Migrate or Eliminate? Can Gartner’s TIME Model Save Your Cloud Migration?

For businesses serious about their digital transformations, moving to the cloud is an important step. Access to AI, innovation and advanced platform services from cloud providers makes it possible to prioritize strategy and innovation over technological obstacles.

However, migration projects fail more often than they succeed. The numbers tell a clear story, over half of cloud transformations fail to deliver within the first 3 years. Once a project starts to go wrong, it becomes nearly impossible to turn it around. The cloud promises significant benefits, but the reality is different. Many businesses rush into migration projects without asking the right questions. They end up with unexpected costs, delayed projects, and frustrated teams.

Asking the right questions

A successful cloud migration requires thorough answers to these difficult questions:

• Which applications should move to the cloud?
• Which ones should be eliminated?
• How do we handle security and compliance?
• What will be the true cost?

These questions cannot be answered through guesswork. Businesses need a structured approach that covers both technical and business aspects. This means a thorough assessment of current IT systems, applications and business processes before moving forward.

The challenges multiply quickly without proper structure. Poor planning leads to unclear strategies. Rushed processes create delays and cost overruns. Security becomes a major concern – organizations must implement strong encryption, access controls, and regular compliance audits.

Cost management often becomes the biggest surprise. Many organizations struggle to calculate their total cost of ownership in the cloud. Without a proper framework, they risk serious financial miscalculations during and after migration.

Facts show that a well-structured migration framework makes the difference between success and failure. It helps the company allocate resources effectively, reduce risks, and avoid making decisions on the fly. Most importantly, it ensures all steps follow a logical sequence – from initial assessment to final implementation. The Gartner TIME model offers exactly this kind of structure. In the following sections, we will explore how this model helps companies make better migration decisions while avoiding common pitfalls.

What is the Gartner TIME Model?

The TIME model helps companies make fact-based decisions about their applications. Think of it as a sorting system that looks at two simple questions: Does the application work well technically? Does it create real business value?

Every application gets evaluated on these two dimensions:

1. Technical fit tells us how well the application performs from an IT perspective. We look at service levels, risks, how easy it is to maintain, and how well it works with other systems.
2. Business value (or functional fit) measures if the application actually helps the company do business better.

Based on these two measures, the application fall into one of these four categories:

• Tolerate: These applications work fine technically but don’t add much business value. They keep running without causing problems or needing much attention.
• Invest: The stars of your application portfolio – they work well and create real business value. These deserve more investment to get even better returns.
• Migrate: Important for business but technically problematic. These need technical improvements or replacement to keep delivering value.
• Eliminate: Poor performers on both counts. They cost more than they’re worth and should be removed.

When used properly, this systematic approach helps IT and business make joint decisions about where to spend time and money. Experience shows that companies using TIME consistently see lower IT costs and better results from their technology investments.

Migration or Elimination: Making the Right Choice

Cloud migration isn’t a simple yes-or-no decision. Each application needs careful evaluation based on both its business value and technical state. The real challenge lies in deciding whether to migrate or eliminate.

When Migration Makes Sense

Some applications create significant business value but struggle with technical problems. We often see this with older (legacy) systems that handle critical business processes. The maintenance costs keep rising, and finding people who understand these systems becomes harder every year.

Migration becomes the right choice when:

• The application runs core business operations
• Maintenance drains too much money and time
• Technical support gets harder to find
• Performance issues hurt daily operations

When Elimination is the Answer

Stephen Orban at AWS points out an interesting fact – about 10% of enterprise IT systems become unnecessary during cloud migration. Many companies keep running applications simply because “they’ve always been there.” These applications often lack active vendor support.

Before removing any application, companies must have a clear plan. Sometimes this means buying a new solution, other times building something in-house. I have seen cases where companies needed to change their business process completely before they could retire an old system. The decision to eliminate usually comes from clear signs:

• The application keeps breaking down
• Few people actually use it
• It serves no real business purpose
• Fixing it is impossible, or costs more than changing the business process

Smart choices about migration and elimination help companies run better and spend less. The numbers shows that some companies can cut their maintenance costs by 20-30% just by making these decisions carefully. The key lies in looking at both technical facts and business reality before deciding.

Making TIME Work: A Practical Approach

The TIME model looks simple on paper. Reality proves more challenging. Most companies struggle with the actual implementation, often getting lost in complex assessment processes that create more confusion than clarity.

Looking at Technical Fit

Assessing an application’s technical suitability, then assigning a grade from 1 to 5, may seem simple until you start. Then it suddenly becomes almost impossible to assess whether the application should be graded 2 or 3. Our experience suggests that it becomes easier if the evaluation is divided into sub-areas, or categories if you like. For example, these 6 categories:

• Architecture alignment
• Maintainability
• Reliability
• Vendor viability and support
• Availability of technology skills
• Security

Giving each of these categories a score from 1-5, then calculating the average, provides an easier path to the overall rating itself. If you want to do the exercise with extra precision, you can use different weightage to the 6 categories according to what is most important for your business.

Measuring business impact

To measure the business value of an application in the Gartner TIME model, you need to assess how well the application aligns with and supports business goals. This typically involves several criteria that quantify the application’s contribution to business performance. Below are some key factors used to determine business value:

• Business Criticality: Assess whether the application is essential for maintaining core operations or achieving strategic objectives
• Utilization: Measure how frequently and extensively the application is used across the organization
• Usability: Consider how effectively users can interact with and benefit from the application
• Scalability: Analyze whether the application can scale with organizational growth or adapt to new markets, products, or services.

Here too, you should end up with a score between 1 and 5. You can use the same methodology described in the previous chapter for this.

Making Sense of the Data

An application list with ratings in two areas is nice to have, but it’s a poor basis for meaningful discussions with management. We like to enrich this data with a couple of extra dimensions – e.g. Number of Users and Urgency – and then plot it all on a bubble chart. This visualization can then be the basis for a prioritization discussion with management. You can see an example of such a diagram below.

Building Your Action Plan

Facts without action waste everyone’s time. Each application needs clear next steps. Some need immediate attention, others can wait. The key lies in building a realistic timeline that matches your resources and capabilities.

TIME does not provide a solution on how the individual application can be migrated, or eliminated. Here we need a methodology to dive a little deeper. Then 5R, 6R or 7R may be a good fit. In the following, we will consider the synergy between TIME and Amazon 6R.

TIME Meets 6R: A Practical Combination

Cloud migration frameworks often create more confusion than clarity. The TIME model helps decide what to do with applications. Amazon’s 6R framework tells you how to do it. Together, they create something more valuable than either framework alone.

Think of it like building a house – TIME helps you decide which rooms you need, while 6R provides the building methods. Experience shows that businesses that use both frameworks make better decisions and execute them more effectively.

Amazon 6R: A quick overview

The 6R framework helps businesses choose the most appropriate strategy for each application based on business needs, technical feasibility, and cost considerations. It is particularly useful during large-scale migrations where applications have varying requirements and complexities:

Each of the 6Rs represents a strategy for the application:

1. Rehost
2. Replatform
3. Repurchase
4. Refactor
5. Retire
6. Retain

Making the Combination Work

The table below shows the relationship between TIME category and 6R strategy:

This methodical approach helps companies spot migration opportunities while considering different angles. The combined framework makes it easier to focus resources on applications that matter most to the business.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember that frameworks serve as guides, not rigid rules. Each company’s situation demands its own balance between TIME and 6R strategies.

The Hard Truth About Cloud Migration

Migration projects fail more often than they succeed. I started this article with this unpleasant fact, and it bears repeating. The TIME model offers a way forward, but only if used correctly. Most companies want simple answers to their migration strategy. Reality requires a more nuanced way of thinking. The TIME model helps by getting the organization to answer the hard questions around application ROI. When combined with Amazon’s 6R framework, it creates a practical path from assessment to execution.

Our experience shows clear benefits from this combined approach:

• Facts replace guesswork in application evaluation
• Decisions follow clear patterns instead of gut feelings
• Resources go where they create the most value
• Risks become visible before they cause problems
• The application portfolio becomes leaner and more efficient

The steps I have outlined for implementing TIME work in the real world. Businesses should start small, preferably with just a handful of applications, and build confidence through hands-on experience. Success requires both clear thinking and practical action. The TIME model, especially when paired with the 6Rs, gives businesses the tools they need. But tools alone do not guarantee success; they must be used with understanding and purpose.

References

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/overcoming-cloud-migration-challenges
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/migrate/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/application-portfolio-management-using-time-manoj-bhardwaj
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/enterprise-strategy/6-strategies-for-migrating-applications-to-the-cloud/
https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/tip/Cloud-migration-challenges-to-prepare-for-and-overcome
https://www.clariontech.com/blog/cloud-migration-strategy
https://www.simform.com/blog/cloud-migration-strategy/
https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/tip/The-Rs-of-cloud-migration-How-to-choose-the-right-method