What is a Cloud Migration? – Benefits & Migration Steps

What are the Benefits of Cloud Migration for Chip Designers?

Some of the benefits of cloud migration for chip designers include:

Fast and Easy Scaling

Cloud infrastructure is much more scalable than on-premises infrastructure. You can easily scale up services and licenses with the click of a button, or you can use elastic scaling that automatically grows and shrinks to meet demand.

Cost Reduction

Migrating to the cloud reduces your dependency on expensive on-premises equipment and software licenses. In addition, most cloud services use a “pay-as-you-go” model, which means you only pay for the resources you’re using, reducing waste in your budget.

Enhanced Flexibility

A cloud migration results in highly flexible infrastructure that you can scale up and down as needed to meet spikes in demand or reduce costs during slow periods. Many cloud services also offer extra features, extensions, and API integrations that allow you to add additional functionality with minimal time and hassle.

Security Assurance

Cloud vendors are responsible for many aspects of security, which reduces the time and expense you need to invest in measures like cameras and biometric locks. When you use a trusted cloud provider certified by a cloud security framework, you get assurance that your resources are protected without the headache of managing all your security.

3 Choose a Service Model [↑]

Cloud services are delivered in various ways, so you must determine which one suits this particular workload.

• IaaS. Infrastructure-as-a-Service provides virtualized resources like servers, storage, and networking that mimic traditional data center infrastructure. This method gives you more control over the underlying infrastructure that will host your workload but requires more configuration and development.
• PaaS. Platform-as-a-Service delivers a platform to build out your applications and integrations. You don’t need to configure the virtual infrastructure or maintain the operating system, but you’ll need to develop or install all the software.
•  SaaS. Software-as-a-Service offers a complete cloud-native application that’s optimized for its environment and ready for you to customize and use off the shelf. The SaaS model is often the simplest because all you need to do is migrate or integrate your data, and the cloud provider handles all of the development and upkeep.

4 Pick a Cloud Vendor [↑]

Next, you need to choose a cloud provider that suits your business needs, budget, technical requirements, and service model. For example, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform are popular IaaS or PaaS deployment options. For a SaaS EDA solution, you should ensure the vendor provides all the functionality you need and scalable, on-demand licensing, such as Synopsys Cloud.

5 Develop a Migration Plan [↑]

Now, it’s time to plan the nitty-gritty details of the actual migration. Some of the steps that need to be planned include:

• Notifying and training the user base
• Data and application backups
• Data transfer
• Application or workload installation
• Documentation
• Incident response procedures
• Recovery and rollback plans

6 Execute the Migration [↑]

It’s finally time to execute the migration! Put your plan into action, documenting each step as you go.

7 Monitor and Optimize [↑]

Once the migration is complete, you’ll need to continuously monitor your deployment to catch any bugs and ensure optimal performance.