Accelerating SaaS Migration Success: AWS Programs, Tools, and Expertise That Drive ISV Growth

Executive Summary

Across every major software category, cloud-native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) leaders aren’t just competing—they’re redefining markets. McKinsey’s 2025 Technology Trends Outlook highlights that enterprise cloud adoption continues to accelerate, while traditional IT spending on on-premises systems steadily declines. Gartner forecasts that public cloud services will grow 21.3% in 2026, fueled by continued migration and modernization initiatives and accelerating demand for AI integration, with the market projected to reach $1.48 trillion by 2029.

This shift represents more than a technology transition—it marks a fundamental business model transformation. According to IDC’s FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2025 Predictions, by 2027, 60% of enterprise applications will use SaaS platforms to orchestrate predefined application functions and AI agents for real-time workflows, enabling modular and interoperable solutions. By 2029, nearly 40% of SaaS applications will be agent-led, with AI agents replacing 20% of application functions. This convergence of SaaS and AI is reshaping how organizations build, deploy, and consume software services. The total cloud market is projected to grow from $1.17 trillion in 2023 to $2.64 trillion by 2028.

As enterprises adopt SaaS to unlock agility, scalability, and innovation, AWS empowers independent software vendors (ISVs) to accelerate their transformation journey—from initial migration to market leadership—through comprehensive tools, proven frameworks, dedicated resources, partner programs, and global infrastructure designed to reduce time-to-market and maximize business value.

The Market Imperative: Why Enterprises Are Adopting SaaS

The SaaS model represents a structural evolution in how technology is consumed. Enterprises are moving away from capital-intensive, on-premises infrastructure toward OpEx-based consumption models that deliver predictable costs and faster innovation cycles.

Organizations migrating to AWS consistently realize significant cost efficiencies. IDC estimates a 51% lower cost of operations compared to running on-premises infrastructure, while an ESG Economic Validation study found 66% lower three-year total cost of infrastructure operations. With SaaS, upgrade cycles disappear—applications are continuously updated, scale dynamically, and remain aligned with evolving business requirements.

Beyond cost optimization, SaaS accelerates time-to-value. Deployments that once required weeks can now be completed in hours. Continuous delivery pipelines ensure that every tenant remains current, while AWS Auto Scaling dynamically adjusts resources to absorb seasonal demand spikes without manual intervention.

This operational agility allows ISVs to redirect engineering effort from infrastructure maintenance to customer-centric innovation. AWS customers have achieved substantial reductions in operational overhead—Innovaccer reduced infrastructure management effort by 65%, while both Heroku and Sonos achieved 90% reductions through AWS serverless and managed services —freeing teams to focus on high-impact innovation initiatives.

SaaS also enables innovation at scale. Cloud-native architectures and AI-powered systems allow providers to continuously refine performance, accelerate feature delivery, and enhance user experiences through cross-customer analytics and adaptive intelligence.

Finally, SaaS success depends on trust and resilience. AWS global infrastructure delivers multi-region redundancy, automated failover, and industry-leading certifications including as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and FedRAMP. With strong tenant isolation, flexible encryption options—such as Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) and AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)—and continuous monitoring through services like AWS Config and AWS CloudTrail, ISVs achieve enterprise-grade security and compliance at scale.

The Transformation Challenge: What SaaS Transformation Requires from ISVs

Migrating to SaaS requires more than re-platforming—it demands change across technology, operations, go-to-market strategy, and organizational culture.

Business Model Shift: From Perpetual to Recurring Revenue

Transitioning from perpetual licensing to SaaS restructures ISV cash flows and metrics. Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and Net Revenue Retention (NRR) replace one-time bookings as key indicators. While ISVs typically face temporary financial pressure during this shift, they recover as recurring revenue stabilizes and achieve sustainable growth post-transition.

AWS empowers ISVs through two complementary go-to-market strategies:

Product-Led Growth (PLG): AWS Marketplace enables self-service capabilities with free trials, freemium tiers, and instant deployment. Through Seller Prime, ISVs receive marketing funds and priority placement to accelerate adoption.

Account-Led Growth (ALG): AWS supports enterprise sales through co-selling motions, helping ISVs convert self-service users into long-term enterprise contracts.

Technical Evolution:Legacy single-tenant systems must become scalable, multi-tenant platforms through microservices, tenant-aware data isolation, and cell-based architectures. AWS provides reference architectures and field expertise for compliance, observability, and reliability.

Go-to-Market Transformation: Enterprise sales evolve into subscription models while product-led growth enables self-service onboarding. AWS Marketplace reduces friction by allowing customers to discover, trial, and procure solutions seamlessly.

Customer Success Centrality: Retention drives profitability in subscription models. ISVs must build proactive success teams and leverage predictive analytics to prevent churn and demonstrate ongoing ROI.

Organizational Change: Continuous delivery requires agile development, zero-trust security, and data-driven decision-making. Teams shift from hierarchical structures to cross-functional pods, enabling rapid iteration and greater innovation velocity.

Driving Executive Alignment Through Cross-Functional Collaboration

Through AWS Executive Briefing Centers (EBCs), AWS works directly with ISV leadership to align strategy, define target architectures, and plan market expansion. Strategic Collaboration Agreements (SCAs) establish shared roadmaps for innovation, co-investment, and go-to-market execution.

AWS provides specialized guidance across SaaS transformation domains including business case development, cell-based architecture, agentic AI, multi-tenancy, product-led growth, architecture guidance (AWS Well Architected framework), labs and workshops,  pricing strategies, and customer success design.

