Conducting a Breath Analysis Before and After Cloud Migration

When an organisation decides to adopt a cloud-first strategy, it typically prepares a detailed checklist and a step-by-step approach to move data and applications to the cloud. In the earlier blogs, we looked at what cloud migration is, the different types of cloud migration (lift and shift, IaaS, and PaaS model), and various deployment models (public, private, community, and hybrid).  

In this blog, we’ll focus on the role of conducting an in-depth breath analysis of each application before migrating it to the cloud.  

Cloud Breath Analysis Checklist  

What is breath analysis of a software application? Why do cloud experts insist on it? What are the benefits of conducting a thorough analysis before the migration? Is it a one-off exercise, or should we have periodic reviews scheduled to check the application’s code base, performance, and functionality?  

Simply put, breath analysis is the process of conducting an in-depth review of the software application, especially from the following angles:  

• Expert review of the code base to check if changes are required prior to migration 
• Analysis of the application for dependencies. Does any other application break because of cloud migration? 
• What is the estimated amount of computing and storage resources required on the cloud? 

• What will be the Total Cost of Operations (TCO) after cloud migration?  
• Is there a need to modernise the application? Or, can that process wait?  
• Determine the maintenance costs and resources needed post migration 
• What can go wrong? This is a key question to answer especially in the case of old, legacy applications whose code base hasn’t been touched for a long time 

Breath analysis is necessary because when an organisation moves applications from a traditional computing system to a cloud environment, a lot of databases will be tied to the application. If the applications are not decoupled, analysed, and tested prior to the migration, it may lead to app malfunctions, data loss, or inability to function effectively.  

Coca-Cola’s App Migration to the Cloud and How Breath Analysis Helped 

For example, Coca-Cola runs hundreds of marketing campaigns globally every year. The company is especially focused on running ad campaigns around mega sporting events. They had planned one such interactive campaign with interactions and engagement with fans during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Coca-Cola’s creative agency had planned country-specific ad campaigns and they had expected to engage with 3-5 million fans in England.  

The company’s technology solutions partner evaluated the audience-facing web application, which was already cloud-based. While the front end seemed ready, the vendor was worried about the business intelligence (BI) engine being on-premise.  

In its cloud breath analysis report, the company clearly mentioned the risks associated with the BI workload being on-premise and recommended that its BI engine must be moved to the AWS cloud as well. Other cloud platforms were evaluated, and based on several factors it was decided that AWS Redshift and Athena work best. While the audience and fan interactions may happen seamlessly, their worry was the company would not be able to derive maximum insights from this data if the BI engine failed.  

Eventually, Coca-Cola and the technology solutions partner decided to move the BI engine and data warehouse to Amazon Redshift. The company also leveraged AWS Elastic Beanstalk to migrate, embracing the DevOps approach.  

The result? It helped the company’s creative agency to deploy applications more efficiently, and ensure the BI engine worked without issues even in the case of random spikes in traffic. From an IT operations standpoint, it resulted in 40% cost savings and an 80% reduction in IT help desk tickets. Without the breath analysis report, all of this wouldn’t have been possible.  

A Merit Expert adds, “Breath analysis is the first step to software modernisation. Deeply analysing the current code-base of a software application and evaluating its storage and computing requirements lays the foundation to make the application better. In today’s approach of using DevOps to modernise applications, it is all about continuous innovation. Having a robust breath analysis process – for each and every application – is, therefore, critical. Needless to add, conducting cost-benefit analysis and estimating TCO are part and parcel of the modernisation process.”  

Understanding Application Architecture and Dependencies  

Are you using a monolithic architecture? Or, is the application one of the services in a microservices architecture? What are its dependencies and how does the software application interact with the rest of the enterprise architecture? These are key questions to answer during breath analysis.  

If there is a need to revamp the application architecture, the best time to do it is before cloud migration. As a Merit expert says, “The best cloud-based apps are built from the ground up for the cloud. Of course, it’s not possible to do that with existing on-premise applications but it’s important to look at the functionality, performance, and security of the application from an overall enterprise architecture standpoint and revamp for the cloud as needed.”  

Merit’s Expertise in Cloud Migration, Management, and Optimisation  

Merit works with a broad range of clients and industry sectors, designing and building bespoke applications and data platforms combining software engineering, AI/ML, and data analytics.  

We migrate legacy systems with re-architecture and by refactoring them to contemporary technologies on modern cloud ecosystems. Our software engineers build resilient and scalable solutions with cloud services ranging from simple internal software systems to large-scale enterprise applications.  

Our agile approach drives every stage of the customer journey; from planning to design development and implementation, delivering impactful and cost-effective digital transformations. To know more, visit: https://www.meritdata-tech.com/service/code/digital-engineering-solutions/