Cloud | Cloud Security | Security
Favorite Google Cloud Service: Google Cloud Security Command Center Premium Share 
Moving to a new home can be tricky. It involves many exhausting activities. You need to pack everything, transport it, unpack, set up furniture… and so much more. (Even thinking about it made me feel slightly tired). Similarly, moving to the cloud can turn out equally challenging.
However, in both cases, you don’t have to do all the burdensome work yourself.
Just as you can ask a relocation company to help you with transporting your things to your new house, you can rely on cloud migration tools to help you with moving to the world of cloud technology.
And in this article, we’ll list the tools that – in our opinion – have the potential to help you the most in 2022 ⬇
What Is a Cloud Migration Tool and Why Do You Need One?
Let’s start with establishing what a cloud migration tool does, precisely.
Technically speaking, a cloud migration tool is a software solution (alternatively, an app or a service) that can assist you on your journey from legacy infrastructure to the cloud (or between clouds). Most importantly, cloud migration tools help to transport data, workloads, and/or applications effectively.
Typically, cloud migration tools come as a solution suite, where the vendor supports the client’s end-to-end cloud journey.
Now, to answer the question of why you need a cloud migration tool in the first place, think about all the things that happen during a cloud migration. There are many elements that need to be moved smartly – because migrating ineffectively can create downtimes. As a result, it’s sometimes difficult to establish what to do, exactly, and where to begin. And cloud migration tools help along the way, without you and your team having to worry about the technicalities mentioned above.
➡ On a sidenote: cloud migration tools can be great. But a good Cloud Migration Strategy is also crucial. Make sure to keep it in mind when planning your cloud migration.
Back to the main topic – if you’re not a cloud expert, you may be wondering how all these cloud migration tools work, specifically. What do they do? Let’s answer these questions by digesting the most important features a cloud migration tool should offer.
➡ And if you’re wondering why you should migrate to the cloud in the first place, read this article about the benefits of cloud computing.
Most Important Cloud Migration Tool Features
Depending on if we’re talking about the abovementioned all-in-one cloud migration suites or about more singular-oriented tools, you can expect different features.
A comprehensive, fully helpful tool should be able to support you within several key activities. To identify if that is the case, Toolbox.com suggests completing a questionnaire with 5 fundamental questions before choosing a particular cloud migration tool.
These questions are:
- Does the tool support your end-to-end cloud migration journey?
- Will you get a pre-migration assessment?
- Does the tool help with migrating data, workloads, and applications?
- Can it help you to acquire insights to improve your cloud performance?
- And, finally: is it compatible with your cloud destination (like AWS, Azure, or GCP)?
Let’s analyze each of these points in more detail.
Supporting End-To-End Cloud Migration
First, it’s important to make certain that the cloud solutions provider offers migration tools that support your end-to-end transformation journey.
The cloud introduces new ways to operate your business; that’s why it’s important to be aware of the level of support your cloud services provider is able to offer (like, for example, consulting, development, and integration to uptime maximization).
Correspondingly, you should define your new KPIs and process flow after the migration – take ensure that they continue to align properly with your transformation journey.
Pre-Migration Assessment
To avoid issues and delays, you should get a pre-migration assessment – a service offered in addition to the core migration tool.
A pre-migration assessment will tell you what the supposed efficacy of the selected cloud solutions and service provider is.
It will also help you analyze specified components to identify any problems that may prevent the cloud migration process from going as planned.
Help With Migrating Data, Workloads, and Applications
A key functionality; it will enable you to move your content to the cloud with minimal manual effort.
This feature will not only modernize your application architecture but will also enable you to monitor the migration process closely.
As a result, you’ll be able to spot compatibility errors, user experience challenges, or other issues – and fix them before they can influence the performance of your new system.
Acquiring Insights to Improve Cloud Performance
When the cloud migration is complete, you should check the solution’s final performance against previously defined KPIs and the market standard.
A pre-migration assessment evaluates specified components of a database migration task to help identify any problems that might prevent a migration task from running as expected. This assessment gives you a chance to identify issues before you run a new or modified task.
