Navigating your large-scale migration to AWS
This blog post offers a comprehensive AWS Migration guide that consolidates best practices into a single, cohesive reference to accelerate your journey to AWS.
Evans Tinga
Amazon Employee
Published Sep 27, 2024
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, migrating to the cloud has become a strategic step for organizations seeking to enhance agility, scalability, security and capacity for innovation. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we developed a three-phase approach to guide you through this transformative journey.
In this blog post, we will take you through each phase of the migration process in detail, highlighting the key activities and providing valuable resources to help you dive deeper into specific areas.
Whether you're just starting your cloud transformation, or looking to refine your existing migration strategy, this guide equips you with insights and guidance needed to navigate your journey to the cloud successfully.
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Our approach for large-scale migrations consists of three main phases:
- Assess
- Mobilize
- Migrate and Modernize
Each phase plays a vital role in ensuring a successful, large-scale migration to AWS. Let's explore each phase in detail, incorporating key strategies, guides, playbooks, and patterns.
The Assess phase is about building the foundation for your migration. It involves evaluating your organization's readiness for operating in the cloud, identifying migration opportunities, and building a solid business case.
Key activities in this phase include:
- Portfolio Discovery and Planning: Use AWS Migration Evaluator and AWS Application Discovery Service or alternative discovery tools to gain insights into your current IT landscape and identify migration candidates. Refer to the application portfolio assessment strategy guide.
- Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA): Conduct a thorough assessment of your organization's readiness for cloud adoption using the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF). The MRA, based on the CAF, evaluates readiness across six key perspectives: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations. Use the MRA Playbook for guidance.
- Business Case Development: Develop a comprehensive business case for migration, including total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis and expected benefits. Utilize the AWS Pricing Calculator and refer to Creating a directional business case for guidance.
- Application Portfolio Analysis: Categorize your applications using the 7 Rs of migration strategy: Retire, Retain, Rehost, Relocate, Repurchase, Replatform, Refactor or re-architect. Use the Application portfolio assessment guide.
For a deeper dive into the Assess phase, check out our guide on strategies for assessing large-scale migrations to AWS.
The Mobilize phase is crucial for building your organization's capability to migrate at scale. It involves setting up foundational infrastructure, establishing operational processes, refining the business case and addressing gaps identified in the Assess phase. This phase consists of several key workstreams:
- Landing Zone: Establish a secure and scalable multi-account AWS environment using AWS Control Tower.
- Set up account structure, network architecture, and security controls.
- Implement AWS Organizations and AWS Service Catalog for centralized management.
- Follow the Landing Zone Accelerator and AWS multi-account implementation guides.
- Security and Compliance: Implement comprehensive security measures across your AWS environment.
- Use AWS Security Hub for centralized security management.
- Implement identity and access management using AWS Identity management guide.
- Set up logging and monitoring with AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch.
- Follow the AWS Security Reference Architecture (AWS SRA) for best practices.
- Operating Model: Establish cloud operations processes and tools for effective management of your AWS environment.
- Implement AWS Systems Manager for operational insights and actions.
- Set up monitoring and alerting strategies.
- Develop runbooks for common operational tasks.
- Follow the Building your Cloud Operating Model guide.
- Networks: Design and implement your cloud network architecture.
- Set up Amazon VPC environments.
- Establish connectivity between on-premises and AWS using AWS Direct Connect or AWS VPN.
- Implement network security controls and AWS WAF.
- Follow the Guidance for Network Security on AWS
- People: Prepare your organization for the cloud journey.
- Establish a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) using the CCoE guide.
- Invest in AWS Training and Certification to build your team's cloud skills.
- Communicate the migration vision, benefits, and impacts to all stakeholders to build buy-in and understanding.
- Define new roles and responsibilities for cloud operations.
- Follow AWS CAF People perspective for guidance.
- Governance: Implement governance frameworks for your cloud environment.
- Establish policies for resource management, cost control, and compliance.
- Implement AWS Config for resource inventory and compliance rules.
- Set up AWS Budgets for cost management.
- Follow the Management and Governance on AWS for guidance
- Platform: Build and automate your cloud platform.
- Implement Infrastructure as Code using AWS CloudFormation or AWS CDK.
- Set up CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments.
- Create standardized templates for common resource deployments.
- Follow AWS CAF Platform perspective for guidance.
