Cloud Analytic Migrations with Microsoft, Informatica & Teradata?

Long-time Teradata partners Microsoft and Informatica announced this week that they are “taking on cloud analytic migrations,” which makes sense since many companies are looking to move their analytics to the cloud.
 
At Teradata, we believe this announcement is good news for our existing on-premises customers who are looking to move to the cloud. We also see benefit for companies presently using competitive (non-Teradata) on-premises analytical platforms – many of whom are considering alternative solutions, such as Teradata Vantage, as part of their new analytical cloud strategy. At Teradata, we have been doing these migrations for years. Having Microsoft and Informatica – whom we already have strong integrations with – join us in working on cloud migrations will make it easier for these companies to move to the cloud. More resources are now being focused on the cloud, and products from Microsoft, Informatica, as well as Teradata, that used to be dedicated to on-premises systems, have now become cloud-first. We support this announcement as something that makes it easier and less risky for long-term, established on-premises analytic environments to migrate to the cloud. We’re all in on the cloud!

Why Cloud?

I have spoken to CIOs and CTOs of many market-leading companies, and they all have some type of on-premise analytical environment. The vast majority have put in place, however, new cloud-centric mandates around their IT infrastructure and, of course, are looking to expand their usage of cloud to their analytical environments.
 
Using the cloud for analytics is enticing to them because it enables a shift in IT spend from CapEx to OpEx, as well as the ability to take advantage of the flexibility and scale the cloud has to offer. In their minds, the cloud has now become their default future deployment mechanism, versus on-premises, and this is extending to their existing analytical solutions.
 
One of the questions I always get asked by these IT leaders is: “How do I get there?” They are always worried about the time, effort and risk of a migration. Some of them have existing on-premises analytical platforms, such as IBM’s Netezza and Oracles Exadata, that are incapable or not easily migrated to public cloud environments like Microsoft Azure or the Amazon cloud, prompting companies to look for alternative solutions. 
 
On the other side of the coin are platforms limited to cloud only. But when companies want to take an evolutionary approach, they are looking for platforms that support a more of a hybrid cloud approach to analytics. 

Teradata in the Cloud

At Teradata, we have been taking on cloud analytic migrations for a number of years - migrating not only our own customers, but also companies on competitive analytical platforms. With that experience, we have built robust methodologies and tools that make the migration of data, schema, ELT processes and application code to Teradata Vantage in the cloud rapid and easy. Since Teradata software is the same – regardless of whether it’s on-premises or in the cloud – our existing Teradata customers can move to the cloud on their own timeframe, knowing that the migration is a simple process of moving the data and the applications, in most cases without a single change in a line of code.
 
We agree – cloud is the future and at Teradata, we enable our customers to choose a cloud migration strategy that best meets their business needs, be it public cloud, multi-cloud or hybrid cloud, as an evolutionary step of their cloud journey, or as permanent analytical architecture decision. We’re here to help.