Cloud Migration Assessment Vocabulary
Key vocabulary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 6 Rs | The six migration strategies: Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, Repurchase, Retire, Retain — used to categorise how each application will be migrated. |
| Rehost (Lift-and-Shift) | Moving an application to the cloud with no code changes — fastest but least cloud-optimised. |
| Replatform (Lift-Tinker-Shift) | Making small, targeted optimisations (e.g. moving to managed DB) without changing the core architecture. |
| Refactor / Rearchitect | Redesigning the application to be cloud-native — highest effort, highest benefit. |
| TCO analysis | Total Cost of Ownership analysis: a comprehensive comparison of all on-premises vs. cloud costs over a defined period. |
| migration readiness assessment (MRA) | A structured evaluation of an organisation's people, process, and technology readiness to migrate to the cloud. |
| migration readiness score | A quantified output of the MRA that indicates how prepared the organisation is to begin migrating workloads. |
1. The assessment team evaluates every application and assigns each one a migration strategy label: Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, Repurchase, Retire, or Retain. What framework are they applying?
2. The finance director asks for a full cost comparison: on-premises hardware, software licences, data centre rent, power, cooling, and staffing — versus projected cloud spend over five years. What analysis does she want?
3. The cloud team runs a structured evaluation covering: cloud skills gaps, existing automation tooling, governance processes, and leadership commitment. The output is a scored report showing where the organisation needs to improve before migrating. What exercise is this?
4. The architect recommends: "For this billing engine we should replatform — move it to a managed database service, but keep the application logic unchanged." How does Replatform differ from Rehost?
5. After completing the MRA, the consultants present a migration readiness score of 62 out of 100, noting gaps in cloud governance and skills. What does this score represent?
Exercise complete!
out of 5 questions