SaaS Migration Strategy

Evolving from on-premises, single-tenant applications to multi-tenant, cloud-native applications hosted by cloud providers.

With the advent of SaaS, businesses have the luxury of moving away from traditional on-premises application architecture and infrastructure that are owned, controlled, and maintained by the business. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) presents an attractive opportunity for businesses to quickly leverage new applications and software features without significant up-front investments in people, process, and technology infrastructure. However, application owners must establish a solid SaaS migration strategy that can transform single instance applications residing on-premises or in various application hosting scenarios to multi-tenant applications hosted by cloud providers.

To achieve the promises of a SaaS migration strategy, businesses must first understand, articulate, and embrace “the what and why” of their SaaS migration strategy, especially in terms of the business drivers, motivations, opportunities, and benefits – “the how” of their SaaS migration strategy, in terms of the types of SaaS deployments models and which combination of deployment models best suit the business. In parallel, businesses must leverage a proven, phase-oriented SaaS migration process. Moreover, it is vital for businesses to have a solid approach to executing their migration process while being mindful of the potential implications and pitfalls of their migration strategy.

Drivers and Motivations

Various research outlets have determined there are a few key market trends driving and motivating businesses to embrace SaaS migration. It boils down to the following key aspects:

Achieving cost reduction: In terms of reducing hardware purchases and cost, lower capital investments, decrease in cost associated with labor and operational maintenance – hence, paying for resources you need at the point in time you need them.

Increasing cash flow: Not doing a great job with cash flow can mean going out of business. Consuming cloud resources allows businesses to keep more cash in hand versus using a significant amount of cash for IT capital investments.

User empowerment and the modern workplace phenomenon: End users are getting smarter and feeling more empowered with access to technology. They are looking for businesses to facilitate their desire to consume applications and access data securely and effortlessly, from any device, anywhere, and at any time.

Business agility and competitive advantages: Globalization, cloud computing, and the notion of “the connected world” have leveled the playing field and barrier of entry for almost every business sector, resulting in greater customer empowerment and lower customer loyalty.

Cloud consumption is now a norm: The notion of businesses adopting a cloud-first strategy has since become a norm and commonplace accordance, as businesses are more comfortable with cloud consumption model than ever before.

Being nimble to the ever-changing global economy: Businesses are continuously looking for ways to be in a nimble and proactive position to tackle ever-changing global economic conditions, especially in terms of having a strong focus on increasing cash flow.

Meet and exceed regulatory compliance requirements: The ability to meet and exceed regulatory compliance requirements while ensuring operational effectiveness and efficiencies, along with cost optimization.

Enhancing resiliency: Businesses are looking for ways to be better positioned to address disaster recovery and business continuity, along with having access to capabilities to build highly resilient systems and applications.

Advantages and Benefits

SaaS Migration presents new benefits to businesses, including cost saving, along with the ability to quickly add new application features and capabilities without the need for major up-front investments. SaaS greatly reduces the need for resources to plan, design, deploy, and maintain applications. Other key benefits of a SaaS migration strategy include the following:

• Moving to a pay-as-you-go model while eliminating the need to purchase bulk licenses and software warranties.
• Improve cash flow stability and predictability; hence, shifting from OpEx to CapEx.
• Eliminate the need to perform application upgrades and security patching.
• Speed to deployment whereby there will be no need for traditional investment and prolonged deployment of on-premises infrastructure and supporting ecosystem.
• Enhanced level of security and greater controls.
• Ease of scalability whereby businesses will take advantage of scale-up and scale-down capabilities built into SaaS applications.
• Leveraging solutions built, operated, and audited under industry best-practices and security compliance framework
• Improved integration for modern workplace experience, especially where users will be able to seamlessly access applications from anywhere using various browsers or a mobile app, for example.
• Assured levels of SLAs with built-in capabilities to ensure reliability, resiliency, disaster recovery, and business continuity.

SaaS Migration Models: Leveraging Single and Multi-Tenancy

SaaS migration models are executed on single-tenant and multi-tenant infrastructure facilitated by cloud service providers. Single tenancy enables businesses to acquire application instances running on dedicated infrastructure – hence, applications running on infrastructure not shared with other businesses and SaaS users. On the other hand, multitenancy enables businesses to acquire application instances on shared infrastructure – hence, applications running on infrastructure shared amongst multiple businesses and SaaS users. The following are four typically used SaaS migration models:

1. Lift-and-shift migration model: This siloed migration model entails lifting-and-shifting the entire stack of a single-tenant, on-premises application to a dedicated, single tenant, cloud-native infrastructure. This model is ideal for businesses that desire complete infrastructure isolation from other SaaS users, allowing for maximum control over their data access and whereabouts. Moreover, this is the simplest SaaS migration model as it facilitates a quick and easy way to migrate an entire application to the cloud as-is, without the need for any application modernization efforts.
2. Data migration model: This migration model entails lifting-and-shifting all data at once from an on-premises infrastructure to a cloud native infrastructure. It can leverage both single-tenant and multi-tenant cloud-native migration strategies.
3. Parallel migration model: In this migration model, businesses run identical logics and processes on both their on-premises and cloud systems to compare the functional and operating results based on pre-defined parameters. This model helps to ease the challenges of interoperability between an existing application stack and the new cloud-native application tenant. Moreover, this model is mostly leveraged by businesses being obligated to various risk management, statutory, or regulatory compliance matters. Leveraging this model will provide businesses with an extra safety-net for ensuring new applications are generating accurate results before the final cutover to the new production environment.
4. Layered migration model: This is another form of parallel migration model where each layer of a single tenant application is migrated to SaaS incrementally, with components and capabilities moving onto the new architecture service by service, one-by-one without negatively affecting the single-tenant design. This migration model is best suited for businesses that prefer to start off small and slowly shift from a single tenant to a shared, multitenant model.