So, it’s important for the migration tool to generate such a report to enable you to continue optimizing the cloud performance post-migration.
Compatible With Your Cloud Destination
Finally, you should make sure that the tooling is compatible with the environment you’re planning to move to.
Several tools – also among those listed below – will only work with one cloud environment. For example, Google Cloud Migration Tools are only useful if you’re migrating to the Google Cloud. So, make sure that the tool(s) you choose is (are) usable from the perspective of your journey destination.
Top Cloud Migration Tools in 2022
Now, let’s look at specific cloud migration tools.
The examples include the basic (all-in-one) migration tools that are compatible with the most popular cloud service providers. Additionally, we’re also listing some other tools, that can prove useful regardless of the chosen cloud service provider.
1. AWS Application Migration Service
AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) is recommended by Amazon Web Services as the go-to migration service for lift-and-shift migrations to AWS.
The service simplifies and expedites the migration to the cloud. With its help, applications can find their way to the cloud without changes and with minimal downtime.
With AWS MGN, you can migrate applications from physical infrastructure or other clouds. Notably, thanks to automation, the tool also monitors and targets databases and restarts if an interruption occurs (potentially saving you a lot of tiresome work).
Key traits
- Cost-effective. You pay only for the storage resources used during the migration process.
- Minimize downtime. Incremental server replication allows you to reduce server downtime significantly.
- Control. You can create and manage a custom replication plan adjusted to large-scale migrations (and track the process of each migration).
➡ AWS Database Migration Service
2. Azure Migrate
With Azure Migrate, you can discover, assess, right-size, and migrate your on-premises virtual machines (VMs) to Azure.
Importantly, one of the most interesting features of Azure’s dedicated migration tool is a central hub. It introduces a unified approach to cloud migration. With it, you get all Azure migration tools and guidance to plan and implement your move to the cloud; most importantly, you can track and execute your migration flexibly, smoothly, and without interruptions. Additionally, you also get intelligent insights with which you can improve your cloud’s performance post-migration.
Key traits
- End-to-end visibility. The guided experience and progress dashboard walk you through discovery, assessment, and migration phases for different business areas. Furthermore, it also helps you to make optimal migration decisions with built-in insights and recommendations.
- Good pricing. Rapid lift-and-shift migration tools are included in the Azure subscription without additional cost.
3. Carbonite Migrate
Carbonite Migrate enables you to migrate workloads to and from physical, cloud, and virtual environments with near-zero downtime. Importantly, automation options help orchestrate every stage of the migration process.
It works with multiple cloud platforms, including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, AWS, VMware vCloud Director, and more.
Key traits
- No disruptions. Perform unlimited testing of the new environment without disrupting operations.
- Reliable. Ensure data, files, and system settings are reliably replicated. Don’t worry about cloud security.
- Efficient. You can replicate data continuously to minimize downtime and enable fast cutover.
4. Google Cloud Migration Tools
Like AWS and Azure, Google also offers a comprehensive set of tools for migrating to their cloud. Google has a few dedicated products for many migration scenarios – from lift-and-shift to infrastructure modernization.
With a free pre-migration assessment and end-to-end migration support, Google Cloud provides purpose-built tools for highly specific use cases. This is especially helpful when migrating a single process or business unit to the cloud.
Key traits
- Perfect for Google Cloud users. If you’re planning to adopt the Google Cloud, this migration tool is one of the best options.
➡ Google Cloud Migration Tools
5. AppDynamics Cloud Migration Tools
AppDynamics is an application performance monitoring solution that provides real-time monitoring of your applications.
With AppDynamics Cloud Migration Tools, you can monitor real-time performance issues to speed up and streamline migration while mitigating risk, efficiently investing your resources, and ensuring all teams are aligned on critical KPIs from the business perspective.
Key traits
- Post-migration feedback. With the AppDynamics Business IQ, you can not only get a quick pre-migration analysis but also enjoy multiple post-migration data.
