Enterprise Switch: The easiest way to migrate to the cloud

In this article, you’ll read,

• what operational problems arise during cloud migration,  
• how T Cloud Public addresses them with the Enterprise Switch,  
• and how the Enterprise Switch works.
   

Many companies recognize the value of the cloud and want to migrate their workloads. However, concerns about cost, effort, and risk often slow or halt these initiatives. With Enterprise Switch, T Cloud Public introduces a native migration tool that enables easy, self-service workload migration to the cloud. The tool was released as a free public beta in February 2026. 

The decision to migrate to the cloud has been made. The migration is planned, and the IT team rolls up its sleeves. Progress then stalls. Application dependencies, massive data volumes, and the realities of existing network configurations quickly emerge as major obstacles. These challenges are frustrating and far from cloud-friendly. Even a solid migration strategy does not guarantee a smooth or successful transition. In practice, a range of operational issues commonly surface during cloud migration.

Application A calls up an old SOAP interface. A batch job writes to a database at night that “no one actually uses anymore.” A license check runs against a local server. The migration of individual systems quickly reveals such dependencies, sometimes in a painful way.  

Copying VMs is trivial. But migrating terabytes or petabytes of data consistently is anything but. Data consistency during operation or replication latency across different storage types can massively hinder migration. Relational databases are particularly sensitive.

On-premises environments often use “flat hierarchies.” Everything can communicate with everything else, and network segmentation is rare. This changes in the cloud. With virtual private clouds (VPCs), security groups, subnets, routing tables, and firewall rules, resources must be explicitly protected and separated. As a result, many applications suddenly stop working because implicit network connections are no longer available.

A classic problem arises when on-premises applications are hard-coded to IP addresses. The cloud uses different IP ranges, different DNS structures, and sometimes an entirely new domain strategy. This can lead to incorrect configurations, inaccessible services, or certificate issues. These seemingly mundane problems often consume a significant amount of time during cloud migration.

Running two environments in parallel can make sense for resilience. At some point, however, cost considerations require a decision to cut over most workloads. Key questions then arise. How long can downtime last? Is there a fallback option? What happens if errors occur? How is testing performed? Poorly planned cutovers can result in production downtime, a risk that accompanies every cloud migration.

Cloud migrations, especially for large and complex application landscapes, can quickly become expensive and time-consuming projects. It is therefore not surprising that organizations looking to move workloads from their own data centers to the cloud are seeking simpler, more secure, and lower-risk migration approaches. At the end of February 2026, T Cloud Public introduced exactly such a service: the Enterprise Switch.

The Enterprise Switch is a native T Cloud Public service. Only a small number of cloud providers offer this type of self-service migration tool that is directly integrated into the cloud platform. More commonly, cloud migrations rely on external services from the surrounding ecosystem. The Enterprise Switch connects an existing data center directly to T Cloud Public. Its key capability lies in establishing a Layer 2 connection. This allows users to continue using their existing private IP address ranges in T Cloud Public without modification. As a result, T Cloud Public becomes a natural extension of the existing data center, and many of the migration challenges described earlier can be avoided.  

The Enterprise Switch is available as an on-demand service through the T Cloud Public console. This allows it to be used for a limited period based on individual needs, such as running it for one hour to migrate a small web application. In such cases, migration costs are typically in the single-digit euro range. Initially, however, the service was offered as a public beta from the end of February and can be used free of charge.  

To use the Enterprise Switch, a Layer 3 connection via Direct Connect or Enterprise VPN is required. The Layer 2 connection is “activated” on top of this, enabling additional protocols and allowing the private IP address range to be extended into the cloud. The Enterprise Switch is available in three versions: small, medium, and large. Users can select the option that best fits their transfer requirements, such as the number of subnets and required bandwidth.

As T Cloud Public becomes an organic extension of your own data center, organizations new to the cloud do not need to plan a hard cutover or a big bang migration. Instead of continuing to operate the existing environment while building and running a mirrored cloud environment, the transition can be completed step by step. Virtual machines, storage, data, and other components can be migrated gradually without breaking dependencies between individual elements. Internal components can then be decommissioned incrementally. In this way, the Enterprise Switch simplifies migrations and significantly reduces costs. 

Since the connection operates in both directions, resources can be moved back at any time. This positions the Enterprise Switch as a key enabler of digital sovereignty, among other benefits, supports compliance with the requirements of the Data Act. As a result, cloud users gain greater independence from T Cloud Public.