Why companies in the DR are migrating to the cloud now
The drivers we most frequently see in Dominican companies are not technological — they're operational. The first is reliability: on-premise servers in the DR suffer from local power supply variability, and while generators cover most events, maintenance, UPS failures, and obsolete hardware continue to generate incidents. The second is replacement cost: a production server has a 3-5 year lifecycle, and replacing it requires capital that hits the balance sheet rather than operating cash flow.
The third driver, increasingly important, is operational competitiveness. Companies with cloud-based systems can enable remote work, open new branches without physical infrastructure, integrate third-party applications via API, and scale during peaks — Easter week, peak season, Black Friday — without overprovisioning hardware year-round.
The three most common cloud migration strategies
- Lift and Shift (Rehost): move the system as-is to a cloud VM without code changes. The fastest and least technically risky migration. The system runs in the cloud but doesn't leverage native cloud capabilities. Useful as a first step to urgently leave on-premise or for legacy systems that won't be touched again.
- Replatform: move the system with minimal changes to leverage managed services. For example, migrating a PostgreSQL database from a VM to Amazon RDS or Google Cloud SQL — without changing application code, but eliminating database server management. Good balance of effort and benefit for most systems.
- Refactor / Re-architect: redesign the system to leverage cloud-native services: serverless, containers, message queues, CDN. Higher execution cost and risk, but the greatest long-term return in scalability, operational cost, and development agility.
For most companies in the DR, the pragmatic sequence is: Lift and Shift to leave on-premise, then gradually Replatform the most critical systems. Full Refactor is only justified when growth or technical debt demands it.
AWS vs Azure vs GCP: which to choose in the Dominican Republic
- AWS (Amazon Web Services): the option with the most mature services and broadest ecosystem. If your technical team has no prior cloud experience, AWS has the greatest availability of documentation, tutorials, and trained talent in the DR.
- Microsoft Azure: clear advantage if the company already uses Microsoft 365, Windows Server, or SQL Server. Integration with Active Directory and existing licenses can significantly reduce costs. Also the preferred option in financial institutions with compliance requirements.
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP): advantage in data analytics and machine learning. If the company has BigQuery, Looker, or ML workload needs, GCP has the best ecosystem. For standard business applications, the advantage vs AWS/Azure is less clear.
Real cloud migration costs for companies in the DR
- Lift and Shift migration of 1-3 servers with prior assessment: RD$300K–RD$600K in engineering services.
- Migration with Replatform of critical database and services (3-8 systems): RD$800K–RD$2M.
- Monthly cloud cost for a mid-size company (10-20 workloads, including staging): USD$800–USD$2,500/month on AWS or Azure. Equivalent to or less than the depreciation + maintenance + electricity cost of replaced servers.
- Full enterprise infrastructure migration with partial refactoring: RD$3M–RD$8M, with positive ROI typically in 18-36 months.
Common mistakes in cloud migrations for Dominican companies
- Migrating without prior assessment: moving all systems to the cloud without understanding which have local network dependencies, hardware-specific licenses, or low-latency requirements.
- Underestimating data egress costs: cloud providers charge for transferring data out of the cloud. Systems with high data transfer can generate surprise bills if architecture isn't designed considering this cost.
- Not setting maximum cloud budgets: without billing alerts configured, it's possible to accumulate unexpected costs from forgotten resources, unlimited development, or a security incident generating abnormal traffic.
- Migrating without modernizing the backup process: a cloud VM doesn't have automatic backups by default. Many companies migrate and assume the cloud protects their data, when they actually need to explicitly configure snapshot and recovery policies.
- Not training the internal team: a successful migration doesn't end at go-live. The team that will operate production systems needs to understand how cloud infrastructure works to respond to incidents and control costs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a typical cloud migration take for a mid-size company in the DR?
A Lift and Shift migration of 3-5 servers can be executed in 4-8 weeks with a dedicated technical team. A more complex migration with Replatform of critical systems takes 3-6 months. The most determining factor for timeline is not technical: it's the availability of the company's teams to do validations and maintenance windows for the cutover.
Is it possible to migrate to the cloud without interrupting operations?
Yes, for most systems. The strategy is to run in parallel: bring up systems in the cloud, synchronize data, validate everything works correctly, and do the cutover in a low-traffic window. Systems that cannot tolerate any downtime (24/7 transactional) require more planning but also have proven zero-downtime migrations.
What about sensitive data? Is it safe in the cloud?
The major cloud providers have more stringent security certifications than most local datacenters (ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS). Security in the cloud is a shared responsibility: the provider protects the infrastructure, and the company is responsible for correctly configuring access, encryption, and auditing. A well-executed migration project includes configuring these security layers.
Do we have to completely abandon physical servers?
Not necessarily. A hybrid model — where certain systems remain on-premise for latency, compliance, or cost reasons while others migrate to the cloud — is a valid and common architecture. The key is identifying which systems benefit most from each environment and designing the connectivity between them.
How do we justify the migration investment to management?
The most effective argument is not technological but financial: calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) of current hardware — replacement every 4 years, maintenance, electricity, physical space, IT staff — versus the monthly cloud operational cost plus the migration project cost. For most mid-size companies in the DR, breakeven is reached in 18-30 months.
Is your company evaluating cloud migration but doesn't know where to start? We assess your current infrastructure and present a migration strategy with real costs before committing budget.
Talk to our team