Moving from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud — and modernizing legacy applications along the way — is one of the most impactful investments an organization can make. NextInfo Inc. guides businesses through every stage of this journey: from initial discovery and planning, through migration execution, to post-migration optimization and ongoing cloud-native development. We bring deep expertise across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, combined with proven application modernization patterns that reduce cost, improve resilience, and accelerate time to market.
Migration Strategy: The 7 Rs Framework
1. Rehost (Lift & Shift) — Move applications to the cloud with no code changes using automated migration tools. The fastest path to the cloud — ideal for meeting deadlines, escaping expiring hardware, or reducing on-premise costs quickly. Typical savings of 20–30% on infrastructure costs from day one.
2. Replatform (Lift & Reshape) — Make targeted optimizations during migration — such as switching to a managed database service (RDS, Azure SQL, Cloud SQL) or moving to a managed container runtime — without changing core application architecture. Achieves better performance and lower operational overhead with minimal risk.
3. Repurchase (Drop & Shop) — Replace legacy on-premise software with a SaaS equivalent (e.g., moving from on-premise CRM to Salesforce, or on-premise email to Microsoft 365). Eliminates infrastructure maintenance and accelerates modernization through vendor-managed updates.
4. Refactor / Re-architect — Redesign and rebuild applications to take full advantage of cloud-native capabilities: microservices, serverless functions, event-driven architecture, and managed services. Highest upfront investment but delivers maximum long-term scalability, resilience, and developer velocity.
5. Relocate — Move infrastructure to the cloud at the hypervisor level (VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, Google VMware Engine) without converting to cloud-native. Preserves existing VMware investments while gaining cloud elasticity and global reach.
6. Retain — Keep specific workloads on-premise where cloud migration is not yet justified due to latency, regulatory, or technical constraints. We help you build a hybrid architecture that connects on-premise systems securely to cloud workloads via VPN, Direct Connect, or ExpressRoute.
7. Retire — Identify and decommission redundant, outdated, or duplicate applications during the migration assessment phase — typically 10–20% of an application portfolio can be retired, immediately reducing licensing, support, and operational costs.
Cloud Migration Tooling & Platforms
8. AWS Migration Hub & Application Migration Service (MGN) — AWS's flagship migration tracking and server replication service. Provides real-time migration status, automated replication from on-premise to AWS, and non-disruptive cutover testing with RPO measured in seconds.
9. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) & Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) — Migrate Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and other databases to AWS with minimal downtime, including automatic schema translation for heterogeneous migrations (e.g., Oracle → Aurora PostgreSQL).
10. Azure Migrate — Microsoft's unified migration platform covering discovery, dependency mapping, TCO analysis, server migration (Hyper-V, VMware, physical, AWS), database migration, and web app migration — with integrated Azure Cost Management and right-sizing recommendations.
11. Azure Database Migration Service — Online and offline migrations of SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB to Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL, and Cosmos DB — with near-zero downtime for production workloads.
12. Google Cloud Migrate (Migrate to VMs / Migrate to Containers) — GCP's automated migration tooling for moving VMware, physical, AWS, and Azure workloads to Compute Engine or GKE, with optional automated containerization and OS modernization of existing applications.
13. CloudEndure / AWS Application Migration Service — Agent-based, continuous block-level replication for lift-and-shift migrations with sub-second RPO, minimal performance impact on source systems, and automated launch templates for target cloud environments.
14. Zerto & Veeam — Enterprise-grade disaster recovery and live migration solutions supporting continuous replication from on-premise VMware/Hyper-V to AWS, Azure, GCP, and secondary data centres — with journal-based recovery to any point in time.
15. Migration Assessment & TCO Analysis — We conduct thorough discovery workshops and automated inventory collection (using AWS Application Discovery Service, Azure Migrate, or Flexera) to build a detailed migration business case including on-premise vs. cloud TCO, risk analysis, dependency mapping, and a phased migration roadmap.
Application Modernization Patterns
16. Monolith to Microservices Decomposition — Apply Domain-Driven Design (DDD) bounded contexts and the Strangler Fig pattern to incrementally extract capabilities from legacy monolithic applications into independently deployable, loosely coupled microservices — reducing deployment coupling and enabling autonomous team delivery at scale.
17. Containerization with Docker — Package legacy applications and all their runtime dependencies into portable Docker containers, eliminating environment inconsistencies across development, testing, staging, and production, and enabling deployment to any cloud or on-premise Kubernetes environment.
18. Kubernetes Orchestration (Amazon EKS / Azure AKS / Google GKE) — Design and operate production-grade managed Kubernetes clusters with node autoscaling, multi-AZ high availability, RBAC, NetworkPolicy, Ingress with TLS termination, persistent storage (EBS, Azure Disk, Persistent Disk), and GitOps-based continuous delivery pipelines.
19. Serverless Architecture (AWS Lambda / Azure Functions / Google Cloud Run) — Decompose event-driven, stateless, and bursty workloads into serverless functions that auto-scale from zero to millions of concurrent executions — eliminating server provisioning and delivering pay-per-execution economics with sub-100ms cold starts on modern runtimes.
20. API-First Modernization & API Gateway — Expose legacy application business logic through standardized RESTful or GraphQL APIs via AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management, Kong, or Apigee — enabling incremental modernization of back-end systems while unblocking mobile, SPA, and third-party integration projects immediately.
