Cloud Migration in New Zealand
Moving off hardware you own and onto infrastructure you rent. Done well it removes a category of risk from your business. Done as a straight copy, it can cost more every month than the servers did.
$40k+
Typical project value
2 min
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What people usually mean by cloud migration
The decision that determines whether a migration pays for itself is how much you change on the way. Copying your servers as they are is fastest and usually the most expensive to run; rebuilding for the platform is slower and where the savings live.
Lift and shift
The same servers, running in someone else's data centre. Quickest, lowest risk, and the least saving — sometimes none at all.
Move and improve
Managed databases, automated backups, proper monitoring. Most of the operational benefit, moderate effort.
Rebuild for the platform
Managed and serverless services, scaling with demand. The largest saving and the largest change.
What it costs
Indicative ranges from projects posted here. Use them to sense-check a quote, not to budget precisely.
Straightforward migration
A handful of servers and one database, moved and verified.
$25k – $60k
Migration with improvement
Managed services, monitoring, backups, deployment automation.
$60k – $150k
Re-architecture
Substantial redesign for the platform, in stages, with parallel running.
$150k+
Questions worth asking a provider
·What will this cost per month once we are there — and how confident are you?
·Can we move in stages, and what is the first piece?
·What is the rollback plan if the cutover goes badly?
·Who manages it afterwards, and what does that cost?
·What happens to our backups and how do we test a restore?
Common questions
How much does a cloud migration cost?
A straightforward move of a few servers and a database is $25,000 to $60,000. Migrating while adopting managed services, monitoring and automation is $60,000 to $150,000. Re-architecting for the platform starts around $150,000.
Will it be cheaper than our servers?
Not automatically, and a straight lift-and-shift often is not. Cloud saves money when you use managed services and pay for what you use; copying always-on servers into the cloud can cost more than the hardware did. Ask every quote for a monthly estimate and what it assumes.
Should we do it all at once?
Rarely. Moving in stages — one system, then another — lets you learn on something small and keeps the rollback simple. A weekend cutover of everything is the version that makes headlines.
What actually gets better?
The operational risks: hardware failure, an expired backup nobody tested, a power event, patching that never happens. Those disappear or become someone else's problem. For many businesses that is worth more than the monthly cost difference.
Which platform?
For most New Zealand businesses AWS and Azure are both fine, and the choice should follow your existing licensing and your team's skills rather than a technical argument. If you are heavily Microsoft, Azure usually wins on licensing alone.
Related: AWS Consulting · Azure Consulting · Cloud Architecture · DevOps · CI/CD · Serverless Development · Cloud Cost Optimisation · Cloud Security
Cloud Migration projects open right now
Titles and categories are public. Full briefs, budgets, regions and buyer detail are visible to approved providers only.
Updated daily
No open projects in this category right now. New briefs are posted every week.
The saving is not automatic
Cloud migration is often sold on cost, and a straight copy of your servers frequently costs more to run than the hardware did. A server that idles at 5% for twenty hours a day is cheap to own and expensive to rent.
The savings come from changing how things run: managed databases instead of database servers you patch, storage that costs what you use, capacity that shrinks overnight. That is the difference between a migration that pays for itself and one that becomes a monthly complaint.
Ask every quote for a monthly running estimate and what it assumes. The spread between answers will be instructive.
What actually improves
The strongest argument is rarely money. It is the risks that quietly disappear:
- Hardware failing on a Friday afternoon
- Backups that have been running for years and never been restored
- A patch schedule nobody has time for
- One person who understands the server room
- Capacity decisions made three years in advance
For most businesses that is worth more than the difference in monthly cost, and it is the honest reason to go.
Move in stages
One system first, ideally one that matters but is not the heart of the business. Learn on it: the networking, the access, the monitoring, the way deployments work now. Then move the next.
A staged migration takes longer and costs slightly more, and it means a problem affects one system rather than everything at once. Ask what the first piece would be and what it costs on its own.
Test the restore, not the backup
Cloud backups are easy to configure and easy to trust without evidence. Before the migration is signed off, watch someone restore a database into a working system and time it.
That exercise is where you learn whether your recovery plan is real. It is also the thing most likely to be quietly skipped.
Comparing quotes
- Monthly cost, estimated with stated assumptions.
- Stages, with a defined first piece.
- Rollback. What happens if the cutover fails.
- Who runs it afterwards, and at what cost.
- A tested restore as part of sign-off.
Describe what you run today and what worries you about it. Five developers will tell you what moving costs and, more usefully, what it would cost to keep running afterwards.
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