7 Signs You Need an AWS Cloud Migration Partner
Quick summary: Recognizing when to bring in expert help for your cloud migration can save months of delay and thousands in wasted spend. Here are 7 signs it is time.
Key Takeaways
- Here are 7 signs it is time
- Here are 7 signs it is time
Table of Contents
Cloud migration is not inherently difficult — AWS provides excellent tools and documentation. But the gap between understanding how to migrate and successfully executing a migration with minimal business disruption is where most organizations struggle.
Some teams pull it off internally. Many do not. Here are seven signs that bringing in an AWS migration partner will save you time, money, and headaches.
1. Your Migration Timeline Keeps Slipping
You planned to be in the cloud by Q2. Now it is Q4 and you are still in the assessment phase. Timeline slippage is the most common symptom of an under-resourced migration.
Why it happens: Migration competes with day-to-day operations. Your best engineers are pulled between keeping the lights on and building the cloud foundation. Without dedicated focus, the migration becomes a side project that gets pushed every sprint.
What a partner brings: Dedicated migration engineers who do this full-time. They execute while your team keeps the business running. A typical engagement with clear scope and dedicated resources moves 3-5x faster than an internal effort squeezed between other priorities.
2. You Do Not Know What You Have
If you cannot produce a complete, accurate inventory of your servers, applications, databases, and their interdependencies within a day, you are not ready to migrate on your own.
Why it matters: Migration without a complete inventory leads to forgotten workloads, broken dependencies, and post-migration surprises. That legacy batch job nobody documented? It will fail silently after migration and you will not notice until month-end reporting breaks.
What a partner brings: Structured discovery using AWS Application Discovery Service, network traffic analysis, and stakeholder interviews. Partners have done this hundreds of times and know where the undocumented systems hide — in closets, under desks, and in that one developer’s personal AWS account.
3. Your Team Lacks AWS Operational Experience
Knowing how to provision an EC2 instance is not the same as knowing how to design a production-ready VPC, configure cross-account IAM roles, set up monitoring that actually catches problems, or build CI/CD pipelines that deploy safely.
Why it matters: AWS has over 200 services. Choosing the right ones, configuring them correctly, and integrating them into a cohesive architecture requires experience that only comes from doing it repeatedly. Mistakes made during migration — overpermissive IAM roles, missing encryption, single-AZ deployments — become technical debt that is expensive to fix later.
What a partner brings: Engineers who build AWS environments professionally. They know the antipatterns because they have seen (and fixed) them at other organizations. They build your foundation right the first time.
4. You Have Complex Database Dependencies
Database migration is the hardest part of any cloud migration. If you are running Oracle, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL databases with hundreds of stored procedures, triggers, and cross-database dependencies, the migration complexity increases by an order of magnitude.
Why it matters: Database downtime during migration directly impacts revenue. Data integrity issues can be catastrophic. And heterogeneous migrations (e.g., Oracle to Aurora PostgreSQL) require schema conversion, application testing, and performance validation that most internal teams have never done.
What a partner brings: Experience with AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), Schema Conversion Tool (SCT), and the edge cases that DMS documentation does not cover. Partners know which stored procedures will not convert cleanly, which data types need special handling, and how to validate data integrity before cutover.
5. You Have Compliance Requirements
HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, FedRAMP — if your migration needs to maintain compliance, the stakes are higher. A misconfigured Security Group, missing encryption, or incomplete audit trail can fail an audit and put your compliance certification at risk.
Why it matters: Compliance is not something you bolt on after migration. It needs to be designed into the architecture from the beginning — encryption, access controls, logging, and monitoring must be in place before workloads move.
What a partner brings: Pre-built compliance architectures that map AWS controls to regulatory frameworks. Partners have been through audits with other clients and know exactly what auditors look for. They build audit-ready environments that pass the first time.
6. Your AWS Costs Are Already Higher Than Expected
Some organizations start their migration, get a few workloads into AWS, and realize their AWS bill is already exceeding their on-premises costs. This is demoralizing and often leads to migration abandonment.
Why it happens: Lifting and shifting without optimization means you are running the same oversized infrastructure in the cloud at on-demand prices — the most expensive way to use AWS. Without right-sizing, Reserved Instances, and cost optimization strategies, cloud costs will exceed on-premises costs for the same workload.
What a partner brings: Cost modeling before migration so there are no surprises. Right-sizing recommendations based on actual utilization data. RI/SP strategy implemented from day one. Partners ensure your cloud costs are lower than your on-premises costs from the start.
7. You Have Tried and Stalled
Perhaps the most telling sign: you started the migration internally, made some progress, hit obstacles, and now the project is stalled. Nobody wants to admit it, but the migration is effectively frozen.
Common stall points:
- VPN connectivity between on-premises and AWS is unreliable
- Database replication keeps falling behind or failing
- Application testing revealed unexpected compatibility issues
- The team that started the migration has moved on to other projects
- Leadership lost confidence after a failed cutover attempt
What a partner brings: Fresh perspective on stalled migrations. Partners evaluate where you are, identify what went wrong, and build a revised plan to get back on track. Often, the hard work is already done — you just need experienced hands to get past the blocking issues.
When You Do Not Need a Partner
To be fair, not every migration needs external help. You probably can handle it internally if:
- You have 5 or fewer servers with simple architectures
- Your team has at least 2 engineers with production AWS experience
- You have no compliance requirements
- Your databases are small and use common engines (MySQL, PostgreSQL)
- You have flexible timelines with no hard deadlines
Choosing the Right Migration Partner
If you have decided you need help, look for:
- AWS Partner Network membership — Validated expertise, not just marketing claims
- Migration-specific experience — Ask for case studies and references from similar migrations
- Methodology — A structured approach (preferably aligned with AWS MAP) rather than ad-hoc execution
- Post-migration support — Migration is not done when the servers move. You need optimization, monitoring, and knowledge transfer
- Cultural fit — Your partner’s engineers will work closely with your team. Communication style and working practices matter
Get Started
If any of these signs sound familiar, a conversation costs nothing. We will assess your situation and give you an honest recommendation — including whether you actually need a partner or can handle it internally.
