October 4, 2023
AWS migration is moving enterprise databases, apps, servers, and other IT workloads from on-premise and cloud-based infrastructures to the AWS platform. Itransition's AWS consultants will help you choose the right AWS cloud migration strategy to move your whole infrastructure or selected workloads to AWS.
While many cloud service providers are available today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains one of the most versatile, secure, and powerful cloud platforms. On average, enterprises that migrate to AWS report the following:
infrastructure cost saving
Amazon Web Services
lower time to market for new features
Amazon Web Services
fewer security-related incidents
Amazon Web Services
Delivering AWS projects since 2010, including full-cycle AWS consulting, setup, migration, and optimization.
AWS partner since 2017, recognised as Advanced Tier Services Partner, AWS Well-Architected Partner, and Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery Partner.
95 certified AWS professionals, including developers and cloud practitioners, solution architects, DevOps engineers and SysOps administrators, cybersecurity and ML specialists, and advanced networking experts.
Migration strategy decision criteria should be based on both business and technical needs
A migration factory combines people, processes, and tools that operate together based on an agile methodology. A factory transfers the least critical workloads foremost. Based on this initial experience, the migration factory optimizes automation patterns that can later be used for moving essential apps and data in a less time-consuming and more cost-effective way.
Retiring legacy applications in the early phases of a project reduces the burden on an IT team that would otherwise have to support them. If these applications are still considered essential for migration, they can be moved to AWS later.
Monitoring workloads based on data analysis allows engineers to promptly identify the dependencies between apps and systems. This helps enterprises ensure a smooth migration process and, as a result, avoid operational disruptions.
By using a controlled stop, enterprises can determine in practice whether their existing applications can be taken out of service without disruptions and other negative consequences. The duration of a controlled stop can last from one week to a couple of months, depending on the application type.
Back in 2011, Gartner outlined the five most effective cloud migration strategies (the ‘5Rs’), which were updated to the 6Rs in 2016 and the 7Rs in 2017. This gradual strategy evolution can be attributed to the emergence of innovative AWS migration services like AWS Outposts and AWS Application Migration Service. Despite the distinguished seven strategies, clients often need a combination of several 'Rs' to attain their ultimate migration goals. Itransition's DevOps engineers efficiently blend several migration strategies to derive maximum benefits and deliver the expected results.
Scheme title: The 7Rs of AWS migration
Data source: Amazon Web Services — 7 Strategies for Migrating Applications to the Cloud, introducing AWS Mainframe Modernization and AWS Migration Hub Refactor Spaces
If an application appears redundant and no longer used in the AWS cloud environment, it can be removed.
It can be reasonable to retain applications that need significant resources for refactoring. These are usually the workloads that can't run in the cloud due to strict compliance requirements, compatibility issues, security concerns, unacceptable latency times, or insufficient ROI. In most cases, retaining is applied for large-scale hybrid cloud projects that can take several years to complete.
Relocate migration strategy is applicable only to VMware vSphere-based workloads and is the best option when migrating these types of apps.
Rehosting is a viable option for enterprises that need to migrate as quickly as possible but are planning to optimize their workloads for the cloud in the future. For example, rehosting is the most popular choice for apps whose lifecycle is ending.
Repurchasing makes the most sense for applications incompatible with the AWS cloud environment or too costly to migrate. However, if application customizability is critical for a particular application, companies should consider other migration strategies.
Replatforming makes the most sense for enterprises that need to leverage only some of the cloud-native features. Organizations commonly use replatforming to automatically scale backend workloads and optimize database management (usually with the help of Amazon RDS) by capitalizing on cloud capabilities.
When it becomes clear that a legacy system architecture has reached its limits in terms of scalability and performance, decision-makers can consider refactoring. Refactoring is about ensuring business continuity. Given that cloud providers (AWS in particular) are continuously introducing new features and innovating in the cloud space, refactoring ensures business growth and agility.
Itransition offers a full scope of AWS migration services, helping enterprises smoothly migrate their IT resources, digital assets, and databases to the AWS cloud.
