Cloud migration is the process of moving data, applications or other business elements from an organization's onsite computers to the cloud, or moving them from one cloud environment to another.
Cloud migration sometimes involves moving data or other business elements between cloud environments, which is known as cloud-to-cloud migration. The process of transitioning to a different cloud provider is known as cloud service migration. In any case, successful migration to a service provider’s environment may require the use of middleware, such as a cloud integration tool, to bridge any gaps between the vendor’s and the customer’s (or other vendor’s) technologies.
Transitioning to the cloud or between cloud environments presents the usual IT issues, but the problems are compounded by having data stored and managed remotely, by external organizations and often in multiple locations. Among these issues are special considerations for privacy, interoperability, data and application portability, data integrity, business continuity, and security.