With Amazon Web Services (AWS), you can provision compute power, storage and other resources, gaining access to a suite of elastic IT infrastructure services as your business demands them. With minimal cost and effort, you can move your application to the AWS cloud and reduce capital expenses, minimize support and administrative costs, and retain the performance, security, and reliability requirements your business demands.
One of the key differentiators of AWS’ infrastructure services is its flexibility. It gives businesses the freedom of choice to choose the programming models, languages, operating systems and databases they are already using or familiar with. As a result, many organizations are moving existing applications to the cloud today.
A successful migration largely depends on three things:
- The complexity of the application architecture;
- How loosely coupled your application is; and
- How much effort you are willing to put into migration.
The Phase Driven Approach to Cloud Migration:
For organisations to successfully migrate to the cloud, they need to follow a phased approach to see the tremendous potential of AWS.
1. Cloud Assessment
- Financial Assessment (TCO calculation)
- Security and Compliance Assessment
- Technical Assessment (Classify application types)
- Identify the tools that can be reused and the tools that need to be built
- Migrate licensed products
- Create a plan and measure success
Benefits:
- Business case for migration (Lower TCO, faster time to market, higher flexibility & agility, scalability + elasticity)
- Identify gaps between your current traditional legacy architecture and next -generation cloud architecture
2. Proof of Concept
- Get your feet wet with AWS
- Build a pilot and validate the technology
- Test existing software in the cloud
- Build confidence with various AWS services
- Mitigate risk by validating critical pieces of your proposed architecture
Benefits:
- Build confidence with various AWS services
- Mitigate risk by validating critical pieces of your proposed architecture
3. Moving your Data
- Understand different storage options in the AWS cloud
- Migrate file servers to Amazon S3
- Migrate commercial RDBMS to EC2 + EBS
- Migrate MySQL to Amazon RDS
Benefits:
- Redundancy, Durable Storage, Elastic Scalable Storage
- Automated Management Backup
4. Moving your Apps
- Forklift migration strategy
- Hybrid migration strategy
- Build “cloud-aware” layers of code as needed
- Create AMIs for each component
Benefits:
- Future-proof scaled-out service-oriented elastic architecture
5. Leveraging the Cloud
- Leverage other AWS services
- Automate elasticity and SDLC
- Harden security
- Create dashboard to manage AWS resources
- Leverage multiple availability zones
Benefits:
- Reduction in CapEx in IT
- Flexibility and agility
- Automation and improved productivity
- Higher Availability (HA)
6. Optimization
- Optimize usage based on demand
- Improve efficiency
- Implement advanced monitoring and telemetry
- Re-engineer your application
- Decompose your relational databases
Benefits:
- Increased utilization and transformational impact in OpEx
- Better visibility through advanced monitoring and telemetry