There are numerous business advantages to upgrading systems or extending a data center into the cloud. For many firms, this is a very natural evolution. Companies using cloud are hoping that they can focus their staff on business priorities, fuel top-line growth, increase agility, reduce capital expenses, and pay for only what they need on demand. However, the type of migration undertaken will determine how much IT staff time can be freed to work on other projects.

First, let’s define the types of migration:

• Storage migration. The process of moving data off existing arrays into more modern ones that enable other systems to access it. Offers significantly faster performance and more cost-effective scaling while enabling expected data management features such as cloning, snapshots, and backup and disaster recovery.
• Cloud migration. The process of moving data, application, or other business elements from either an on-premises data center to a cloud or from one cloud to another. In many cases, it also entails a storage migration.
• Application migration. The process of moving an application program from one environment to another. May include moving the entire application from an on-premises IT center to a cloud, moving between clouds, or simply moving the application's underlying data to a new form of the application hosted by a software provider.