Here are the examples of our completed AWS migration projects.
feature delivery costs
Itransition executed migration to the AWS public cloud, refactored the client's monolithic architecture into microservices, and implemented ML-based functionality.
performance increase in matrix data processing
We transferred solution infrastructure to AWS, helping the client improve performance and boost customer satisfaction.
computing costs
We developed a cloud-based museum collection management system and transferred data from the client’s FTP server to Amazon S3.
image processing speed
Itransition developed an ML-based brand recognition platform using the AWS-based microservice infrastructure.
feature delivery costs
Itransition executed migration to the AWS public cloud, refactored the client's monolithic architecture into microservices, and implemented ML-based functionality.
performance increase in matrix data processing
We transferred solution infrastructure to AWS, helping the client improve performance and boost customer satisfaction.
computing costs
We developed a cloud-based museum collection management system and transferred data from the client’s FTP server to Amazon S3.
image processing speed
Itransition developed an ML-based brand recognition platform using the AWS-based microservice infrastructure.
feature delivery costs
Itransition executed migration to the AWS public cloud, refactored the client's monolithic architecture into microservices, and implemented ML-based functionality.
performance increase in matrix data processing
We transferred solution infrastructure to AWS, helping the client improve performance and boost customer satisfaction.
computing costs
We developed a cloud-based museum collection management system and transferred data from the client’s FTP server to Amazon S3.
image processing speed
Itransition developed an ML-based brand recognition platform using the AWS-based microservice infrastructure.
The Itransition team utilizes a robust step-by-step AWS migration approach consisting of the following steps.
Assessment
Planning
Migration
Post-migration
The Itransition team helps enterprises leverage the advantages of AWS cloud technology. Depending on their business goals, enterprises can select the following AWS services.
AWS Application Migration Service
AWS Application Discovery Service
AWS Database Migration Service
AWS DataSync
AWS Mainframe Moderni- zation
AWS Migration Hub
AWS Transfer Family
AWS Migration Evaluator
AWS migration tools
By migrating their computing resources, enterprises can leverage the general advantages of cloud computing, in addition to the unique benefits of the AWS cloud platform.
One of the most apparent advantages of AWS is that it uses a custom Graviton 3 ARM CPU for processing cloud workloads, which provides better value for money and performance than Intel or AMD chips. However, AWS does not limit users to using Graviton 2, as some workloads are better optimized for other chips.
AWS has over 200 security and compliance features and supports most influential security standards, including PCI-DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, and others. AWS regularly completes various industry-recognized attestations by independent auditors. Lastly, given that AWS is usually the choice for governmental organizations, one can be reassured that AWS employs the highest security standards.
Currently, AWS offers the broadest range of cloud services compared to other cloud providers. Notably, AWS also provides multiple options within those services. There are many purpose-built databases optimized for specific use cases. For example, customers can use Amazon RDS or Aurora for ERPs, DynamoDB for ecommerce, Neptune for fraud detection, and Timestream for IoT applications.
By using AWS platform capabilities, enterprises can scale their infrastructures horizontally and vertically on demand. Thus, developers can quickly introduce new features and technologies (such as AI or IoT), minimize downtime, and increase the number of users without limitations.
Not all legacy solutions can be painlessly migrated to the AWS cloud, as they could require modernization.
Сonsider retiring legacy apps instead of rearchitecting or refactoring them to save time and resources.
Without proper management, the costs of using AWS cloud services can be high.
Сheck if you are using only necessary services and opt out of redundant or supplementary ones to optimize costs.
Without adequate security measures, corporate and customer data could be at risk.
Engage cybersecurity experts from the very start of migration projects to mitigate the risk of any potential data breach or security violation.
Without deep AWS expertise, organizations risk losing data and failing their migration projects.
Engage third-party AWS experts to augment the in-house workforce and access the required competencies.
Migrating to AWS is one of the most critical yet challenging initiatives a modern organization can commit to. However, in most cases, organizations lack cloud architecture experience to estimate migration costs adequately, choose an appropriate migration method, and create a realistic implementation roadmap. Since AWS migration is an essential endeavor a modern organization embarks on, it’s paramount to partner with experienced and certified AWS consultants like Itransition.
Organizations should clearly identify their objectives and goals as this helps create more effective and realistic migration plans. In addition, organizations should consider calculating AWS’s TCO in advance to adequately assess AWS pricing and migration costs.
Thousands of organizations have successfully undergone the AWS migration. Spotify, Coca-Cola, and Samsung, to name a few.
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