According to Gartner, by 2025, 85% of organizations will have adopted a cloud-first strategy, with 95% of digital workloads deployed on cloud platforms. Cloud migration has become the prevailing direction, helping organizations streamline operations and build a strong competitive position in a digital market. But do you understand cloud migration well enough to make full use of it in your own organization?
1. Moving to the cloud – common misconceptions about the benefits
When people discuss the benefits of cloud migration, businesses usually turn first to cost, in its various dimensions: cost savings, cost transparency, shorter capital cycles and better cash flow. In reality only 8% of CEOs worldwide name cost savings as their leading criterion — it ranks sixth among more than ten different benefit criteria.
IT modernization comes next at 17%, followed by improving efficiency, strengthening information security, raising productivity and accelerating innovation. Companies always want to optimize cost when moving to cloud, but in practice many end up with rather more than that — most visibly, the opportunity to modernize their IT systems and applications.
2. Cloud migration – more than simply renting a service
Cloud is not simply a hosting story, and cloud migration is not simply renting instead of buying — it is also a story about the sharing economy and economies of scale. Cloud migration helps organizations standardize their technology, adopt newer technology and get products to market faster. It is also a way to raise productivity, build applications, modernize architecture and change how production and operations work. Beyond that, it helps organizations adopt innovations more quickly, optimize cost and system load, extend reach and improve customer experience.
Within the same line of business, companies that take advantage of the broad ecosystem of cloud services gain an advantage in the short and medium term. Even companies that invested earlier in on-premises infrastructure will struggle against newer competitors that start on cloud and draw on ready-made PaaS services, AI ecosystems, GPUs, IoT platforms, machine learning and data platforms for new ideas — capabilities that are difficult or effectively impossible to stand up on premises at short notice.
In the longer term, however, moving to cloud has to mean changing how applications are produced and developed. Applications built on the old development cycle — discontinuous, one-off, then operated unchanged — no longer fit. What is needed instead is DevSecOps as a flexible, continuous, effectively endless cycle in the cloud, running from development through testing, deployment and monitoring to operations. Migrating to cloud is therefore an opportunity to modernize systems and, at the same time, to raise the capability of the organization's people, opening up new experience for cloud specialists.
3. An effective cloud migration strategy for business
Cloud migration strategy is usually described as the 5R or 6R model — rehost, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild and replace. Rehost is lift and shift: a one-to-one move to cloud. Refactor means adjusting selected components so you can start using cloud-native services. Rearchitect goes further, reshaping the architecture to proper cloud standards. Rebuild means redeveloping the application to cloud standards. Finally, replace means adopting software as a service (SaaS) on cloud outright.
Worldwide, cloud adoption has become relatively even across industries. In Vietnam, by contrast, adoption varies considerably between companies within the same industry — each Vietnamese company sits at a different point on the hype cycle. To apply a cloud strategy effectively, companies need to invest intelligently: building near-term competitiveness while keeping enough perspective to take a strong position as the cycle moves into the slope of enlightenment and the plateau of productivity.
Businesses need a properly prepared cloud migration strategy, covering three areas. First, work out where you currently sit on the cloud maturity map. Second, re-architect systems and applications to cloud platform standards, so that even before anything moves to cloud, investment is heading in the right direction and money is not being put into things that cannot be migrated. Third, decide which of the R strategies is right for each class of application.
Moving to cloud is no longer a passing trend but a turning point in how a business develops. Thorough preparation and the right strategy let an organization take full advantage of cloud, open new opportunities and move confidently into a digital future. In Vietnam, much of the cloud migration journey still lies ahead — and it starts with the roadmap for a cloud migration strategy, which needs to be in place today.
