What is Lift and Shift: A Complete Guide To Rehosting In the Cloud

Table of Contents

Introduction

As organizations seek new ways to modernize their applications and leverage the latest technology offered by public cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, Cloud migration has become a key strategy. Stats reveal that the cloud migration market is expected to grow from $0.30 trillion in 2025 to $1.03 trillion by 2030, with a yearly growth rate of 28.24%.(Source: Mordor Intelligence)

Several primary drivers motivate businesses to migrate workloads from on-premise to the cloud in the first place, which include:

● Focus on improving and building applications instead of managing infrastructure.
● Cloud offers more flexibility and availability than on-site solutions.
● Pay-as-you-go models reduce upfront costs and shift to manageable ongoing expenses.
● Cloud provides options to replace outdated hardware and software.
● Ability to combine cloud services with on-premises systems.
● Cloud helps with better compliance management and stronger security.

However, the key part is that your migration method depends on which cloud service model you’re moving to: IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS. With various cloud migration strategies available, Lift and Shift offers a tempting shortcut on this route: “quickly moving existing workloads to the cloud.” But is this quick and easy solution truly the best fit for your organization’s long-term needs, or is there more to it? Let’s explore this migration approach further and evaluate its potential benefits and pitfalls.

What is Lift and Shift?

Lift and Shift cloud migration, also called Rehosting, is a simple approach to moving your applications and data from your own data center (on-premise) to the cloud. You move everything exactly as it is without changing anything to the cloud. It’s like “lifting” your physical servers and then “shifting” them to the cloud with no major changes to the application structure, data flow, or security setup.

Lift and Shift Benefits For Cloud Migration

What are the advantages of Lift and Shift migration over other cloud strategies? Let’s find out!

Cost Efficiency

The lift-and-shift approach occurs without significant application changes. Avoiding code changes saves development costs 30–50% and reduces testing efforts by 20–40%. It also helps prevent downtime expenses, which Gartner estimates at an average of $5,600 per minute. Also, it cuts team and infrastructure costs with optimized cloud resources, making this migration approach a practical, affordable choice.

Read more about Cloud Migration Costs in detail.

Better Performance with Modern Hardware

Migrating to the cloud allows businesses to utilize modern, high-performance hardware without maintaining physical servers. Specialized workloads, like those requiring GPUs or HPC, can be run on cloud VMs, providing efficiency and eliminating the overhead of on-premises hardware management.

Improved On-Premises Consolidation

Lift and Shift allows businesses to use cloud capacity (compute, storage, and bandwidth) without expanding on-premises infrastructure. You can consolidate your on-site data center and reduce physical space while paying only for the cloud resources you use. It helps lower operational costs and avoid the need for extensive on-prem upgrades.

Scalability on Demand

Cloud environments make it easy to scale applications as needed. With Lift and Shift, you can easily add resources to meet traffic spikes or increased demand without buying new hardware. Cloud resources are to be scaled up or down automatically based on need, making it more flexible and cost-effective than maintaining excess hardware just in case.

Read more about Cloud Resource Management in detail.

Enhanced Security

After migrating, even legacy applications can benefit from advanced cloud security features, such as role-based access control, multi-factor authentication, and unified security systems across cloud environments. These improve data protection and support cloud governance by streamlining security and access management across cloud environments.

Lower On-Premises Data Center Costs

Shifting more applications to the cloud helps businesses minimize their reliance on on-site data centers. This translates into lower costs for managing, maintaining, and upgrading physical servers, cooling systems, and network infrastructure. Over time, this can lead to significant savings, especially as workloads are moved to the cloud.

Easier Transition to Hybrid Cloud

Lift and Shift migration is an excellent way to start building a hybrid cloud environment, where some applications are hosted on-premises and others move to the cloud. You can efficiently manage and optimize both on-premises and cloud systems with proper cloud migration tools, providing a flexible, hybrid IT infrastructure.

Read more about Multi Cloud vs Hybrid Cloud.

Limitations of Lift and Shift

Rehosting to the cloud has certain limitations, too; let’s have a look

● Reduced Efficiency Over Time

Applications moved to the cloud without changes may later face higher costs, slower performance, or even outages due to cloud incompatibilities.

● Lack of Cloud Benefits

The rehosted app won’t benefit from features like automatic scaling built for cloud environments.

● Security Risks

If the app isn’t correctly set up for the cloud, it could have security vulnerabilities.

