Cloud Migration Services
Cloud migration services for workloads that need a safer operating model, not a new hosting bill.
A cloud migration should decide what to retire, retain, rehost, replatform, or rebuild before anyone copies servers. We inventory dependencies, design the target controls and costs, move one representative workload, rehearse cutover and rollback, then expand on evidence.
Bring the problem, the current workflow, or the existing code. We reply with a practical next step within one business day.
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The brief
Start with what is not working.
Good software decisions begin with the constraint, not a list of features or a preferred technology.
Is an upcoming hardware, licence, or support deadline forcing a migration before anyone understands the dependency map?
Would moving current server sizes unchanged create the same operational burden with a variable monthly bill?
Plain answer
Cloud migration services move applications, data, identity, and operations into a cloud environment with tested controls and rollback. RaftLabs inventories workloads, chooses the right migration path, builds the landing zone as code, rehearses cutover, and validates production.
The deadline said migrate. The dependency map said maybe.
The deadline was close. Twelve weeks. One customer portal looked independent until discovery found its authentication service, nightly finance export, and file share on three other hosts. A direct copy would have moved the visible application and stranded the work that kept it alive.
Migration waves follow dependencies, not the server list.
Recorded cloud-migration delivery
- customer records moved
- 300K+
- Energia Rewards project record
- rebuild and migration delivery
- 12 weeks
- Recorded project duration
- legacy-data remediation scripts
- 11
- Recorded migration scope
The Energia Rewards case study documents a 12-week rebuild and migration involving more than 300,000 customer records and 11 remediation scripts. Those figures come from retained RaftLabs project records and are not independently audited. The case does not prove that every cloud migration can meet the same duration, data volume, or identity approach.
Migrate when the operating case is stronger than the hosting change alone.
The first wave needs a business deadline, dependency owners, a recoverable cutover, and a team prepared to run the target.
Hardware, hosting, licence, resilience, or delivery limits create a defined reason to move.
Application and data owners can map dependencies and approve acceptance tests.
The target team can own cloud cost, access, backup, release, and incident response after handover.
The application is being retired before the migration can pay back.
The main problem is product behavior or code quality that a hosting move will not change.
No owner can approve downtime, rollback, security controls, or source decommissioning.
Rehost vs replatform vs refactor
| Decision | Rehost | Replatform | Refactor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Change | Move the workload largely as it is | Adopt selected managed services | Redesign application components |
| Best reason | Exit deadline or infrastructure risk | Reduce a known operating burden | Remove a measured product or scale constraint |
| Main risk | Old cost and operations follow the app | Compatibility work is underestimated | Migration becomes a broad rewrite |
| Evidence required | Runbook and target sizing | Service compatibility and cost test | Business case, staged release, and rollback boundary |
Scope
What belongs in a cloud migration program
Workload inventory and dependency map
Record applications, services, databases, identities, integrations, batch jobs, owners, support dates, data classes, and recovery requirements.
Migration strategy and wave plan
Assign a path to every workload, group coupled systems, define the representative first wave, and state what will remain or retire.
Landing zone and infrastructure as code
Create accounts or subscriptions, networks, identity boundaries, logging, secrets, backups, budgets, and policies through reviewed code.
Application and data movement
Build repeatable transfer or replication, reconcile data, test performance and integrations, and preserve a usable source until acceptance completes.
Cutover, rollback, and handover
Name go or no-go owners, rehearse the runbook, document rollback thresholds, monitor the new environment, and transfer operational ownership.
How it works
From workload portfolio to proven cutover
- Phase 101
Inventory and classify
Map workloads, data, identities, dependencies, owners, support deadlines, recovery needs, and current operating cost.
- Phase 202
Design the target and waves
Choose a migration path per workload, define landing-zone controls, estimate target cost, and group dependencies into safe waves.
- Phase 303
Build and rehearse
Create infrastructure as code, migrate a representative workload, test data and operations, and rehearse cutover and rollback.