As Jim Ortbals, SVP, Partner Ecosystems at BeyondTrust, shared:

“Together with AWS, BeyondTrust is helping our mutual customers migrate / modernize securely and accelerate their cloud journey. By aligning through the AWS Executive Briefing Center, Sales Kick-off enablement, and the migration steering committee, we’re bringing both innovation and execution discipline to the table.”

Technical Excellence Through AWS Expert Teams

AWS delivers technical excellence through dedicated specialist teams including Solutions Architects (SAs), Partner Solutions Architects (PSAs), Migration and Modernization Solutions Architects (MMSAs), and Customer Solutions Managers (CSMs). These teams implement a tailored SaaS Migration Implementation Framework, enabling predictable, scalable execution from assessment through optimization.

Comprehensive Migration and Modernization Programs

AWS accelerates SaaS transformation through a portfolio of proven programs:

• Migration Acceleration Program (MAP)
• Workload Migration Program (WMP)
• Experience-Based Acceleration (EBA) workshops

These programs provide funding, technical expertise, and automation frameworks to reduce migration risk and accelerate outcomes.

Agentic AI-Powered Migration Assessment and Execution

AWS Transform is an agentic AI service that accelerates enterprise migration and modernization of full-stack Windows, mainframe, and VMware workloads, as well as custom transformations of code, APIs, and frameworks. ISVs leverage AWS Transform to modernize legacy codebases and infrastructure as part of their journey to multi-tenant SaaS architectures, delivering completed transformation projects up to 4x faster than traditional approaches.

AWS Transform uses AI agents to discover on-premises environments, analyze dependencies, and generate migration plans aligned to both technical and business priorities. The service generates Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) business cases in minutes, with an interactive AI agent to answer questions about assessment results.

Agentic Assessment Through Partner Tools

AWS-funded ISV partner tools complement AWS Transform with deep application-level discovery:

• CloudHedgeOmniDeq: AI-powered application discovery, dependency mapping, and containerization assessments
• Matilda Discover: Deep-dive discovery with cloud readiness evaluation and migration risk identification
• CAST Highlight and CAST Imaging: Source code analysis for cloud readiness, software quality, and open-source risk insights

Migration Blueprint Design & Execution

Migration and Modernization Solutions Architects leverage agentic assessment outputs to design prescriptive migration blueprints using AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), and AWS Migration Hub. These blueprints enable phased, wave-based rollouts that group applications by complexity and dependencies, with pre-validated patterns for common workload types and built-in validation checkpoints to ensure predictable outcomes while minimizing risk.

As Jim Gath, Director of Cloud Operations at Cloudera, noted:

“Working through the MAP program gave us access to AWS technologies and expertise that met our business needs. Today, our builds are 40% faster and far more reliable.”

Collaborative Support Through Sidecar and Migration Labs

The Sidecar approach embeds AWS experts directly alongside ISV engineering teams during migrations, identifying opportunities to enhance automation, scalability, and operational excellence while building internal capability.

Migration Labs provide controlled environments for experimentation, including environment setup, migration path development, validation checkpoints, and performance optimization—equipping ISVs with technical confidence and repeatable processes.

Driving Modernization Through GSI Collaboration

AWS collaborates closely with Global System Integrators (GSIs) to accelerate modernization and scale customer impact. By aligning GSIs, ISVs, and AWS teams around shared outcomes, organizations achieve faster delivery, improved operational efficiency, and consistent execution at scale.

Comprehensive Go-to-Market Strategy

AWS Partner Development Specialists (PDS) and Partner Development Managers (PDMs) support ISVs with enablement across value proposition articulation, co-sell motion design, marketplace integration, and solution architecture.

Enablement includes workshops, playbooks, battle cards, and industry-specific content designed to accelerate pipeline development and deal velocity.

Governance, Optimization, and Co-Sell Acceleration

AWS supports ISVs in establishing migration steering committees to drive executive alignment, track progress, and manage risk. The AWS Partner Network Customer Engagement (ACE) Program aligns AWS field teams with ISV sales organizations to identify joint opportunities and accelerate deal closure.

AWS Marketplace expands reach through Private Offers, integrated procurement workflows, co-marketing programs, and joint customer success stories—amplifying visibility and accelerating revenue growth.

Figure 1 : Accelerating SaaS Migration Success: AWS Programs, Tools, and Expertise That Drive ISV Growth 

Conclusion: Transform Now, Lead Tomorrow

ISVs are increasingly choosing SaaS models to unlock new revenue streams and meet evolving customer expectations. AWS provides a comprehensive platform, partner ecosystem, and proven expertise to accelerate this transformation. Gartner has recognized AWS as a Leader for the 15th consecutive year in the Magic Quadrant for Strategic Cloud Platform Services, positioning AWS highest for Ability to Execute.

With AWS, ISVs gain more than infrastructure—you gain a strategic partner invested in your success. From business strategy and migration funding to AI-powered automation and co-sell acceleration, AWS delivers a complete, end-to-end ecosystem to accelerate SaaS transformation and drive sustainable growth.

As Jim Ortbals, SVP, Partner Ecosystems at BeyondTrust, shared:

“The depth of our partnership empowers customers to migrate with confidence, strengthen their security posture, and maximize their AWS investments.”

Ready to begin your SaaS transformation? Contact your AWS Account Manager, Solutions Architect, Customer Success Manager, or Partner Development Manager to access AWS programs, migration funding, and enablement frameworks designed specifically for ISV partners.