Key Considerations

Before beginning the SaaS migration journey, you should consider the following key points in order to be in the best position possible to achieve a successful migration.

• Network connectivity and perimeter control:
  • SaaS migration blurs traditional network perimeters, shifting security focus to assets and user access. It increases internet reliance for service access, introducing potential latency and bandwidth issues. Organizations must navigate the shared responsibility model, understanding their security roles versus the provider’s, and adapt practices to secure network connectivity and control in the cloud.
• Readiness for frequent automatic updates, expanding features, and being on the latest and greatest software version:
  • Automatic Updates:
    • SaaS applications are hosted by cloud providers, which means automatic updates throughout their lifecycle. Unlike on-premises tools where you decide when and how to update, SaaS vendors handle this seamlessly. This ensures that your software is always up to date with the latest security patches, bug fixes, and enhancements.
  • Expanding Features:
    • SaaS platforms often introduce new features and capabilities regularly. As a user, you benefit from rapid deployment of these features. No need for manual installations or complex upgrades; they become available as part of your subscription.
  • Being on the Latest and Greatest:
    • With SaaS, you’re always on the latest version of the software. No more lagging behind due to lengthy upgrade cycles.
  • The challenge:
    • Your organization will need to be able to adapt quickly as services and their features are updated automatically and regularly. The right managed services partner will work with you to prepare your organization for the updates well in advance.
  • Identity and access management:
    • As the number of applications in use grows, users can struggle with managing multiple credentials and remembering different login URLs. A robust single sign-on (SSO) solution can address password fatigue by allowing users to access all applications with a single set of credentials, enhancing security and productivity.
  • Governance and incident management:
    • A significant challenge during SaaS migration is the potential confusion over governance roles and responsibilities. This can lead to disorganized cloud resource provisioning and management, resulting in security risks and compliance issues. To mitigate this, it is crucial to establish clear governance policies and define specific roles for oversight and incident response within the cloud environment.
  • Interoperability:
    • The difficulty in achieving seamless integration between SaaS applications and existing IT infrastructure can lead to compatibility issues, data silos, and disruptions in workflow, necessitating careful planning and execution to ensure smooth interoperability and data consistency across systems.
  • Change management and culture shift:
    • Skepticism or reluctance from users accustomed to on-premises IT culture can be redirected by applying the right change management strategies. Your organization can foster a culture of innovation, encouraging staff to develop new skills and contribute to the evolution of the IT landscape.
  • Vendor lock-in:
    • Dependency on a single cloud provider may cause concern, but you can avoid potential problems by ensuring that your organization takes steps such as evaluating lock-in risks early and ensuring data portability and interoperability.
  • IT accounting model shift:
    • The shift from a capital expenditure (CapEx) model to an operational expenditure (OpEx) model can introduce complexities in accounting. A strong understanding of the applicable accounting standards and additional processes and controls can help your organization navigate the intricacies of capitalizing, expensing, or deferring migration costs.
  • Compliance management:
    • During SaaS migration, ensuring data security and adhering to industry regulations are critical. The transition can expose sensitive data to new vulnerabilities and require compliance with different security standards, which may be more stringent and vary depending on the cloud provider. Understanding the regulatory landscape and vetting your SaaS provider(s) can help to ensure proper compliance management.
  • Evolution of IT organization structure:
    • As you transition to SaaS, traditional IT roles and hierarchies may need to evolve. The shift towards cloud services can reduce the need for certain technical positions while creating demand for new roles focused on cloud management and integration. This requires a strategic realignment of the IT workforce to support the new cloud-based infrastructure.

Choosing the right partner to help address these concerns is paramount for a successful migration. RSM’s team of experts is well-equipped to advise and guide you through the SaaS migration journey.

Closing Points

The notion of “change” can be nerve-wracking and daunting; however, realizing the benefits of moving away from traditional on-premises applications to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud applications, and cloud-based solutions is too enticing for businesses to ignore. However, it requires proper planning, coordination, and adherence to a well-defined SaaS migration strategy. Likewise, it takes time and perseverance while there can be some bumps and bruises along the way. We must be laser-focused to avoid familiar pitfalls and common missteps as we embark on this journey.

Contact us

To learn more about SaaS migration strategies, please reach out to Swanston Benjamin: swanston.benjamin@rsmus.com

Swanston Benjamin

Swanston is a Director and Cloud Journey Lead within RSM’s Managed IT Cloud and Infrastructure (MCI) service line, with a focus on the discovery, planning, design, implementation, and transition of our clients’ cloud journey. As a first-choice advisor, he leads from the front in developing strategies, business cases, roadmaps, operating models, architectural designs, staffing models, and other service delivery elements to help clients reimagine themselves and ultimately realize the true promise of their cloud adoption journey.