- Phase 404
Cut over and stabilize
Execute the approved runbook, validate production, observe cost and reliability, hand over operations, and retire sources deliberately.
Risk
What the migration decision record must settle
- Dependency completeness
- State how discovery was performed, which owners reviewed it, and what happens when an unknown dependency appears.
- Recovery boundary
- Keep backups and rollback paths independent enough that a target-account failure cannot remove every recovery copy.
- Cost baseline
- Compare workload demand, licences, data transfer, support effort, and commitments rather than server list prices alone.
- Exit and ownership
- Name who accepts the target, when the source can retire, and which runbooks and credentials transfer to the operating team.
Cloud migration paths
- 01
AWS Migration
AWS account, network, identity, workload, database, and cutover planning.
- 02
Azure Migration
Microsoft estate, Entra identity, Azure landing-zone, and hybrid migration planning.
- 03
Database Migration
Schema, data, replication, application compatibility, and database cutover.
- 04
DevOps Services
Repeatable delivery, infrastructure ownership, observability, and incident readiness after migration.
Work with us
Bring the workload deadline and the dependency map you trust least.
Share the current estate, business deadline, recovery requirement, acceptable downtime, target options, and operating team. We will identify the safest first wave.
- Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
- Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
- Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
- 60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
- All conversations are NDA-protected.
Common questions
Cloud migration services assess, plan, and move applications, databases, identity, networks, and operating processes into AWS, Azure, GCP, or another target. Responsible delivery also covers dependency mapping, security controls, infrastructure as code, cutover, rollback, validation, cost baselines, and team handover.
Choose from the business deadline, application condition, support horizon, risk, team skill, and target economics. Rehosting can exit failing infrastructure quickly. Replatforming removes selected operating burden. Refactoring is justified only when a measured product or reliability constraint pays for the extra change. Some workloads should be replaced, retired, or left in place.
The choice depends on current licences, identity, database engines, data services, geographic needs, commercial commitments, and the team that will operate the result. AWS and Azure have separate migration details on this site. We do not force a provider decision when the existing estate or operating team points elsewhere.
We define the acceptable outage first, then select replication, parallel running, blue-green traffic switching, or a scheduled restore accordingly. A cutover rehearsal measures duration and exposes missing steps. Production proceeds only with validation checks, named decision owners, a rollback threshold, and a source-retention period.
Bill shock is a common post-migration complaint: forgotten instances, wrong-sized services, and startup credits that expire exactly when dependencies are hardest to unroll. Build billing alerts and right-sizing into the migration itself, not as an afterthought. Get an architecture review of the target setup before the first invoice. The cheapest migration is the one whose running cost was modeled before cutover.
Not necessarily. The proven pattern is parallel run plus gradual traffic shift: the new environment runs alongside the old, traffic moves in stages, and the old system stays warm until acceptance completes. Real migrations have cut over with minutes of database downtime or none at all. Any plan that requires a long outage window is a plan that has not been rehearsed enough.
Do not pre-code portability. Pre-think it. Commit to a cloud or commit to portability, but not neither: running cloud-agnostic on top of one vendor is the worst of both worlds. Use the platform's differentiated services where they earn their keep, and keep a credible migration plan in the drawer: documented data exports, standard interfaces at the boundaries, and no proprietary constructs you cannot leave.
Ask for the dependency map before the wave plan: if they cannot show you what talks to what, they cannot plan the cutover. Require a rehearsed rollback runbook with named go and no-go owners. Watch the first wave: it should be a representative workload, not the easiest one. And confirm who runs the target environment afterward: you need someone who can resolve problems under stress, not just deploy.
A focused first workload includes dependency mapping, target design, infrastructure as code, migration, rehearsal, cutover, validation, and handover. Multiple applications, cross-engine databases, regulated evidence, hybrid networking, or short deadlines increase scope. Request a 30-min call to get a number for your specific project.