# How to plan a cloud migration: a roadmap | Miyagami > A practical cloud migration roadmap: inventory, strategy per workload, waves, testing and cutover. Senior DevOps engineers from €5,600 a month. Source: https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/how-to-plan-a-cloud-migration [Home](https://www.miyagami.com/)/ [Resources](https://www.miyagami.com/resources)/ [Articles](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles)/ [Practice](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/practice)/ How to plan a cloud migration # How to plan a cloud migration **[Bo Wesdorp](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bo-wesdorp-496a36167/)** Co-founder and CTO, Miyagami [Practice](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/practice)3 min read 27 October 2026 A cloud migration roadmap is a plan that moves systems from your current hosting to a cloud provider in small, reversible steps. It starts with an inventory, assigns a strategy to each workload and ends each wave with a tested cutover. Most failures come from hidden dependencies and cost surprises, not from the technology itself. ## What should you do first Make an inventory of applications, databases, scheduled jobs, integrations and who owns each one. Map the dependencies between them, including the undocumented ones such as a script on a server that someone set up years ago. Interview the people who run the systems, since the documentation is usually incomplete. Then write down why you are migrating. Cost, resilience, speed of delivery and compliance lead to different choices. ## Which migration strategy fits each workload Each workload gets one of a few strategies. | Strategy | What it means | Effort | Fits | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Retire | Switch it off | Low | Unused systems | | Rehost | Move as is to virtual machines | Low to medium | Quick moves, tight deadlines | | Replatform | Move with small changes, such as a managed database | Medium | Most standard applications | | Refactor | Redesign for cloud services | High | Core products with long futures | Do not refactor everything. Pick the few systems where the redesign pays back, and rehost or replatform the rest. ## How do you order the migration Move in waves. Start with a low-risk system to prove the landing zone, the network setup, access control and the deployment process. Then move groups of related systems together, so that dependencies do not span the old and new environments for long. Keep the most critical systems for when the team has practice. ## How do you move the data Data usually decides the timeline. Estimate the volume and the transfer time, and decide whether you can accept a short outage or need continuous replication. Test the migration on a copy and measure how long it takes. Validate the result with row counts and checks on key records before the cutover. ## How do you keep costs under control Cloud bills surprise teams that copy their old sizing. Set budgets and alerts from the first day, tag resources by owner and review the bill every week during the migration. Right-size instances after you see real usage, and switch off test environments outside working hours. ## How do you cut over safely Write a cutover plan with exact steps, owners and a time for each, and rehearse it. Decide in advance the conditions that trigger a rollback, and test the rollback itself. Keep the old environment running for an agreed period after cutover. Monitor errors and latency closely for the first days. ## How do AI coding agents help Agents speed up the repetitive parts: infrastructure code, scripts, config conversion and tests. A senior engineer still needs to review the result, particularly for security groups, permissions and data handling. See [human-in-the-loop engineering](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/human-in-the-loop-engineering) for how that review works. Our overview of [hosting options](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/pros-and-cons-of-different-web-hosting-forms) helps with the target choice. ## What skills does the team need A migration team needs someone who has done it before. Look for experience with your target provider, infrastructure as code, networking, identity and access management, and observability. Security knowledge matters from the first wave, because misconfigured permissions are a common source of incidents. If your team has not migrated before, adding one or two senior engineers for the duration is usually cheaper than learning through mistakes. ## What this means when you hire through Miyagami Every engineer is tested by an AI-native tech lead who works with AI every day. Senior [DevOps engineers](https://www.miyagami.com/hire/devops-engineers) and [AWS engineers](https://www.miyagami.com/hire/aws-engineers) join your team full-time from €5,600 a month, with a shortlist within 3 working days and no recruitment fee. We replace at our cost if the fit is wrong. See [how we vet](https://www.miyagami.com/how-we-vet). ## Short answers How long does a cloud migration take? It depends on the number of systems and the data volume. Small estates take weeks, larger ones several months in waves. What are the 4 migration strategies? Retire, rehost, replatform and refactor. Most estates use a mix. Is lift and shift a good idea? It is quick and low risk, and it often leaves savings on the table. Use it when speed matters, then optimise afterwards. How do you avoid downtime? Use replication, rehearse the cutover and keep a tested rollback plan. We test for this Every engineer we place goes through two assessments: one without AI tools, one with. Both scorecards are published. [How we vet](https://www.miyagami.com/how-we-vet) Related - [The pros and cons of different forms of web hosting](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/pros-and-cons-of-different-web-hosting-forms) - [What is Backend as a Service (BaaS)?](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/what-is-backend-as-a-service) - [What is human-in-the-loop, in engineering terms](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/human-in-the-loop-engineering) - [How many engineers do you need now](https://www.miyagami.com/resources/articles/how-many-engineers-do-you-need) Hiring for this? Senior AI-native engineers, a shortlist in three working days and a hire within five. [Get a shortlist](https://www.miyagami.com/shortlist) Let's talk ## Get a shortlist within three days You share the roles and the stack in a short form or a thirty-minute call. Within three working days you get named senior engineers to review, each with both scorecards, and you can hire within five. [Get a shortlist](https://www.miyagami.com/shortlist) Reviewed on **Clutch** 39 reviews [ISO 27001 Certified](https://trust.miyagami.com/) Book thirty minutes with Dale The calendar is provided by HubSpot, which sets its own cookies. Load it here, or book on HubSpot's page. [Open booking page](https://sales.miyagami.com/meetings/dwesdorp)