Step-by-Step Process for Rehosting Applications in the Cloud

Let’s explore how we perform Lift and Shift migration and seamlessly transition your workloads to the cloud.

Phase 1: Assessing and Planning

Evaluate your current system to understand its requirements and determine if moving to the cloud is a good fit. We identify any potential challenges and ensure the cloud platform will support your needs.

Phase 2: Setting Up Resources and Cloud Infrastructure

Prepare your cloud environment by allocating the necessary resources (like storage and computing power) to smooth migration. This phase ensures everything is ready for the move.

Phase 3: Moving Data and Applications

This is where the actual migration happens. We move your data and applications from your on-premise infrastructure to the cloud, ensuring everything is transferred securely and without issues.

Phase 4: Testing and Validation After Migration

Once everything is in the cloud, we run tests to ensure your applications work properly and data is intact. We also ensure the system operates smoothly in the new environment.

Phase 5: Optimization and Ongoing Monitoring

We fine-tune your cloud resources once the migration is complete to enhance performance and reduce costs. Ongoing monitoring lets us detect issues and make adjustments, ensuring smooth operation. Follow these 5 steps to perform a perfect lift and shift migration process and everything will run seamlessly after the transition.

Read more in detail on how you can craft a successful cloud migration.

Lift and Shift Migration vs Other Migration Models

The key difference is that Lift and Shift move applications to the cloud without changes, while other strategies require significant modifications for optimization. Let’s explore the other differences to understand better which approach suits your business needs.

How Bacancy Navigates Lift and Shift Cloud Migration Challenges

Here’s how we help you tackle Lift and Shift migration challenges for a smooth and efficient cloud transition.

1. High Long-Term Cloud Costs

Many businesses like yours may face the challenge of high long-term cloud costs when migrating to the cloud without properly optimizing for it. Without careful planning, inefficient resource allocation can lead to escalating expenses.

Here’s how we take charge of your cloud costs:

• Cost Optimization Tools: Monitor and analyze usage to identify savings.
• Auto-Scaling: Adjust cloud resources automatically based on demand.
• Reserved & Spot Instances: Lower costs with long-term commitment options.
• Regular Audits: Conduct routine audits to eliminate wasteful spending.

Read more about Cloud Waste and how we help you navigate this roadblock.

2. Lack of Cloud Optimization

When businesses migrate to the cloud without re-architecting their applications, they miss benefits like auto-scaling, elasticity, and serverless computing. This lack of optimization leads to inefficient resource use and missed cost savings and performance improvement opportunities.

Here’s how we help you with cloud optimization:

• Post-Migration Refactoring: Re-architect apps to leverage cloud-native features like auto-scaling, serverless computing, and managed databases.
• Replatforming: Integrate apps with cloud-native services such as cloud storage and databases for better performance.
• Cloud-Native Tools: Introduce development tools to maximize cloud performance and reduce costs.

3. Data Migration Complexity

Migrating large volumes of data to the cloud can be complex and error-prone, especially with legacy systems. Key challenges include maintaining data integrity, minimizing downtime, and adapting legacy data for the cloud.

Here’s how we can help you with data migration complexity:
Automated Migration Tools: Use tools like AWS Database Migration Service and Azure Migrate for accurate, fast, and low-downtime transfers.

• Data Validation & Cleanup: Ensure only relevant, high-quality data is migrated by validating and cleaning legacy data.
• Backup & Disaster Recovery: Implement backup and recovery solutions to protect data and ensure safe migration.

Read more in detail about Cloud Data Warehouse.

4. Compatibility Issues with Legacy Apps in the Cloud

Many legacy applications were designed for on-premises environments and may not perform well or integrate smoothly with modern cloud infrastructure. Attempting to move these apps to the cloud can cause issues.

Here’s how we can help you with legacy app compatibility:

• App Evaluation: We assess your legacy apps to spot compatibility issues and recommend the best cloud migration strategies.
• Refactoring/Replatforming: We help modify or move apps to be cloud-compatible with minimal disruption.
• SaaS Transition: We migrate legacy apps to SaaS, providing better cloud scalability and reduced internal maintenance.

Read more in detail about Legacy application migration to the cloud.

5. Lack of Cloud Expertise

Lack of in-house expertise to manage and optimize the cloud environment after migration.

Here’s how we can help you with our expertise:

• Managed Services: We manage cloud monitoring, optimization, and issue resolution for businesses without in-house expertise.
• Cloud Consulting: We provide strategic guidance on cloud architecture, migration planning, and future improvements.

