LEARN. PRACTICE. GROW.Concept and mechanism
Discovery and assessment precede migration strategy selection. Identify applications, data, jobs, integrations, owners, and maintenance constraints. Rehosting changes hosting with few modifications; replatforming adjusts components to a new platform; refactoring changes the application to use different capabilities. Retaining or retiring a workload can also make sense. A VM provides system control with corresponding operational work. Containers package execution and dependencies; Kubernetes adds orchestration. GKE provides managed Kubernetes. Cloud Run runs compatible workloads on a managed platform without requiring the team to maintain a cluster. Selection depends on required control, execution patterns, skills, and dependencies. Serverless still needs observability, permissions, and cost control.
Guided application
In a fictional funds migration, testing VM login does not demonstrate that CFT delivers files, the scheduler starts the batch, and the recipient reconciles results. Group dependencies that must move together and define cutover criteria. Prepare rollback or alternative recovery with data, owners, and realistic times; RUN must be able to execute the procedure. When using Spot for interruption-tolerant calculations, verify checkpoints, retries, and alternative capacity before the deadline. Lower pricing neither reserves capacity nor guarantees continuity. For partner APIs, Apigee can apply policies and track use, but the team retains contracts, versions, and business logic. Record architecture decisions and operational effects so handover enables incident resolution instead of merely identifying products on a diagram.
A checkpointed batch can tolerate preemption and still miss its deadline because capacity is unavailable.
Common pitfalls
Container as mandatory microservice; Spot as guaranteed capacity; startup as acceptance; document as RUN training.
Related topics: Value, cloud models, and dependencies · Data, analytics, and quality · AI, models, and bounded agents
Choose the platform by requirement and demonstrate complete operation before handover.
Reference: Migration planning · Exam guide launched August 12, 2026