Hi everyone,
I’ve been seeing a lot of discussions around cloud migration lately, and one thing that keeps coming up is how often companies go for a “lift-and-shift” approach just to move fast and check the “cloud adoption” box.
Honestly, I’m not fully convinced it’s always the right move.
From what I’ve seen in real-world scenarios, lift-and-shift definitely helps organizations get to the cloud quickly—but it can also bring along the same inefficiencies that existed in on-prem systems. In some cases, it even ends up increasing costs instead of reducing them, which kind of defeats the purpose of moving in the first place.
For example, I’ve come across situations where:
Cloud bills went significantly higher than expected due to lack of optimization
Applications didn’t perform as well because they weren’t designed for cloud environments
Teams had to deal with added operational complexity instead of simplification
Post-migration fixes took more time and effort than planned
So it makes me wonder are we focusing too much on speed and short-term wins, and not enough on long-term strategy and sustainability?
Personally, I feel a phased or hybrid approach tends to work better in many cases, especially when dealing with legacy systems or business-critical workloads. Taking time to assess, optimize, and gradually modernize seems to reduce risk and improve outcomes. But at the same time, I understand that not every organization has the luxury of time, budget, or in-house expertise to do it “perfectly.”
There’s always pressure from leadership to move fast, reduce costs, and show quick ROI which sometimes pushes teams toward quicker migration paths, even if they’re not ideal in the long run.
Curious to hear your thoughts:
Have you used lift-and-shift? Did it actually work well for you?
Have you seen cases where it backfired or created more issues later?
Do you think full modernization is worth the extra effort and investment upfront?
How do you balance business pressure vs doing migration the “right way”?
Would really love to hear some real-world experiences here—what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d do differently if you had to do it again.