Challenges In Optimizing Migration Costs From On-Premises To Microsoft Azure

Abstract

The current paper analyzes the feasibility of a modular web application's migration procedure from on-premises to the cloud. Our focus is on identifying cost savings and options for hosting the application in the cloud. The research specifically examines the impact of architectural decisions records (ADR) on a modular monolith use case, utilizing .NET Core for the backend and Angular for the front end, with Clean Architecture as the design pattern.We investigate different cloud models (IaaS, PaaS, Serverless) considering project management's triple constraints (time, cost, performance). The study demonstrates that a modular monolith can be migrated with varying effort and costs depending on the chosen cloud model and technology stack. We explore optimizations such as resource utilization, licensing fees, and cost reduction through infrastructure reservations. Our findings show that the migration cost can range from a 20% increase with IaaS to approximately 70% cost reduction with the Serverless strategy compared to the on-premises environment, using equivalent resources.We also explore methods to lower expenses for each model, including resource modifications, Linux operating systems, and longer resource reservations. Considering limitations, we propose a two-stage migration strategy: initially lifting and shifting the application to IaaS with cost optimization, and subsequently migrating to PaaS for scalability and simplified resource management in the long term.