- Migration: Prepare your migration approach and tools.
- Set up AWS Application Migration Service for rehosting migrations.
- Prepare AWS Database Migration Service for database migrations.
- Develop detailed migration runbooks and playbooks.
- Create a wave plan for your migration using the Large Migration Wave Planning playbook.
Throughout the Mobilize phase, it's crucial to:
- Continuously validate and iterate on your migration strategy.
- Conduct pilot migrations to test and refine your processes.
- Use AWS Migration Hub and AWS Migration Hub Journeys to track the progress of your migration planning and execution.
- Engage with AWS Migration & Modernization team, AWS Professional Services or AWS Partners for expert guidance.
For more detailed insights on the Mobilize phase, refer to our comprehensive guide on mobilizing your organization to accelerate large-scale migrations.
In this final phase, you'll start the migration of your applications and data, leveraging the foundation and capabilities built during the Mobilize phase. It's also an opportunity to optimize your applications to take full advantage of cloud capabilities.
Key activities include:
- Migration Execution: Use AWS Application Migration Service for rehosting and AWS Database Migration Service for database migrations. Follow specific patterns for different migration scenarios, such as migrating Oracle databases to Amazon Aurora.
- Wave Execution: Implement your migration in waves, following the Large Migration Wave Planning playbook.
- Modernization: Where appropriate, leverage services such as AWS App Runner, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Lambda, and Amazon ECS to modernize your applications. Use the Incremental Modernization playbook for guidance.
- Optimization: Implement cost optimization best practices using AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Trusted Advisor. Follow the Cost Optimization pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
- Measure Migration Success: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to track migration success, such as availability, user experience, cost optimization, and operational efficiency. Refer to the Migration Success Metrics guide.
For practical examples of migration and modernization, check out our Migration & Modernization patterns.
Based on our experience with numerous large-scale migrations, we've identified several best practices:
- Establish a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE): Create a dedicated team to lead the cloud adoption effort and drive best practices across the organization.
- Establish a Migration Governance Framework: Develop a structured governance framework to oversee the migration program, including decision-making processes, risk management, and change control procedures.
- Adopt a Factory Approach: Standardize and automate migration processes to increase efficiency and reduce errors.
- Implement Continuous Learning: Regularly review and refine your migration processes based on lessons learned from each wave.
- Focus on Business Outcomes: Align your migration efforts with specific business goals and regularly measure progress against these objectives.
- Embrace Security and Compliance: Integrate security and compliance considerations into every stage of your migration journey.
- Leverage AWS Partners or AWS Professional Services team: Work with AWS Partners or AWS Professional Services to accelerate your migration and benefit from their expertise.
For more detailed insights, check out our best practices arranged by migration phase.
At AWS, we're committed to being your trusted partner throughout your cloud migration. Our AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) provides a structured framework, specialized migration tools, and expert guidance to help you accelerate your journey to the cloud.
Through MAP, you access:
- Prescriptive migration guidance from our team of AWS migration experts
- Financial incentives, such as service credits, to offset migration costs
- A suite of migration enablement resources, including tools, training and workshops
In addition, our AWS Migration and Modernization team, AWS Professional Services team and extensive network of AWS Partners are available to offer tailored support and expertise at every stage of your migration.
Regardless of where you are in your cloud transformation, we're here to help you navigate the complexities and ensure a successful, large-scale migration to AWS. Reach out to your AWS account team or an AWS Partner to learn more about the programs and resources available to support your journey.
Large-scale migration to AWS is a transformative journey that drives significant business value. By following this comprehensive approach and leveraging rich AWS toolset, resources, and partner ecosystem, you ensure a smooth, efficient, and successful migration to the cloud.
Remember, every organization's journey is unique. We encourage you to explore the linked resources and reach out to your AWS account team or an AWS Partner for personalized guidance on your migration journey.
For more in-depth information, be sure to check out:
Are you ready to start your large-scale AWS migration journey? We're here to help you every step of the way!
Evans Tinga - Evans is a Specialist Solutions Architect at AWS, focusing on Migration & Modernization. He helps customers across EMEA accelerate their cloud adoption journey and maximize value at every stage of their digital transformation. With over 13 years of experience in telecommunications and cloud technologies, Evans brings a wealth of knowledge from his previous roles at a telecom company and an AWS partner before joining AWS.
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.
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