AWS Cloud Migration: Mastering the 7 R’s and Best Practices

Many people and businesses struggle with old computer systems that can’t keep up with today’s needs. These outdated systems often lead to frequent downtime and high costs, making cloud migration a necessary solution.

Moving to AWS Cloud can solve these problems by offering a flexible, reliable, and cost-effective solution. This blog will help you understand how to migrate to AWS Cloud using the 7 steps of cloud migration—Rehosting, Relocating, Replatforming, Repurchasing, Refactoring, Retaining, and Retiring.

In this Blog we’ll cover:

1. What is a Migration Strategy
2. Why Learn Cloud Migration
3. The 7 R’s of Migration
4. Best Practices for AWS Cloud Migration
5. Real-World Example
6. Conclusion
7. Frequently Asked Questions

By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to start your move to AWS Cloud, helping you or your business adapt, grow, and run smoothly.

Before jumping on to the 7Rs, let’s first understand AWS migration. Check out the Phases of AWS Migration video by our team. Learn what migration exactly is and how to assess, execute, and optimize your migration strategy for a successful transition to the AWS Cloud.

What is a Migration Strategy?

A migration strategy is a plan for moving your software or existing systems from their current location (like an office server) to a cloud platform like AWS. It involves deciding how to shift everything to the new cloud environment, including data and applications.

If you’re considering moving your applications to AWS Cloud, you’ll need to choose one of the options from the 7Rs of migration strategy to guide your migration process.

Related Readings: Data Center Pre-Migration Assessment

Why Learn Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration skills are increasingly valuable in today’s tech landscape. Here’s why you should consider learning cloud migration:

• Career Opportunities: Cloud computing is pivotal for modern businesses, creating a high demand for professionals skilled in cloud migration. Learning these skills can open doors to lucrative career opportunities in fields like cloud architecture, DevOps, and IT management.
• Business Agility: Understanding cloud migration allows businesses to adapt quickly to changing demands, scale resources efficiently, and reduce operational costs. These skills are crucial for organizations aiming to stay competitive and agile in a digital-first world.
• Innovation and Efficiency: Cloud migration enables innovation by leveraging scalable and flexible cloud services. Learning these techniques empowers businesses to optimize workflows, enhance collaboration, and deploy applications faster, driving overall efficiency.

For an in-depth exploration of why learning cloud migration is essential, check out our comprehensive tutorial on YouTube

The 7 R’s of Migration

The 7 steps of cloud migration includes:

• Rehost (Lift & Shift)
• Relocate (Hypervisor-level Lift & Shift)
• Refactor
• Repurchase
• Replatform (Lift, Tinker & Shift)
• Retain
• Retire

1) Rehost (Lift & Shift)

• Rehosting involves moving applications to AWS Cloud without making any changes to their architecture or code. It’s like lifting your applications from their current on-premise environment and shifting them as they are to AWS.
• Example: Use AWS services like Server Migration Service and Migration Hub to replicate your existing servers or virtual machines (VMs) to AWS Cloud quickly and with minimal downtime.

2) Relocate (Hypervisor-level Lift & Shift)

• Relocate is similar to rehosting but operates at the virtualization layer (hypervisor). It allows you to move your entire virtualized infrastructure to AWS Cloud without purchasing new hardware or rewriting applications.
• Example: Transfer your VMs from your local hypervisor environment (like VMware) to AWS EC2 instances using tools like AWS VM Import/Export.

Related Readings: AWS Linux EC2 Instance: All You Need To Know

3) Refactor

• Refactoring involves restructuring or optimizing applications to better leverage cloud-native features and improve scalability, performance, or cost-effectiveness.
• Example: Modify your monolithic application into microservices architecture to take advantage of AWS Lambda for serverless computing, enhancing agility and reducing operational overhead.

4) Repurchase

• Repurchasing involves replacing existing software with cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. It allows organizations to use cloud-native applications for functions like CRM, HR management, or content management.
• Example: Transition from an on-premise CRM system to Salesforce or from a local HR management software to Workday, benefiting from automatic updates and scalability provided by SaaS.

Related Readings: Top 3 Cloud Computing Service Models: SaaS | PaaS | IaaS

5) Replatform (Lift, Tinker & Shift)

• Replatforming is about making minimal modifications to applications to run them efficiently on cloud infrastructure. It aims to optimize performance and take advantage of cloud benefits without redesigning the core functionalities.
• Example: Modify your database management system to use Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) while keeping your application’s logic unchanged, ensuring compatibility with AWS cloud services.

Related Readings: AWS Database Services

6) Retain

• Retaining involves keeping certain applications or data on-premise due to regulatory requirements, specific business needs, or limitations in cloud readiness.
• Example: Maintain legacy applications or sensitive data on local servers or dedicated hardware to comply with industry regulations or maintain critical control over infrastructure and security.

7) Retire

• Retirement focuses on identifying and decommissioning outdated or redundant applications, systems, or infrastructure. It helps streamline operations, reduce maintenance costs, and eliminate security risks associated with legacy assets.
• Example: Shut down obsolete applications or hardware systems that no longer serve a purpose, freeing up resources for more productive uses within the organization.

7 steps of cloud migration

Now that we know what the 7Rs of cloud migration are, let’s take a quick look at when to use which:

• Rehost when you need a quick, low-cost migration with minimal changes.
• Replatform when you want performance improvements without major changes.
• Repurchase when adopting a cloud-based solution or SaaS is a better alternative.
• Refactor when you want to redesign applications to fully take advantage of cloud features and scalability.
• Retire when applications are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly to maintain.
• Retain when certain applications must stay on-premises due to compliance or specialized needs.
• Relocate when it’s time to reassess the cloud strategy to ensure continuous optimization.

By carefully assessing your organization’s needs, these migration models provide a structured approach to ensure the best cloud adoption strategy.

Best Practices for using AWS Cloud Migration Framework

When migrating to AWS Cloud, following these best practices can help ensure a smooth and successful transition:

1) Comprehensive Assessment:

Before you begin migrating, thoroughly assess your current IT setup. Identify which of the 7 Rs strategies (Rehost, Relocate, Refactor, Repurchase, Replatform, Retain, Retire) each asset is best suited for.

• Example: Evaluate your applications and data to determine whether they should be moved as-is, refactored for cloud-native features, or kept on-premise for specific reasons.

2) Use AWS Well-Architected Framework:

This framework provides guidelines for building secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient cloud infrastructures. It helps architects design solutions that align with AWS best practices.

• Example: Implement architectural principles from AWS Well-Architected Framework to optimize your cloud environment for security, performance, and cost-effectiveness.

3) Multi-AZ Deployment:

Deploy your applications across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) to achieve high availability and fault tolerance. AZs are physically separate locations with independent power, cooling, and networking.

• Example: Spread your application across different AZs within an AWS region to ensure that if one AZ goes down, your application remains accessible from another.

Related Readings: AWS Exploration: Amazon Web Services

4) Automate:

Utilize AWS automation tools like AWS CloudFormation for infrastructure management and AWS Elastic Beanstalk for automating application deployment. Automation reduces manual errors and accelerates deployment cycles.

• Example: Create templates with AWS CloudFormation to define your infrastructure as code, allowing you to provision and manage resources consistently across your AWS environment.

5) Security:

Implement robust security measures at all levels of your AWS deployment. Use AWS IAM for access control, Amazon VPC for network isolation, and AWS KMS for encryption key management.

• Example: Set up fine-grained permissions with AWS IAM to control who can access your resources, configure secure network boundaries with Amazon VPC, and encrypt sensitive data using AWS KMS.

6) Performance Monitoring:

Monitor the performance of your applications and infrastructure using AWS CloudWatch for metrics and alarms, and AWS X-Ray for tracing and debugging distributed applications.

• Example: Set up CloudWatch alarms to automatically alert you when performance metrics deviate from expected norms, and use X-Ray to identify bottlenecks and optimize application performance.

Related Readings: Top 10 Must-Have AWS Cloud Migration Tools in 2023

Real-World Example: Case Study – Example Corp’s Journey to AWS

Background of Example Corp: Example Corp is a prominent e-commerce platform that faced challenges with its on-premise data centers. They needed a solution to improve scalability, enhance performance, and reduce operational costs.

Related Readings: How to Migrate Your AWS Applications, Data, and Databases in Real Time

Migration Strategies Used:

• Rehosting

  • For example Corp migrated their legacy applications to AWS using the AWS Server Migration Service. This approach, also known as lift and shift, allowed them to move their applications to the cloud quickly and with minimal changes.
  • Example: They transferred their existing applications, such as customer management and order processing systems, directly to AWS virtual machines (EC2 instances) without restructuring the applications.

• Refactoring:

  • To optimize their core e-commerce application for better performance and scalability, Example Corp chose to re-architect their application using AWS Lambda for serverless computing and Amazon DynamoDB for a fully managed NoSQL database.
  • Example: They redesigned their application’s architecture to break down monolithic components into smaller, independently scalable functions (Lambda functions) and migrated their database to DynamoDB for faster and more efficient data storage and retrieval.

• Replatforming

  • Example Corp focused on optimizing their database layer by migrating from traditional on-premise SQL servers to Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service), a managed database service by AWS.
  • Example: They transitioned their SQL databases, which store product information and customer data, to Amazon RDS to benefit from automated backups, scalability options, and reduced administrative overhead.

Results Achieved: The strategic migration to AWS resulted in significant improvements for Example Corp:

• Improved Resilience: Their infrastructure became more resilient, capable of handling high traffic and peak loads during sales events without downtime.
• Scalability: AWS’s scalable services allowed Example Corp to expand and contract resources as needed, accommodating fluctuations in customer demand seamlessly.
• Cost Efficiency: By leveraging AWS’s pay-as-you-go model and managed services like RDS and Lambda, Example Corp reduced operational costs associated with maintaining and scaling their infrastructure.

Related Readings: Migrating to AWS: 5 Best Practices for a Cost-efficient Migration

Example Corp’s journey to AWS illustrates how strategic migration using AWS services can transform an organization’s IT infrastructure. By choosing the right migration strategies (rehosting, refactoring, and re-platforming), Example Corp not only improved their system’s performance but also positioned itself for future growth and innovation in the competitive e-commerce market.

Conclusion

Migrating to AWS Cloud using the 7 steps of cloud migration which offers scalable, reliable, and cost-effective solutions to overcome the limitations of outdated systems. Whether Rehosting for quick migration, Refactoring for improved performance, or Replatforming to optimize infrastructure, AWS provides versatile solutions.

Following best practices like thorough assessment, AWS Well-Architected Framework, multi-AZ deployment, automation, robust security, and performance monitoring streamlines migration and boosts efficiency.

Explore each R’s benefits and implementation in our detailed video on the 7Rs of cloud migration AWS.

Frequently Asked Questions: