Lift and Shift
What is Lift and Shift?
Lift and shift is a cloud migration approach that moves applications to the cloud with few or no changes, typically by recreating their servers as cloud virtual machines.
Updated November 2026 · 5 min read
Lift and shift, also called rehosting, moves applications to the cloud as they are. Servers in a data center are recreated as virtual machines in the cloud, data is copied over and the application runs much as it did before. Because little changes in the application itself, lift and shift is usually the fastest and least risky way to migrate, and it is often used when organizations need to exit a data center by a deadline or move large numbers of applications quickly.
The trade-off is cost and capability. Applications designed for fixed on-premises servers often do not take advantage of cloud features such as autoscaling and managed services, and they may be sized for peak capacity that is paid for every hour in the cloud. For IT financial management, lift and shift can lead to higher-than-expected cloud costs unless workloads are rightsized and optimized after migration, so it should be planned with that follow-up in mind.
Definition of Lift and Shift
Lift and shift is a migration strategy in which existing applications and their infrastructure are moved to a cloud environment with minimal modification. It is one of several common migration approaches, which also include replatforming, refactoring, repurchasing as SaaS, retiring and retaining.
It is often the first step in a longer journey, with applications optimized or modernized after they reach the cloud.
When It Is Used
Lift and shift suits organizations facing deadlines, such as a data center lease ending or hardware reaching end of support, where speed matters more than optimization.
It is also used for applications that are stable and will not be developed further, for commercial software that cannot be modified, and for large portfolios where redesigning every application would take too long.
Some organizations use it to move quickly and gain experience with the cloud, planning to modernize applications later once they are running there.
Lift and Shift vs Other Approaches
Replatforming makes limited changes during migration, such as moving a database to a managed database service, to gain some cloud benefits without a full redesign.
Refactoring redesigns applications to use cloud-native services, such as containers, serverless functions and managed data services. It costs more upfront but can reduce operating costs and improve scalability.
Choosing between approaches for each application, based on its value, lifespan and complexity, is a key part of migration planning and affects cloud migration cost.
Importance of Lift and Shift in IT Financial Management
Lift and shift affects both the cost of migration and the cost of running applications afterward. Its financial effects need to be understood when planning.
The approach can make cloud costs look worse than expected. This is not because the cloud is inherently more expensive, but because applications built for a different environment are run in the cloud without adjustment.
Organizations that compare lift-and-shift cloud bills with their on-premises budgets are sometimes surprised, especially if on-premises costs were underestimated or cloud resources were copied at full size.
Faster, Cheaper Migration
Because applications change little, lift and shift requires less engineering effort and carries less risk of breaking functionality. Migrations can be completed faster, which reduces the period of paying for both environments.
Faster exits from data centers can produce savings on leases, hardware refreshes and facilities sooner.
These benefits make lift and shift attractive for large migrations with tight timelines.
Higher Running Costs
Applications moved unchanged may be oversized, since on-premises servers are often provisioned for peak load or future growth. In the cloud, that excess capacity is paid for continuously.
They may also miss savings from cloud features, such as autoscaling, managed services and spot capacity, that require application changes.
Without follow-up optimization, lift and shift can lead to cloud costs higher than the business case assumed. Rightsizing and commitment purchasing after migration are usually needed to bring costs in line, as part of a fair cloud TCO comparison.
How to Manage Lift and Shift Costs
Managing the costs of lift and shift involves sizing resources correctly during migration, optimizing soon after and planning modernization for applications that warrant it.
FinOps involvement from the start of the migration helps avoid common cost problems. Adding cost management after workloads are running is possible, but it usually means paying higher costs for the first months.
During Migration
Use utilization data from the on-premises environment to size cloud resources, rather than copying the specifications of existing servers. On-premises servers are often far larger than the workloads they run. Many migration tools provide rightsizing recommendations based on actual usage.
Apply tagging standards and account structures from the start, so migrated workloads can be allocated and monitored immediately. Fixing these later is far more work.
Plan the decommissioning of on-premises systems carefully to keep parallel running short.
After Migration
Review utilization in the first few weeks after migration and rightsize resources further. Schedule non-production environments and remove anything not needed. Early action prevents waste from becoming normal.
Once usage is stable, buy commitment discounts for steady workloads. Savings plans are often a good fit, since they remain useful if instance types change during later modernization.
Identify applications where replatforming or refactoring would reduce costs significantly or add value, and plan them as later phases. Prioritize by savings.
Examples of Lift and Shift in IT Financial Management
The examples below show the financial effects of lift and shift.
Both use illustrative figures. The first shows costs before and after optimization, and the second shows a lift and shift followed by modernization.
In each, follow-up work after migration determined the final cost. Migration was only the first step.
Optimizing After Migration
A company moves 300 servers to the cloud using lift and shift, matching each server's existing size. First-month cloud costs are $520,000, compared with the business case estimate of $400,000.
Over the next three months, rightsizing, scheduling of non-production servers and commitment purchases reduce monthly costs to $360,000, below the business case estimate.
The company changes its migration process so that future waves are rightsized before they move rather than afterward.
Lift and Shift, Then Modernize
Another company lifts and shifts its customer platform to meet a data center exit deadline. A year later, it replatforms the database to a managed service and moves the web tier to containers with autoscaling.
Running costs fall by about 30%, and the team spends less time on database maintenance. The initial lift and shift allowed the deadline to be met, while modernization delivered the longer-term savings.
The company now plans most migrations in two steps, moving first and modernizing later where the value justifies it.
Conclusion
Lift and shift is a migration approach that moves applications to the cloud with few or no changes. It is fast, relatively low risk and useful for deadlines and large portfolios, but it often leaves applications oversized and unable to use cloud features that reduce costs. It works best as a first step rather than an end state.
In IT financial management, lift and shift can lower migration costs while raising running costs if not followed by optimization. Sizing resources from utilization data, rightsizing and buying commitments after migration, and planning modernization for valuable applications help organizations get the speed of lift and shift without paying more than necessary.
Related terms
Cloud Migration Cost
Cloud migration cost is the total one-time and transitional cost of moving applications, data and infrastructure to the cloud, including planning, labor, tools, data transfer, parallel running and retraining.
Rightsizing
Rightsizing is the practice of matching the type and size of cloud resources, such as instances and databases, to the actual performance and capacity a workload needs, reducing cost without harming performance.
Cloud TCO
Cloud TCO (total cost of ownership) is the full cost of running a workload in the cloud over a period, including service charges, migration, licenses and staff, often compared with on-premises TCO.
Savings Plans
Savings plans are a cloud pricing option in which customers commit to a fixed hourly spend on compute for one or three years, receiving discounted rates on eligible usage up to that amount.