Migration & Modernization
Best Practices for Building a Robust Technical Roadmap for an AWS Migration
Cloud migration offers various opportunities for organizations to innovate, scale, and optimize their operations. As businesses look to harness the power of the cloud, the importance of a cloud migration readiness deep dive cannot be overstated. AWS provides a range of programs and tools to support a successful planning and consequently, a smooth migration. In this blog, we’ll explore best practices for building a comprehensive technical roadmap for your AWS migration, complementing AWS’s extensive migration support offerings and services, including the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) and AWS Migration Hub.
AWS Migration Support Overview
AWS offers the following program and tools to assist organizations in their cloud migration journey:
- Migration Acceleration Program (MAP):This is a comprehensive program that was developed from AWS’ experience in migrating hundreds of customers to the cloud. AWS MAP provides consulting support, training, access to AWS’ wide partner network and services credits to accelerate your cloud migration and modernization journey.
- AWS Migration Hub: This is an AWS Service that offers a single location to track the progress of application migrations across multiple AWS and partner solutions.
- Migration and Transfer Services on AWS: Leveraging comprehensive suite of these services can significantly enhance the migration process. These services provide a range of tools and capabilities to help organizations migrate workloads to the cloud, including server migration, database migration, and data transfer solutions.
Building a Comprehensive Strategy for Cloud Migration
Following best practices for building a migration business case is crucial for planning and executing a successful cloud migration journey. By following best practices in roadmap development, organizations can effectively plan their migration, align stakeholders, and develop a comprehensive strategy tailored to their specific needs. So, what does an effective technical roadmap look like? Here are some key components of an effective technical roadmap
Key Components of an Effective Technical Roadmap
Stakeholder Alignment and Buy-in
Building a robust technical roadmap begins with bringing together key stakeholders from across the organization. By engaging executives, IT teams, security, compliance, operations, and other relevant groups, businesses can foster a shared understanding of the migration goals, challenges, and processes. This cross-functional alignment ensures that all teams are working towards a unified vision, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Establishing buy-in and commitment from the outset streamlines the
Discovery and Assessment
The discovery and assessment phase are crucial for understanding your current infrastructure and identifying opportunities for cloud migration. This step lays the foundation for your entire migration strategy. During this phase, gather information about your existing infrastructure, analyzing dependencies, performance requirements, compliance needs, and potential migration challenges. Examine existing software licenses and evaluate licensing options for cloud workloads to optimize costs and ensure compliance. By conducting a thorough discovery and assessment, you can develop a tailored migration roadmap aligned with business objectives and technical considerations.
To further optimize your migration strategy, consider leveraging the AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment (OLA). This assessment helps you analyze current on-premises software licenses and identify opportunities for cost savings and optimization when moving to AWS, ensuring you make informed decisions about licensing in the cloud.
Workload Analysis and Prioritization
Once you’ve completed the discovery phase, the next step is to analyze and prioritize your workloads for migration. This process helps you create a structured and efficient migration plan. Categorize workloads based on factors such as business criticality, complexity, and dependencies. For example, a workload with low business impact and low investment, such as a development environment, might be a good use case to prioritize as a pilot migration. This would allow the organization to test the migration process with minimal risk before tackling more critical workloads. Define prioritization criteria aligned with your organization’s business objectives, such as cost savings, agility, and risk reduction. Prioritize and group workloads into migration waves or phases based on their priorities and dependencies. This approach ensures that critical workloads are migrated first, while dependencies are carefully managed to minimize disruptions. Consider creating a prioritization matrix with weighted scores to help stakeholders visualize and understand the prioritization process and its underlying rationale.
Support Planning
A successful cloud migration requires the involvement of various resources, both internal and external to the organization. Your technical roadmap should outline the roles and responsibilities of the identified stakeholders involved in the migration process. Consider leveraging AWS resources, including solution architects, and migration experts, who can offer guidance and best practices throughout the migration journey. Additionally, evaluate the potential involvement of AWS Partners Network (APN), who bring deep expertise and experience in cloud migration projects. These partners can provide specialized services, such as migration planning, implementation, and post-migration support, ensuring a seamless transition to the cloud. By leveraging the APN, you can access a global community of AWS-validated partners with proven expertise in cloud migrations, ensuring a smoother and more efficient transition to the cloud. This is particularly valuable for organizations that are resource-constrained or have a skills gap in cloud migration. By tapping into the APN, you can ensure a smoother and more efficient transition to the cloud.
Continuously Monitoring and Adjusting the Migration Plan
Cloud migration is an iterative process that requires regular review and adaptation. Establish robust monitoring and reporting mechanisms using tools like Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Config, and AWS CloudTrail to track progress, identify issues, and course-correct as needed. Regularly review your prioritization criteria, timelines, and resource allocations to optimize the migration plan based on insights gathered. By embracing this flexible, data-driven approach, you can navigate the different stages of cloud migration with greater agility and ensure the successful delivery of expected business outcomes.
Conclusion
Building a robust technical roadmap, alongside AWS’s extensive migration support offerings, empowers organizations to accelerate their cloud journey. By following the best practices outlined in this blog post and leveraging the range of AWS resources available, businesses can ensure an efficient transition that aligns with their objectives and maximizes the benefits of cloud adoption.
If you’re considering a cloud migration, we encourage you to explore the AWS programs and services available for migration planning and execution, including the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) and AWS Migration Hub. Engage with AWS account teams or AWS Partners to learn more about how building a comprehensive technical roadmap can accelerate your organization’s migration journey and unlock the full potential of the cloud.
Learn more about migrating to the cloud or if you are ready to get started, contact us to accelerate your cloud migration and modernization journey