Blueprint for migrating on-premises applications to the cloud - Skytap three-phased approach

Sep 12, 2026

Upload by Aurora

Blueprint describes how Skytap accelerates migration of traditional on-premises applications to the cloud, including IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure. It highlights immediate business value such as minimizing migration re-engineering risk, improving developer efficiency, and leveraging existing IT skills while avoiding failures from centralized cloud teams. The model uses a three-phase “application migration factory”: lift-and-shift to reproduce architectures, incremental refactoring or re-hosting, and continued transformation in cloud-native format with dedicated connectivity back to on-prem.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Executive Summary

Three-Phased Migration Approach

Phase 1 – Lift and Shift

Phase 2 – Dev/Test Sandbox and Incremental Modernization

Phase 3 – Cloud-Native Transformation with On-Prem Connectivity

Summary

Phase 1 – Lift and Shift (Detailed)

1. Initial Lift and Shift of Existing On-Prem Applications

[www.skytap.com](www.skytap.com) Blueprint for migrating on-premises applications to the cloud A cloud migration model for the enterprise © 2021 Skytap, Inc. All rights reserved. Executive Summary The purpose of this blueprint is to describe how Skytap can help accelerate the migration of traditional on-premises applications to the cloud, whether IBM Cloud or Microsoft Azure. Skytap’s capabilities align with digital modernization efforts and promote the transition to enterprise agile. Using Skytap provides the following immediate business benefits: » Provides a safe path to the cloud by minimizing migration re-engineering risk » Increases developer efficiency by reducing or eliminating wait time for resources » Leverages existing IT skillsets and avoids central cloud team failures Skytap allows enterprises to unlock cloud benefits faster and begin innovating across applications sooner by providing the ability to take advantage of and integrate with the breadth of cloud-native services. Skytap simplifies the migration of existing systems to the cloud by eliminating the initial need to rearchitect or re-platform. The concepts outlined in this document create a quick and safer path to cloud innovation, while simultaneously reducing the reliance on existing onprem resources. [www.skytap.com](www.skytap.com) 2 © 2021 Skytap, Inc. All rights reserved. This blueprint promotes a three-phased approach to migrating applications to the cloud. The three phases are analogous to an “application migration factory” that is used to initiate the shift from on-prem to cloud-native. Phase 1 Leverage a lift-and-shift approach where on-prem applications take advantage of Skytap’s“run as-is” model. Skytap can reproduce traditional application architectures without requiring refactoring or rearchitecting. Phase 2 Once application components are migrated, they can be used as a dev/test sandbox, while incrementally refactoring to native cloud services using proven design patterns such as Sidecar or Strangler. Even without using cloud-native services, incremental automation for environment builds can be introduced, starting with a non-automated working model and gradually creating a fully automated version. As an alternative, the application can simply be re-hosted (The 5Rs of Rationalization) without significantly changing its original on-prem structure. The outlined approach maximizes the skill sets of existing talent, while delivering environment cloning, capacity on-demand, and self-service provisioning to on-prem applications. Phase 3 Most of the application exists in cloud-native format but maintains a dedicated connection back to on-prem IT. While applications complete their transformation at Phase 3, other applications on the transformation target list are simultaneously in Phase 1 and 2. Summary The following document describes an efficient and incremental approach to migrating existing on-prem applications in a way that promotes a low-risk, safe path to the cloud. It supports the concept of making small and quick changes to existing applications as they are transformed from on-prem to being truly cloud-native. On-premises infrastructure does not support quick iterations and is not co-located with cloud-native resources. These together add complexity and risk to precious development cycles. Skytap’s on-demand environments make rapid iteration easy, allowing organizations to transform applications incrementally instead of re-engineering them from scratch. 3 © 2021 Skytap, Inc. All rights reserved. Incrementally migrating on-prem applications to native cloud services Phase 1 – Lift and Shift This section describes a general approach of using an application migration factory to begin the shift from on-prem to cloud-native. An initial strategy of using lift-and-shift offers maximum flexibility and allows multiple agile groups to simultaneously innovate without creating excess wait times tryi

FAQs

What is the main purpose of this blueprint?

To explain how Skytap helps accelerate migration of traditional on-premises applications to the cloud with a low-risk, safe pathway to cloud innovation.

What immediate business benefits does using Skytap provide?

It reduces migration re-engineering risk, increases developer efficiency by cutting resource wait time, and leverages existing IT skillsets while avoiding central cloud team failures.

What are the three phases in the proposed migration approach?

Phase 1 uses lift-and-shift to reproduce application architectures as-is; Phase 2 uses migrated components as a dev/test sandbox with incremental refactoring or re-hosting; Phase 3 completes transformation into cloud-native format while maintaining dedicated connectivity back to on-prem.

Sep 12, 2026

Upload by Aurora