Beyond Lift-and-Shift: Tech Leaders on Re-architecting for Cloud Success
Cloud migration has emerged as an indispensable strategy for businesses seeking to scale efficiently, reduce operational costs, and preserve agility in an increasingly dynamic digital environment.
With global cloud spending forecasted to surpass $1 trillion by 2025, as outlined in the latest industry projections, organizations are accelerating their adoption of cloud technologies to maintain a competitive edge.
Yet, the decision on which migration approach to pursue—spanning from straightforward lift-and-shift methods to the more intricate process of refactoring or re-architecting—carries profound implications for success.
Though refactoring demands significant time and financial investment, it unlocks substantial benefits under specific conditions—raising the critical question of when this effort is genuinely justified.
The Techronicler team reached out to our community of tech leaders and experts to tackle this pivotal issue with the query:
Cloud migration is a critical move for businesses aiming to scale, cut costs, and stay agile. With different migration strategies to choose from, under what circumstances would you deploy the time- and cost-intensive strategy of refactoring or re-architecting?
Their responses shed light on the strategic, technical, and business contexts where refactoring yields enduring value, ranging from the modernization of legacy systems to the facilitation of AI-driven innovation, positioning businesses to flourish in a cloud-centric future.
Read on!
Simon Briggs - Intelligent Visibility
Refactoring or re-architecting makes the most sense when you truly want to take advantage of what the cloud has to offer—but it all starts with understanding what you’re actually moving.
One of the biggest reasons companies don’t see the savings they expected is because they lift and shift workloads without addressing the underlying design. If an application wasn’t built for the cloud, simply relocating it won’t make it more efficient.
Refactoring is worth the effort when the workload is critical, has performance issues, or when you’re aiming for long-term cost and operational gains. It’s especially important for older, monolithic apps that need to scale or integrate better with modern services.
Yes, it takes more time and money upfront, but done right, it sets you up for real cloud benefits—better performance, more flexibility, and meaningful savings.
Simon Briggs
Chief Revenue Officer, Intelligent Visibility
Nahuel Moreno - Deploforce
Refactoring/re-architecting becomes essential when:
- Technical debt has become crippling – When legacy systems require constant patching and workarounds that drain resources. I’ve seen Salesforce orgs where quick fixes accumulated until simple changes took days instead of hours.
2.New capabilities are business-critical – When cloud-native features (like AI processing, advanced analytics) would provide competitive advantages impossible with lifted-and-shifted applications.
3.Scaling requirements have fundamentally changed – When your application architecture can’t support new user volume or data processing needs. At Deploforce, we refactored our metadata processing engine when user demand outgrew our initial architecture.
While expensive upfront, well-executed refactoring ultimately delivers superior TCO and innovation potential when these factors align.
Nahuel Moreno
Founder, Deploforce
Ender Korkmaz - HeatAndCool
We considered refactoring once customer expectations evolved faster than we could respond. We needed features like faster search, mobile-first design, and real-time availability updates and our monolithic system couldn’t keep up with that demand.
Refactoring let us build more modular, API-driven architecture that scaled properly. Now we can experiment without fear of breaking the system. If innovation is stalling due to tech debt, re-architecting is your best investment.
Meyr Aviv - iMoving
At iMoving, we’ve embraced cloud migration to enhance scalability and efficiency, yet refactoring or re-architecting isn’t always necessary.
This strategy is crucial when existing systems impede innovation or when businesses anticipate significant growth; investing in a robust architecture today can yield substantial long-term savings and agility.
While it may seem costly upfront, the ability to seamlessly integrate new technologies and adapt to market shifts is invaluable. I’d be excited to share our insights on this transformative journey.
Priyanshu Dubey - Knee Xpert
Refactoring or re-architecting is definitely the most time and resource-intensive approach, but it’s a strategy we deploy under specific, critical circumstances at Knee Xpert.
We typically opt for refactoring when the existing application is a monolithic legacy system that simply isn’t designed for the cloud’s distributed, scalable nature. A “lift and shift” (rehosting) would only move the problem, not solve it.
The primary driver for re-architecting is when we need to unlock significant cloud-native benefits that are impossible with the current structure. This includes achieving massive scalability, improving resilience through microservices, leveraging managed services for cost optimization (like serverless or managed databases), or drastically increasing development agility.
It’s chosen when the long-term strategic advantages – better performance, lower operational costs over time, and faster innovation – clearly outweigh the initial investment in rebuilding parts of the application. It’s about transforming the application to truly thrive in the cloud environment, not just exist there.
Priyanshu Dubey
Product Manager, Knee Xpert
Trevor Young - Security Compass
When it comes to migration strategies, refactoring or re-architecting is a time- and cost-intensive approach that I recommend in specific scenarios.
This strategy is ideal when legacy applications are too tightly coupled or outdated to take full advantage of cloud-native capabilities. For example, older systems, like monolithic applications or legacy mainframes, often require a redesign to work efficiently in the cloud.
Refactoring is particularly valuable in industries like fintech or healthcare, where rapid innovation, scalability, and security are crucial. Though it demands a significant upfront investment in time and resources, it can reduce technical debt, enhance security, and ensure long-term agility.
In the end, re-architecting is a forward-thinking solution that future-proofs a business’s cloud infrastructure.
Trevor Young
Chief Product Officer, Security Compass
Ivan Rodimushkin - XS Supply
We refactored during high pressure. Legacy tools slowed our entire workflow. Orders lagged, and errors increased rapidly. Our healthcare clients needed faster fulfillment. Real-time visibility was no longer optional. The old system couldn’t support growth.
Refactoring lets us rebuild from zero. We integrated smarter supply chain automation. It connected inventory with procurement and forecasting. Now everything runs faster and cleaner. It took months and deep focus. But the results paid off fast.
Speed and reliability improved across operations. Teams felt less overwhelmed and reactive. Our customers noticed a better turnaround immediately. That loyalty made everything worth it. If systems restrict core agility, refactor. Especially if long-term scale matters most.
Ivan Rodimushkin
Founder & CEO, XS Supply
Amol Dalvi - Nerdio
The biggest reason to refactor or re-architect apps when moving to the cloud is to take full advantage of cloud native capabilities.
For legacy apps, lift-and-shift migrations simply replicate existing on-prem environments in the cloud. As a result, this approach doesn’t allow these apps to take advantage of critical cloud-native features like auto-scaling, serverless computing, and multi-region redundancy.
Re-architecting allows all apps to be redesigned for these capabilities, delivering improved performance, scalability, and availability.
Cost is another major consideration.
Lift-and-shift often results in inefficient resource usage, leading to higher cloud costs. Legacy applications typically aren’t optimized for cloud billing models (resource usage / consumption based pricing).
Re-architected apps can scale dynamically based on demand and use consumption-based pricing more efficiently.
Amol Dalvi
VP of Product, Nerdio
Vaibhav Kakkar - Digital Web Solutions
We select refactoring when we anticipate that the application will scale fast or manage workloads that may vary dramatically with unpredictable usage patterns. If we simply migrated this application the performance would limit and we would be exposing risks that are counter to the reason for moving to the cloud.
Refactoring will enable us to architect for elasticity, modularity and resilience from the get-go. It will give the app the chance to grow with the business, enable innovation in the future and will avoid having all of the future costs in patchworks later.
On behalf of the Techronicler community of readers, we thank these leaders and experts for taking the time to share valuable insights that stem from years of experience and in-depth expertise in their respective niches.
If you wish to showcase your experience and expertise, participate in industry-leading discussions, and add visibility and impact to your personal brand and business, get in touch with the Techronicler team to feature in our fast-growing publication.
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