A Structured Risk Assessment Framework for Cloud Migration Strategy Selection: Lift-and-Shift versus Re-architecture-A Proposed Multi-Factor Decision Framework (CMRAF) with Illustrative Applications

Abstract

Cloud migration strategy selection — the choice between lift-and-shift (rehosting), re-platforming, and full re-architecture — is one of the most consequential decisions in an enterprise's digital transformation journey, yet organizations routinely default to cost estimates and informal judgment rather than a structured, repeatable assessment process. This paper proposes the Cloud Migration Risk Assessment Framework (CMRAF), a five-dimension model that scores technical debt density, application dependency complexity, business continuity requirements, team re-architecture capability, and strategic application value, and maps the composite score to a recommended migration strategy. Unlike cost-centric decision models, which capture infrastructure and licensing economics but overlook execution risk, CMRAF is designed to surface the factors that most often cause migration strategy choices to fail in practice. The framework is presented conceptually and illustrated through two worked, hypothetical application scenarios that demonstrate how it would be applied and how its recommendations would diverge from a cost-only approach. The paper closes with a concrete empirical validation agenda — the study this framework has not yet undergone — including sample design, metrics, and comparison baselines needed to test CMRAF against real migration portfolios.