Rehosting

Definition

Rehosting, often referred to as 'lift-and-shift', is a cloud migration strategy that involves moving applications and data from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud without making significant changes to the underlying architecture. This approach allows organizations to quickly migrate existing workloads to a cloud environment while maintaining their original configurations, enabling immediate benefits such as cost savings and increased scalability.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Rehosting is typically one of the quickest migration strategies available, allowing organizations to reduce downtime during the transition.
2. This method is particularly beneficial for legacy applications that may not be easily modernized but still require migration to a cloud infrastructure.
3. Rehosting often results in immediate cost savings due to reduced hardware maintenance and improved resource utilization in the cloud.
4. While rehosting does not involve significant changes to applications, it may still require updates to security protocols and compliance measures in the cloud environment.
5. Organizations using rehosting may eventually consider modernizing their applications further to take advantage of cloud-native features after the initial migration.

Review Questions

• How does rehosting facilitate the quick migration of legacy applications to the cloud without extensive modifications?
  • Rehosting simplifies the migration process by allowing legacy applications to be moved directly to a cloud environment with minimal changes to their architecture. This 'lift-and-shift' strategy enables organizations to transfer workloads rapidly while maintaining existing configurations. As a result, businesses can quickly reap benefits like improved scalability and reduced costs, making it an attractive option for legacy systems that need immediate cloud access.
• Discuss the advantages and potential drawbacks of using rehosting as a migration strategy for modernizing applications.
  • Rehosting offers several advantages, including speed of migration and immediate cost savings from reduced on-premises infrastructure. However, there are drawbacks, such as not fully leveraging cloud-native capabilities or improvements in performance and efficiency. Organizations may find that while rehosting allows them to move quickly, it may also lead to technical debt if they do not follow up with further modernization efforts after the initial migration.
• Evaluate the long-term implications of relying solely on rehosting versus adopting a more comprehensive modernization strategy for cloud-based applications.
  • Relying solely on rehosting may provide short-term benefits such as rapid migration and cost reduction but can lead to missed opportunities for optimization and innovation in the long run. Without adopting a more comprehensive modernization strategy that incorporates refactoring or rebuilding applications for the cloud, organizations risk stagnating in terms of performance and scalability. In contrast, embracing a full modernization approach could allow businesses to exploit advanced cloud features, improving efficiency and agility while ensuring their applications remain competitive in an evolving digital landscape.

Related terms

Lift-and-Shift: A migration technique that involves moving applications to the cloud with minimal or no modifications, preserving the original architecture and design.

Cloud-Native Applications: Applications designed specifically for the cloud environment, optimized for scalability, resilience, and ease of deployment, often taking full advantage of cloud services.

Containerization:

A method of packaging applications and their dependencies into containers, which can run consistently across different computing environments, facilitating easier deployment in the cloud.