Microsoft Azure to AWS Migration by Firemind

Overview: Moving from Azure to AWS is rarely blocked by the virtual machines. It is blocked by what sits around them: identity tied to Entra ID, platform services that behave differently on AWS, Windows Server and SQL Server licensing, and cutovers nobody can roll back. Built on Firemind's IT Operations Engine, this service runs the migration as governed code in your AWS account, and the same Engine runs each workload once it lands.

Four stages, contracted together or separately

• Assess. Subscription-wide discovery of workloads, dependencies and licensing, with workshops to fill the gaps tooling leaves. Aligned to the Assess phase of the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP): a readiness assessment based on the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework, a migration path for every workload, a business case with an AWS Pricing Calculator estimate, and a wave plan.
• Mobilize. Landing zone readiness, detailed discovery and planning for the first waves, a pilot migration, and MAP tagging set up so migrated workloads are tracked from day one.
• Migrate. Virtual machines moved to Amazon EC2 with AWS Application Migration Service, AKS workloads to Amazon EKS, App Service and Azure Functions to Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate or AWS Lambda, and Azure SQL and other databases to Amazon RDS or Amazon Aurora with AWS Database Migration Service.
• Operate. The Engine runs the migrated workloads: monitoring, incident remediation, patching and decay management such as end-of-life runtimes, with high-risk changes held for a named approver. Each wave lands in operations the day it passes acceptance.

Validated and governed

Every wave starts with acceptance tests agreed with your team: functional checks, performance baselines and data comparisons wherever data moves. They run before and after cutover, and every wave has a tested rollback. The Engine plans each change, raises it as code and runs it under your change rules. Low-risk, reversible steps run automatically. Cutovers and other high-risk changes wait for a named approver. Every action is recorded in an immutable audit trail and in your own AWS CloudTrail.

What is in scope

• Identity and access designed for AWS, with AWS IAM Identity Center federated to Entra ID where you keep it
• Virtual networks, network security groups and load balancers redesigned as Amazon VPC, security groups and Elastic Load Balancing
• Windows Server and SQL Server licensing choices carried through to the AWS design
• Service Bus, Event Hubs and Functions bindings mapped to AWS event sources, with contract tests
• Data movement for storage and databases, validated by comparison before cutover

What stays out of scope

Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and other Microsoft SaaS stay where they are, and Entra ID can remain your identity provider, federated to AWS. Rewriting stored procedures or other proprietary logic stays out of scope unless agreed in the private offer.

AWS programmes: Firemind holds the AWS Migration and Modernization Competency. Eligible migrations may qualify for MAP funding, and Firemind prepares the MAP documentation with your AWS account team. Eligibility and funding are confirmed by AWS.

How it starts: After the private offer is accepted, you grant read-only access to the Azure subscriptions in scope and deploy an IAM role in your AWS account using AWS CloudFormation. A full description of the role and its policy statements is provided before deployment. The Engine uses temporary credentials, and every action is recorded in your own AWS CloudTrail. Scope, acceptance tests and named approvers are agreed at the start of each stage.

Deployment: Pilot scopes run from Firemind's AWS environment. In production the Engine runs inside your own AWS accounts. Running the Engine, and the migrated workloads, may incur AWS infrastructure charges, for example Amazon Bedrock, compute and storage. These are billed separately from this AWS Marketplace transaction and are your responsibility.

Pricing: Delivered through an AWS Marketplace private offer, scoped to your estate. The four stages can be contracted together or separately. Contact hello@firemind.com  to scope.

About Firemind: AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with the AWS Migration and Modernization Competency. 200+ clients since 2018, ISO 27001 certified, in partnership with AWS, NVIDIA and Anthropic. Core markets: UK and Ireland, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands.