When first introduced, AWS seemed like a passing trend. It was something only early adopters and bleeding edge tech companies would use. Fast forward to today and AWS is now the world’s largest Cloud provider with its services used by almost every enterprise and small business. As reported by Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), AWS holds 41.5% of the public Cloud market. This massive adoption of the AWS suite comes as no surprise given its ease of use and breadth of services.
In this step-by-step tutorial, we will be covering how you can migrate your on-premise data center to the AWS Cloud with minimal downtime and risk. If you are still not convinced about moving your workloads to the public Cloud but want to test it out before diving in all the way, read on.
What is AWS Cloud Migration?
Cloud migration is the process of moving your data and applications to a Cloud computing environment. The main goal of Cloud migration is to reduce costs and increase the scalability of IT resources. The main challenges that have to be overcome are connectivity, compatibility, and security. Here are the three basic components of AWS Cloud migration:
1. Data migration
2. Application migration
3. Operational migration
In the first step, the data is transferred from the source to the target environment. Subsequently, in the application migration step, the application is prepared to work in the target environment. For this, you can also avail AWS application migration services offered by professionals. Finally, in the operational migration step, the operational aspects of the application are migrated to the target environment.
Process of On-Premise to AWS Cloud Migration
The process of moving on-premise applications to the Cloud calls for careful planning and preparation. The key steps involved in the AWS Cloud migration process are outlined below:
Step 1. Audit and Assessment
This is the first and most important step when migrating to the AWS Cloud. An audit and assessment of your current IT environment will help you understand where you currently stand. It will also help you determine what resources you will need in the future and how much you need to invest in IT. While migrating your data to the AWS Cloud, you will have to think about the following things:
- Data storage: This includes data integrity, data retention period, and data storage capacity
- Data locations: Depending on your business needs, data can be stored in many different locations
- Data security: If your data is sensitive, you should ensure that it is encrypted when being transferred and stored
- Data governance: This involves data control, management, and ownership to ensure efficient use of information
Step 2. Define your Cloud Strategy
Before you start migrating your applications and data to the AWS Cloud, you should define your overall strategy. Depending on your business requirements, you may be required to use the services of more than one Cloud provider. You may also be required to use hybrid Cloud environments, which involve the use of a mix of public Cloud and on-premise resources, such as AWS and your current data center. Depending on your business requirements, you may also be required to use a combination of different migration strategies. Once you have defined your overall strategy, you can start preparing to migrate your applications and data to the AWS Cloud.
Step 3. Build a Proof of Concept (POC) Environment
A proof of concept environment is an environment that closely resembles your production environment but uses a smaller and more affordable setup. The goal of a POC environment is to test your applications and data to ensure that they are compatible with the AWS Cloud. A POC environment will help you determine the best way to migrate your data to the AWS Cloud. It will also help you determine the order in which you should migrate your data. It is important to migrate your data in the correct order to avoid downtime and disruption in your business.
Step 4. Develop your Migration Strategy and Plan
Once you have determined the best way to migrate your data to the AWS Cloud and you have tested your applications in a POC environment, you can develop your migration strategy and plan. Your migration strategy and plan will detail the order in which you will migrate your data to the AWS Cloud. You should also include the resources and timelines for each part of the migration process. You can also include the risks and mitigation strategies for each risk.
Step 5. Move Your Infrastructure to the Cloud
Once you have developed your migration strategy and plan, it is time to move your infrastructure to the Cloud. You can now choose the best approach to migrate your data and applications to the AWS Cloud. There are three common approaches to moving your data during the AWS Cloud migration process. They are the lift and shift approach, the transfer approach, and the transform approach. The lift and shift approach is suitable if you want to keep the existing design of your application. You can now use the AWS Cloud to host your application. The transfer approach is suitable if you want to use the existing design but use a different environment to host your application. The transform approach is suitable if you want to change the design of your application to use Cloud based services.
Step 6. Monitor and Manage Your New Environment
Once you have successfully migrated your data to the AWS Cloud, you must monitor and manage your new environment. You should also perform periodic audits and assessments to ensure that everything is progressing according to your plan. It is also important that you train your employees to use their new environment. This will help them adapt to their new environment faster.
Conclusion
With Cloud becoming the new normal across industries, an increasing number of companies are opting for on-premise to AWS Cloud migration. Such a move is not only an intelligent decision, but it also is pivotal to IT modernization strategies. However, to reap the most out of this decision, you must ensure a smooth migration. This can be done by following a few essential AWS migration best practices such as validating data security, assuring compliance, developing the right strategy, and training the staff.
