With the rapid growth of cloud technologies and data centres, it is no longer a matter of if organizations should move to the cloud — it is a matter of when and how. Cloud migrations become critical in this context, with the need to balance key levers such as speed, cost, risk, and value. Originally popularized by Gartner and AWS, this article takes a look at the 6 Rs of Cloud Migration (with an additional R added to the traditional model), along with illustrative real-world examples, to help teams make informed cloud migration decisions.
The 7 Rs — Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, Repurchase, Retire, Retain, and Relocate — provide a structured way to analyze each application in an organization’s portfolio. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, this framework focuses on the notion that different applications and services require different migration strategies depending on business criticality, technical complexity, compliance constraints, and digital transformation goals.