6. Security and Compliance Risks

Moving sensitive data and applications to the cloud may expose security gaps or violate compliance standards if not properly configured.

Here’s how we stay on the front line about security challenges:

• Cloud Security Setup: We implement cloud-native security tools like firewalls, IAM, and encryption to protect your cloud.
• Compliance Assurance: We use automated tracking tools to ensure your cloud meets compliance standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).
• Security Audits: We conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments to identify and address potential risks.

Read More About Cloud Migration Threats and Cloud Migration Risks

6 Times When Lift and Shift Is the Best Cloud Migration Strategy

Here are the top lift and shift migration use cases that prove why Lift and Shift is a preferred cloud strategy for your business:

1. Need to Move Quickly

If there’s a tight deadline to get applications into the cloud, Lift and Shift cloud migration is the fastest option, allowing migration with minimal changes.

2. Reducing Infrastructure Costs

If maintaining physical servers is costly, Lift and Shift cloud migration can help you save on hardware, maintenance, and on-premises data center costs by moving to the cloud.

3. Starting a Digital Transformation

For businesses new to the cloud, Lift and Shift migration is a simple first step that moves existing applications to the cloud, allowing time to optimize them later.

4. Keeping Applications Intact

If the existing application is challenging to modify or refactor, Lift and Shift lets you move it to the cloud without altering its structure.

5. Shutting Down Expensive Data Centers

Lift and Shift migration allows businesses to quickly migrate to the cloud without significantly changing their current apps when vacating a costly data center.

6. Switching from CapEx to OpEx

With Lift and Shift, you can move from paying upfront for hardware (CapEx) to a pay-as-you-go model (OpEx), which lowers upfront costs and offers more flexibility.

7. Saving on Hardware

Lift and Shift can migrate applications to a more affordable cloud environment if existing hardware is outdated and expensive, avoiding costly new hardware purchases.

Lift and Shift Cloud Migration: Case Study

Achieved 30% Cost Savings & 40% Performance Boost with Bacancy’s Lift-and-Shift Migration

Challenge:

A leading financial services company struggled with slow application performance and growing infrastructure costs on its on-premises systems. These issues caused delays and downtime, affecting service delivery during peak business hours.

Solution:

Bacancy executed a lift-and-shift migration to AWS. The team replicated FinServe’s existing infrastructure to AWS EC2 instances, migrated 5TB of data to S3, and used RDS for database management. The migration was carried out with minimal downtime, ensuring business continuity.

Results:

● 30% reduction in infrastructure costs
● 56% improvement in application performance
● Data migrated with zero downtime
● 50+ EC2 instances deployed, optimized for cost savings

Lift and Shift With Bacancy: A Winning Approach

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How to do lift and shift migration?

1. Assess workloads and cloud compatibility.
2. Select a cloud provider.
3. Plan migration priorities and timelines.
4. Prepare cloud resources.
5. Migrate using tools.
6. Test and verify.
7. Go live and monitor.

How long does the Lift and Shift migration process take?

Depending on the app’s complexity, it typically takes a few weeks to a few months.

What are the costs involved in Lift and Shift migration?

● Cloud Resources: Charges for computing, storage, and networking.
● Data Transfer: Moving data to the cloud.
● Setup: Cloud configuration costs.
● Licensing: Fees for cloud licenses.
● Testing: App validation expenses.
● Training: Training and support costs.
● Ongoing: Regular cloud charges.

What is Lift-and-Shift Migration in Azure?

Lift-and-shift migration in Azure means moving your apps, data, and workloads to Azure without changing how they work. You can also use tools like Azure Migrate to transfer them to Azure Virtual Machines and store them quickly and easily.

What is Lift-and-Shift Migration in AWS?

Lift-and-shift in AWS means moving workloads from on-premises to AWS with little or no changes. It’s a common way for businesses to start using the cloud and can later transition to a cloud-native setup.

What is an example of lift and shift migration?

Lift and shift cloud migration is moving an app from one place to another without changing it. For example, you could move a website running on your office server to a cloud server without changing its functionality.

What is the Difference Between Lift and Shift Migration and Modernization?

● Lift and shift cloud migration means moving an application to the cloud without changing anything.
● Modernization means updating or improving an application to fully take advantage of cloud features, such as making it more efficient or scalable.