- Empowering accurate planning. Baseline every application, end-user experience and key infrastructure metric for clear performance insights to guide your planning, prioritization and cloud infrastructure sizing.
➡ AppDynamics (Part of Cisco) Cloud Migration Tools
6. Flexera One
Flexera One provides the actionable intelligence for optimizing your on-premises to cloud migration regardless of where you are on your cloud journey.
The tool delivers a view of your cloud future using customized business cases that take into account things like multiple clouds, custom instance choices, buying types and resource provisioning.
Key traits
- Proficient planning. With this tool, you can create a cloud transformation roadmap for modernizing your IT infrastructure.
➡ Flexera Cloud Migration and Modernization
7. Turbonomic Continuous Optimization
With Turbonomic’s solution, you get a tool that can deal with complex hybrid clouds by using straightforward intelligence across the operation phases.
Turbonomic uses visual components – like mapping resource consumption – so you can see what’s happening with the data and when anything occurs. As a result, this boosts infrastructure utilization and extends the scope of data centres.
Key traits
- Efficient automation. Application resource management delivers continuous optimization for public cloud, private cloud, and Kubernetes.
8. AvePoint Migration
With AvePoint Migration, you can move, migrate, and consolidate legacy systems, cloud files, mail, and Microsoft Office 365 tenants into Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint. The tool will help you to maintain data integrity without compromising security.
And with the next-generation SaaS version, you can simply log in and begin. Built-in discovery, mapping, and scheduling support you in cleaning up or cleaning out data and reaching your cloud migration goals.
Key traits
- Tailored to Microsoft 365. Move, migrate, or restructure cloud content in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365.
➡ AvePoint Migration Platform (AMP)
9. Cloudsfer
Cloudsfer is a transfer solution for content systems, supporting both on-premises-to-cloud and cloud-to-cloud migrations. It offers pre-migration assessments, performance insights, and retaining permissions and security configurations to ease the migration.
Moreover, the tool also offers cloud data backup services and supports over 20 cloud storage providers, including Amazon S3, SharePoint, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, Drive, and Egnyte. Using a centralized user interface and third-party connectors, you can instantly copy file storage and transfer data.
Key traits
- User-friendly. Cloudsfer offers a common, easy-to-use cloud migration process. Notably, it also enables you to migrate between more than 30 cloud storage providers and on-premises systems.
- Secure. While migrating with Cloudsfer’s cloud data migration system, all communications between the systems are encrypted.
- 24/7 support. Cloudsfer’s team is available round-the-clock to guide you through your cloud data transfer process.
➡ Cloudsfer – Powered by Tzunami
10. Corent SurPaaS MaaS
This abbreviationally named tool offers migration-as-a-service with a focus on analyzing and transferring applications to the cloud quickly and easily. It works with both on-premises-to-cloud and cloud-to-cloud migrations.
Moreover, the tool helps to develop a cloud migration feasibility report that will support you in choosing the optimal migration strategy.
Importantly, it’s a good fit for migrating entire apps or data centres to the cloud automatically. And, as the name suggests, it offers integration between applications and a PaaS service.
Key traits
- Smart cost modelling. MaaS allows you to customize the migration cost for each Cloud provider and compare the cost between various Cloud Providers.
- Adaptive Workload Library. MaaS provides you with a repository which includes a collection of workload migration plans to choose from and use during Cloud migration. It can be used to automate your application’s Cloud migration process. Notably, it saves you time and effort and provides you with a ready-made solution for all your scripting needs to migrate workloads.
Consider Migrating to The Cloud Today
A few years back, the Cloud has been considered an advantage – some sort of bonus asset. However, in 2022, it’s hardly the case.
So, don’t fall behind. First, start by preparing an inventory of your IT portfolio and analyze which applications and systems would deliver the most benefits if migrated. And with the tools listed in this article, the migration – especially if you choose lift-and-shift – can run as smoothly as possible.
Importantly, migrating to the cloud will carve the path for further innovation. It will also help you in many more endeavours, like becoming a data-driven company.
