Domain 1 of 4 · Chapter 3 of 4

Cloud Migration Strategies

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Included in this chapter:

  • The Cloud Adoption Framework and the migration journey
  • The 7 Rs: how each application moves
  • Moving the data: Snow Family and database replication
  • Exam-pattern recognition

Picking a migration strategy (selected 7 Rs)

ConsiderationRehostReplatformRefactorRepurchase
Application changeNoneMinor optimizationSignificant re-architectureReplaced by SaaS product
Migration effortLowestLow to moderateHighestLow (procurement)
Cloud-native benefitLimitedModerateMaximumVendor-managed
Typical exampleMove server to Amazon EC2Move database to Amazon RDSRe-architect to serverlessMove CRM to a SaaS product

Decision tree

Still need this app?NoYesRetireMigrate now?Not yetYesRetainChange the application?None (fastest)SomeBuy SaaSRehostHow much change?RepurchaseMinorMajorReplatformRefactor
Cheat sheet

Cheat sheet

  • CAF guides the cloud migration journey
  • CAF has six perspectives
  • CAF perspectives split business vs technical
  • CAF benefits: risk, ESG, revenue, efficiency
  • CAF has four transformation phases
  • Migration strategy is the 7 Rs
  • Rehost = lift and shift, no changes
  • Replatform = lift, tinker, and shift
  • Repurchase = drop and shop (SaaS)
  • Refactor maximizes cloud-native benefit
  • Relocate = hypervisor-level lift and shift
  • Retain means keep on-premises for now
  • Retire decommissions unneeded apps
  • Effort rises Rehost to Replatform to Refactor
  • Snow Family ships physical transfer devices
  • Snowball Edge handles offline bulk transfer
  • Snowmobile is retired, do not select it
  • What each AWS CAF perspective focuses on
  • AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) automates rehosts

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References

  1. https://aws.amazon.com/cloud-adoption-framework/
  2. https://aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/
  3. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/migration-retiring-applications/apg-gloss.html
  4. https://aws.amazon.com/snow/
  5. https://aws.amazon.com/s3/
  6. https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/
  7. https://aws.amazon.com/dms/
  8. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/SchemaConversionTool/latest/userguide/CHAP_Welcome.html