Workload portability is achievable but complex.
Consider the following goals, challenges and options
before embarking on a cloud portability strategy.
One of the recurring themes with our clients is the desire to use the cloud to achieve
portability. This desire is natural given that one of the attractions of moving to the cloud
is the apparent ease with which workloads can be moved around to achieve a balance.
In this article, we will examine: common goals with workload portability; the potential
challenges faced when moving workloads; and a few options for approaching workload
portability.
Defining Portability
There are two basic types of portability when it comes to the cloud – stack and compo-
nent. Each has its own requirements and obstacles, but both provide the same outcome:
moving applications and data between cloud environments with minimal disruption to
operations. Most organizations use a combination of approaches specific to their needs,
and this combination evolves over time with the organization’s cloud maturity.
Stack Portability
Stack portability is the ability to move a complete technology stack from one execution
environment to another. One example of this type of portability is moving complete sys-
tems based on virtual machines (VMs) from one public cloud to another. The entire sys-
tem is moved between clouds as a complete unit, in order to maintain the same operat-
ing footprint. Traditional n-tier applications which are already virtualized are good
candidates for this approach.
Component Portability
Component portability is the ability to move workload components from one environ-
ment to another without regard to the underlying operating system or other technology
boundaries. Moving a web-based application from one public cloud to another is a com-
mon scenario in which only the application components are moved (e.g., HTML and
JavaScript files), without regard to the underlying execution components. One very
common example of this portability is the movement of WordPress-based websites,
where the only requirement is the ability to execute PHP code and store and retrieve data.
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