Moving Servers to the Cloud? Write the Rollback Plan Before the Migration Plan

Many cloud moves go wrong for a plain reason: the team plans how to move forward but not how to step back. If a migrated system misbehaves on day one, someone needs to know exactly how to return to the old setup without losing data.

A sensible migration usually runs in four stages, and rollback belongs in the second one, not as an afterthought.

The four stages, in plain terms

  • Assess: list what you run today, what depends on what, and which systems cannot stop.
  • Plan: decide the order of moves and write down the rollback steps for each one.
  • Move in stages: shift a few systems at a time so problems stay small and data integrity can be checked.
  • Optimise and manage: after the move, tune cost and performance and keep monitoring.

Questions to settle before the first server moves

  • Should each workload sit in private, public or hybrid cloud, given your compliance, performance and cost needs?
  • Is backup and disaster recovery planned, built and actually tested, not just switched on?
  • Who hardens and monitors security in the new environment from day one?
  • Who looks after servers after go-live: updates, monitoring and tuning?

Getting these answers on paper first keeps operations running while the move happens.

See how a staged approach works on Affix Center's page on cloud migration and infrastructure management in Mumbai.

Published by Affix Center, a Mumbai-based IT services company.

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