An Industry of Movers: The Structure of the Public Cloud Migration...

An Industry of Movers: The Structure of the Public Cloud Migration Industry

Posted 2025-12-12 11:46:15

To fully comprehend the massive global shift of enterprise IT to the cloud, it is essential to understand the intricate structure of the Public Cloud Migration Industry. This is not a simple industry of a single type of company; it is a complex, multi-layered, and symbiotic ecosystem where the giant cloud platforms, a vast army of consulting and integration partners, and a host of specialized software vendors all play a critical and interdependent role. This industry is dedicated to providing the strategy, the tools, and the hands-on expertise needed to move an organization's digital assets from its private data centers to the public cloud. The interactions between these diverse players are what make this complex and often-risky journey possible for thousands of businesses. Understanding this industrial structure is key to appreciating the massive collaborative effort behind the largest re-platforming of enterprise IT in history.

At the very foundation of the industry are the public cloud service providers (CSPs) themselves—the "big three" of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). They are the "destination" for all public cloud migrations. They provide the vast, global, on-demand infrastructure of servers, storage, and networking that all the migrated workloads will run on. These CSPs are not passive players in the migration process. They actively encourage and facilitate migrations to their platforms by offering a range of native migration tools, providing funding and incentives for customers, and, most importantly, by building and cultivating massive global partner networks of service providers who are trained and certified on their platforms. They are the landlords of the new digital real estate, and their platforms are the primary engine of the entire migration market.

The largest and most visible layer of the industry consists of the service providers—the "movers." This is a vast and diverse group. At the top are the global system integrators (GSIs) and major consulting firms like Accenture, Deloitte, and Capgemini. These firms specialize in managing large-scale, complex digital transformation projects for Fortune 500 companies, where cloud migration is a central component. They provide the high-level strategic planning and the massive teams of engineers needed to execute these multi-year projects. The middle of the market is populated by thousands of "born-in-the-cloud" consulting partners and managed service providers (MSPs). These firms often have deep, specialized expertise in a particular cloud platform or a specific technical domain, and they are the primary partners for many mid-sized businesses on their cloud journey.

A third, and crucial, layer of the industry is made up of the independent software vendors (ISVs) who create the specialized tools for cloud migration. During the Forecast Period 2025 - 2035, the Public Cloud Migration Market Size is Set to Grow from USD 147.23 Billion to 406.87 Billion, Reaching at a CAGR of 10.7%. This market for tooling is a significant and growing part of the overall ecosystem. These tools address specific stages of the migration process. There are "discovery" tools that can automatically scan an on-premises environment to map out all the applications and their dependencies. There are "migration" tools that can automate the process of moving virtual machines or databases to the cloud. And there is a large and fast-growing category of "post-migration" tools focused on cloud cost management, security posture management, and performance monitoring. These tools are often used by the service providers to make their migration projects more efficient and successful.