21. Event-Driven Architecture (Apache Kafka / AWS SQS & EventBridge / Azure Service Bus) — Decouple tightly coupled components using durable message queues and event streaming platforms, building resilient, eventually consistent distributed systems that absorb traffic spikes gracefully and support real-time data pipelines, CQRS, and event sourcing patterns.
22. Database Modernization & Migration — Migrate from legacy proprietary RDBMS (Oracle, IBM DB2, SQL Server) to modern open-source or cloud-native alternatives — Amazon Aurora, Azure Cosmos DB, Google Cloud Spanner, CockroachDB, or self-managed PostgreSQL — with full schema conversion, stored procedure migration, regression test suites, and zero-downtime cutover procedures.
23. Legacy .NET / Java Re-platforming — Migrate legacy .NET Framework applications to .NET 8+ on Linux containers; modernize Java EE / WebLogic / WebSphere applications to Spring Boot microservices on Kubernetes — reducing licensing costs and dramatically improving deployment agility.
Infrastructure as Code & Platform Engineering
24. Terraform (Multi-Cloud IaC) — Define and version-control cloud infrastructure across AWS, Azure, and GCP using declarative HCL. We build reusable module libraries, implement remote state with locking, enable automated drift detection, and integrate Terraform plan/apply into CI/CD pipelines with cost estimation via Infracost.
25. AWS CloudFormation & CDK — AWS-native IaC using CloudFormation stacks and the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) for type-safe, programmatic infrastructure definition in TypeScript, Python, Java, or C# — with construct libraries, stack composition, and integration testing of infrastructure code.
26. Pulumi — Modern IaC using full general-purpose programming languages (Python, TypeScript, Go, C#) for cloud resource provisioning, with built-in unit testing frameworks, Pulumi CrossCode for multi-language compatibility, and Policy as Code (CrossGuard) for compliance enforcement.
27. Helm & Kustomize — Kubernetes application packaging with Helm charts for parameterized, versioned Kubernetes deployments and Kustomize overlays for environment-specific configuration management without templating — integrated into GitOps workflows using ArgoCD or Flux.
28. Ansible Configuration Management — Automate operating system configuration, middleware installation, application deployment, and compliance remediation across hybrid on-premise and cloud fleets using idempotent Ansible playbooks and roles — bridging the gap during phased migrations.
Networking, Security & Compliance
29. Hybrid Connectivity (Direct Connect / ExpressRoute / Cloud Interconnect) — Establish dedicated, private, high-bandwidth network connections between on-premise data centres and cloud VPCs/VNets, bypassing the public internet for latency-sensitive, data-intensive, or compliance-driven workloads, with BGP-based routing and redundant circuits for 99.99% availability.
30. Zero-Trust Network Architecture — Replace perimeter-based security with continuous identity verification, micro-segmentation, mTLS service mesh (Istio, Linkerd, AWS App Mesh), and least-privilege access policies — ensuring east-west traffic between microservices is always authenticated and encrypted.
31. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) — Continuously scan for misconfigurations, exposed S3/Blob buckets, overly permissive IAM roles, unencrypted volumes, and public-facing resources using AWS Security Hub, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Prisma Cloud, or Wiz — with automated remediation workflows and compliance dashboards.
32. Secrets Management (HashiCorp Vault / AWS Secrets Manager / Azure Key Vault) — Eliminate hardcoded credentials and configuration secrets from applications and CI/CD pipelines through centralized, audited secrets management with dynamic credentials, automatic rotation, and fine-grained access policies.
33. Regulatory Compliance in the Cloud (PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, PIPEDA) — Design cloud landing zones with compliance guardrails baked in: data residency controls, encryption at rest and in transit, immutable audit trails (CloudTrail, Azure Monitor, Cloud Audit Logs), and automated evidence collection for audit and certification processes.
Cost Optimization & FinOps
34. Right-Sizing & Compute Savings Plans — Analyze 30–90 days of CloudWatch / Azure Monitor utilization data to identify over-provisioned instances and recommend right-sizing, Reserved Instance commitments, Savings Plans, and Spot/Preemptible instance adoption — typically achieving 30–60% reduction in compute costs versus unoptimized on-demand billing.
35. Cloud Cost Visibility & Tagging Strategy — Implement a comprehensive resource tagging taxonomy, configure cost allocation dashboards in AWS Cost Explorer / Azure Cost Management / Google Cloud Billing, set budget alerts, and deploy anomaly detection to surface unexpected spend spikes before they become issues.
36. FinOps Practice & Cloud Unit Economics — Establish a FinOps operating model with shared accountability between engineering, finance, and product: unit cost metrics (cost per API call, cost per active user), cloud budget governance, waste elimination automation, and quarterly architecture cost reviews.
Observability, SRE & Managed Operations
37. Observability Stack (Prometheus / Grafana / OpenTelemetry / Datadog) — Instrument cloud-native applications and infrastructure with distributed tracing, metrics, and structured logging using the OpenTelemetry standard — providing end-to-end visibility across microservices, Kubernetes pods, databases, and third-party APIs through unified dashboards and automated alerting.
38. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) — Define and track SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets for critical services; implement automated runbooks for incident response; and conduct game days and chaos engineering experiments (AWS Fault Injection Simulator, Chaos Monkey, Gremlin) to proactively validate system resilience before production incidents occur.
39. Managed Cloud Operations & Ongoing Optimization — Ongoing cloud infrastructure management, security patching, performance monitoring, cost optimization reviews, and architecture evolution as a managed service — giving your development teams the freedom to focus on product innovation rather than operational toil.