT components between cloud environments, in a cloud-to-cloud migration. The process of transitioning to a different cloud provider is called cloud service migration. Successful migration to a cloud service provider’s environment may require the use of middleware to bridge any gaps between technologies. Cloud migration is also known as business process outsourcing (BPO), where computing, storage, software and platform services are transferred to the cloud.

Transitioning to the cloud or between cloud environments can be complicated by having data stored and managed remotely by external organizations, often in multiple locations. Cloud migration planning must consider privacy, interoperability, data and application portability, data integrity, business continuity and security needs. An organization’s cloud migration process often involves merging an on-site IT infrastructure with a hybrid cloud solution.

While a cloud migration can present technical challenges and raise security concerns, cloud computing can enable companies to reduce capital expenditures and operating costs. Successful cloud migration provides the benefits of dynamic up-or-down scaling, high availability, multi-tenancy and efficient resource allocation to businesses transitioning to cloud-based data centers.

Application migration is the process of moving a software application from one environment to another, such as migrating a program from an on-site data center server to a cloud provider’s environment. It may also refer to moving an application from one cloud environment to another. Application migration can be extremely complex because applications are not typically designed to be portable. Applications are usually designed to run on a specific platform and are often dependent on a certain operating system, network architecture, storage system or virtual machine configuration. Successful application migration may require the use of middleware products to bridge any gaps between technologies.

The rapid adoption of virtualization and cloud technologies has increased demand for application migration, raising IT challenges for apps that can’t be virtualized or moved to the cloud, apps with critical legacy dependencies, and apps with strict compliance and security requirements. Application migration may also be needed after data center closures, a server security compromise, disaster recovery, or server hardware/operating system upgrades. Rebuilding custom business applications, as opposed to updating, maintaining and migrating them, is generally cost prohibitive.

The high cost of proprietary platforms and software renewals, and the desire to improve data center price-performance metrics, are driving application migration to Linux and open source IT solutions. SUSE delivers industry-standard Linux solutions that give IT organizations the flexibility to migrate to the server platform that’s best for their workloads. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server eliminates the need to purchase proprietary servers, allowing businesses to use commodity hardware and open source platforms in their data centers.