The IT world is a complex space and we don’t have the money to replace everything. Therefore we need to have methods to optimize what we already have. In comes Brownfield. In the first half of this article, last week, we discussed what Greenfield and Brownfield are. This week we dive into migrating Brownfield servers to the cloud.

The goal to getting any Brownfield server into the cloud is to deploy the existing physical or virtual server onto a cloud based infrastructure, hence the term Brownfield deployments. The implications of needing to rebuild any production environment can be severe from a management and operations standpoint. Having the ability to avoid such implications can be of great value and convenience. It would minimize professional service costs and allow service providers to deploy more complex migrations for enterprise customers, effectively increasing the addressable market and creating higher average revenue per user (ARPU) as a result of minimizing cost and complexity.

Here is a checklist of tools, split up into four segments from RicksCloud.com, to keep in mind:

1. On-ramping solutions leverage server templates provided by cloud providers. It’s a manual process that requires some level of professional service effort. This method can be great for very simple migrations but as it gets more complex the effort ramps up fast so does the cost.

2. Automation tools can rebuild your applications into a provider’s stack but require skill typical of a system administrator to use effectively.

3. Repurposing attempts to use legacy tools designed for high-availability or back up and recovery projects. Each migration effort can be different and the outputs are not repeatable or reusable.

4. Migration attempts to move SERVERS as-is. Solutions in this segment typically achieve results in the lower end of the cost and complexity scales but range in how they approach the project. Most require a fair amount of hands on professional service effort and testing prior to deployment.

The tools in each of these segments require technical skill that may involve installing agents or other intrusive software and services on data center servers. They don’t approach the challenge of migration holistically and by automating the entire process; hide the complexity from start to finish. What is needed is a cloud migration software service that can be easily accessed, for example on a cloud provider’s web portal.

RiverMeadow Software Inc. develops industry-leading software that automates the migration of physical, virtual and Cloud based servers (live and as-is) into and between public, private and hybrid clouds. Without agents or downtime the RiverMeadow’s services dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of cloud migration and disaster recovery, enabling Service Providers to quickly, easily and cost-efficiently deliver the benefits of cloud elasticity to enterprise and SMB customers. For more information contact us at info@rivermeadow.com.

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