AWS Transform MGN FAQs

AWS Transform MGN is the recommended service for migrations to AWS. AWS Transform MGN simplifies and expedites your migration to AWS by automatically converting your source servers from physical, virtual, or cloud infrastructure to run natively on AWS. It further simplifies your migration and reduces costs by allowing you to use the same automated process for a wide range of applications, without changes to applications, their architecture, or the migrated servers. You can use AWS Transform MGN to perform non-disruptive tests prior to cutover. After testing, you can use AWS Transform MGN to quickly migrate your applications to the cloud during a short cutover window, typically measured in minutes. You can also use AWS Transform MGN to automate application modernizations on your migrated servers.

To start using AWS Transform MGN, simply click here or sign into the AWS Management Console and navigate to “AWS Transform MGN” in the “Migration & Transfer” category. You can follow the steps provided in the console to set up and operate AWS Transform MGN or refer to the Quick Start Guide.

The AWS Transform MGN – A Technical Introduction training is recommended if you want to learn more about how to use the service, or if you are assisting customers with a migration using AWS Transform MGN. This free online training is offered by AWS Training and Certification, and covers key concepts, service architecture, and implementation approaches for AWS Transform MGN.

You can use AWS Transform MGN to migrate your applications to AWS from physical servers, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and other cloud providers. You can also use AWS Transform MGN to migrate Amazon EC2 instances between AWS Regions or between AWS accounts, and to migrate from EC2-Classic to a VPC.

AWS Transform MGN allows you to migrate physical, virtual, and cloud source servers to AWS for a variety of supported operating systems (OS). AWS Transform MGN supports commonly used applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server.

Contact AWS Premium Support to receive product support for AWS Transform MGN according to your support plan.

“MGN” is an abbreviation of the word “migration.” 

AWS Transform and AWS Transform MGN are the recommended services for migrations to AWS. You can learn about use cases that may require using a different migration service on the When to Choose AWS Transform MGN page.

For each source server that you want to migrate, you can use AWS Transform MGN for a free period of 2,160 hours, which is 90 days when used continuously.

The free period starts as soon as you install the AWS Replication Agent on your source server and continues during active source server replication. 

If you do not complete your migration of a specific server within the free period, you will be charged per hour while you continue replicating that server. Most customers complete migrations of servers within the allotted free period.

Note that while your source servers are actively replicating, including during the free period, you will incur charges for any AWS infrastructure that is provisioned by AWS Transform MGN to facilitate data replication. You will also incur charges for resources that are provisioned when you launch test or cutover instances, such as compute (Amazon EC2) and storage (Amazon EBS) resources, according to your AWS pricing plan.

Please refer to the AWS Transform MGN pricing page for more details. 

Your replicated data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2, and is transferred directly from your source servers to your VPC. Your data is also encrypted at rest on AWS using Amazon EBS encryption.

Yes, with AWS Transform MGN you can control the data replication path using private connectivity options such as a VPN, AWS Direct Connect, VPC peering, or another private connection. Learn more about private connectivity options with AWS Transform MGN.

Please refer to the Security in AWS Transform MGN documentation to understand how to apply the shared responsibility model when you use AWS Transform MGN. 

Please refer to the AWS Regional Services List for the most up-to-date information.