Five tips for optimizing your app migration to Google Cloud!

Five tips for optimizing your app migration to Google Cloud Platform

In our last blog, we shared how you can optimize app migration to the AWS cloud without compromising network performance. Today, we discuss five tips for optimizing enterprise app migration for Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

When planning to migrate applications and workloads to the cloud, it can be a daunting process for any NetOps and DevOps team to undertake. Upon implementing SD-WAN, to ensure the network is operating at the most optimal performance, they need to account for the migration of applications. It should not slow down users’ experience during the transition to the cloud.

GCP is commonly seen as the infrastructure of choice for enterprises. However, while GCP provides its customers with tools and best practices to optimize their app and workload migrations for the platform, unfortunately, no methodology exists that guarantees a smooth and successful cloud migration. So it is essential to understand the benefits and potential drawbacks of each cloud environment before you attempt to make a move.

The approach enterprise NetOps and DevOps teams need to consider as they make the shift to the cloud includes understanding that a GCP app migration could impact network and application performance. But the good news is that network and application performance can be managed.

Many businesses today are choosing software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs) because of their built-in intelligence for traffic steering, deployment flexibility, and can be cost-effective when compared to traditional branch routers. Maintaining strong SD-WAN performance is vital for any enterprise during an app or workload migration.

Businesses that enlist the help of a good network and application performance management (NAPM) optimized for SD-WAN can ensure network operations continue to run smoothly during a cloud migration. Using a proven NAPM offering in tandem with the five tips below ensures app and network performance are optimized during and after a GCP migration.

Source: Google Cloud

1. Prepare teams for a Google Cloud migration

Properly training NetOps, DevOps, and SecOps teams is essential for a successful GCP app migration. Businesses need to ensure those teams are taking full advantage of all the Google tools and services they might need to optimize app performance and take full advantage of the cloud.

A cloud migration also gives enterprises a valuable opportunity to review the business processes governing teams that are involved. Are those processes optimized for the cloud, or are they more suited for on-premises app deployments? Processes may be changed or refined to ensure enterprise teams are prepared to take advantage of all the benefits of the cloud.

Access your apps before migrating:

• Easy to move

• Hard to move

• Can’t move

2. Use monitoring and automation to safeguard performance

Google understands the importance of network monitoring and alerts and advises its enterprise cloud customers to implement a system to make sure performance standards are consistently being met. NAPM solutions such as Accedian’s Skylight are ideal for offering a holistic view of the network and delivering proactive alerts for correcting issues before they impact app and SD-WAN performance.

Automation is another important tip for a successful, optimized app migration. Critical jobs like deployments, exchanges and configuration updates may all be easily automated. It reduces the chance of manual errors and prevents valuable human workers from wasting time and money on repetitive tasks.

3. Take advantage of Google’s managed service

GCP offers a host of services that can be used to optimize app migration. They’re designed to help businesses expand and replace workloads easily without the need to manage or maintain servers or underlying infrastructure.

Continue reading about optimizing your app migration to GCP here.

By Nelson Chao, PLM, Accedian - Director of Product management - Global Enterprise Systems - Software and Hardware Product Management Leader with 15+ years of experience with companies including Ciena (CIEN) Akamai Technologies (AKAM), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Procera Networks (PKT), Digi International (DGII). Held key positions with successful start-up companies worked in engineering, technical marketing/sales, and product management. Specialized in Up-to-the-minute knowledge of Networking Technologies, Performance Analytics, Edge Computing, IoT, Hybrid Cloud, Enterprise Branch, Service Provider, SDN, SD-WAN, NFV, VNFs, IP Routing, Deep Packet Inspection, Cybersecurity, and Streaming Media. Possess outstanding skills in customer solution development by leveraging expertise in the analysis and definition of customer requirements spanning the enterprise to the end-user.