Why Companies Are Migrating Legacy Systems to Cloud Infrastructure

At no point in time have industry leaders in IT desired a secure, cost-effective way to access their data more than they have in today's post-COVID location-distributed world of remote work. It's no wonder, then, that enterprises are migrating their legacy systems to the cloud with virtualization to reduce infrastructure costs and increase security while allowing their users to connect to business applications from any device at any time.

The migration of legacy systems to the cloud infrastructure typically occurs alongside specific events which, more often than not, relate to the optimization of storage resources and the acceleration of a business's digital transformation. As the pandemic continues, though, more enterprises are likely to realize just how constrained they are with an on-premise IT infrastructure that can't accommodate a remote workforce.

As more companies continue to migrate their legacy systems to cloud infrastructure, it's important to examine the reasons behind their migrations as well as what they should expect once their systems are on the cloud. To that end, let's dive into the biggest challenges that companies face as they make the move, as well as the most important tips they should bear in mind to make their transition as stress-free and seamless as they can.

Development is easier to coordinate on the cloud

It's impossible to run successful software development without version control. These days, it's necessary to use a version control application that provides high-view snapshots for each of your developer's changes. As you may have already guessed, the fastest and most intuitive way to manage version control is on the cloud.

Organizations that are migrating their legacy systems to the cloud to accommodate new remote working conditions should remember to look for collaboration software that also automatically stores updates in the cloud. This is essential in the event that development teams want to easily access new changes and assign specific team members to new tasks related to their updates.

High-view snapshots can make it much easier for an entire development team to quickly understand the changes that one of their developers has recently committed. To maximize their communication regarding version control, software development teams working on the cloud need to use quality cloud-based collaboration tools that come with crucial features, including custom access that controls which team members can access what as well as tools that track project deliverables and their due dates.

Without collaboration software, even the most rigorous of version control processes can leave team members in the dark as to what’s going on with the code that they’re working on.

Above all, the most crucial component of choosing collaboration software is ensuring your team members can seamlessly keep each other updated on how each stage of your marketing campaigns are progressing.

More flexible software application testing

Third-party cloud testing has all of the infrastructures you need to start testing software in one place. It's a series of testing processes that occur in a computing environment that's entirely separate from your own, which makes it possible to test software applications in an environment that’s not beholden to a business's budgetary and location-related constraints.

The flexibility that comes with cloud testing extends beyond cost-effective processes for software testing. Cloud testing makes it easier to constantly monitor for security vulnerabilities in the running software applications of legacy systems with the use of dynamic application code testing (DAST).

According to the security analysts from Cloud Defense, “DAST is a type of black-box application testing that can test applications while they are running. When testing an application with DAST, you don't need to have access to the source code to find vulnerabilities." With DAST, businesses can automatically analyze the code of their web-based applications for vulnerabilities without ever needing to access their source code on their own machines and connected to their own servers.

Additionally, cybersecurity teams can ensure that they mitigate risks of security breaches by using cloud testing to better harden applications against SQL injections, which have claimed 65% of businesses worldwide as their unfortunate victims. Mitigate threats to the application layer of your legacy system with flexible cloud testing that always targets application layer security in a carefully controlled environment.

Cloud storage is accessible to remote workforces

The optimization of limited storage resources is undoubtedly one of the biggest desires driving businesses' decisions to migrate their legacy systems to the cloud. Storage that becomes exclusively cloud-based for large legacy systems makes it feasible for a distributed workforce to securely access system data when and where they need it. Not only that, but cloud-native storage solutions are pretty much mandatory in order to properly maintain security frameworks of businesses that are now working remotely.

For businesses that need the right tools to evolve their security frameworks based around legacy systems in the cloud, cloud-native storage can point them in the right direction. These businesses should search for providers whose cloud-native storage solutions include permission-based rules and KMS key rotations to cloud resources, the implementation of which is essential to securely running legacy systems in the cloud in 2021.

Enforcing a key rotation policy on all cloud users will provide even greater security protection but implemented role-based access is even better. Cloud storage for legacy systems is off-site and virtual to allow files to be accessed anywhere, day or night. That means that some people inevitably feel that their data is vulnerable just floating around in cyberspace and, subsequently, compromising the integrity of their security framework.

Summary

Legacy-to-cloud migrations are happening for a wide range of reasons and are likely to only continue in earnest as businesses adjust to post-COVID location distributed work. The cloud offers multiple benefits for businesses that have limited resources to secure and maintain data on-premises, and especially for those whose employees may need remote access to legacy applications from different devices at different times of the day.

Migrating legacy systems to cloud infrastructure makes software application testing more flexible and cost-effective with dynamic application code testing that catches vulnerabilities in applications even while they're in the middle of running.

This flexibility in testing positively affects software development teams, who will likely have a relatively easier time developing code and coordinating projects on the cloud in real-time. It's essential that businesses invest in cloud storage that's accessible to remote workforces developing code from potentially numerous and disparate locations as well.