AWS Cloud Migration Services — Strategy, Lift & Modernize

## What is AWS Cloud Migration?

AWS cloud migration is the process of moving applications, data, and infrastructure from on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, or other clouds (Azure, GCP, DigitalOcean, Heroku) onto Amazon Web Services. AWS classifies migration approaches into the [7 Rs framework](/blog/aws-migration-strategy-choose-right-approach/): rehost, replatform, repurchase, refactor, retire, retain, and relocate — chosen per workload based on business value, technical debt, and risk tolerance.

## Why Migrate to AWS?

Organizations migrate to AWS for three primary reasons: reducing infrastructure costs, improving agility, and eliminating the operational burden of managing physical data centers. But migration is not just about moving servers — it is an opportunity to modernize your technology stack, improve security posture, and build a foundation for innovation.

The challenge is executing the migration without disrupting your business. A poorly planned migration can lead to extended downtime, data loss, performance degradation, and costs that exceed your on-premises spend. At FactualMinds, we bring a structured, proven approach to every migration — ensuring your workloads land on AWS safely, efficiently, and optimized from day one. As an [AWS Select Tier Consulting Partner](/services/), we have guided organizations of all sizes through successful cloud migrations.

## AWS Migration Strategy: The 6 Rs Framework

Every successful cloud migration begins with a strategy — a deliberate decision about how each workload will move and what it will look like on the other side. AWS defines six core migration strategies, commonly called the 6 Rs, that help organizations make consistent, informed decisions at workload scale.

**1. Rehost (Lift and Shift)** — Move workloads to AWS as-is with minimal changes. Best for speed: data center lease expirations, hardware end-of-life, or workloads that need to move quickly. Delivers immediate infrastructure cost savings without requiring code changes.

**2. Replatform (Lift, Tinker, and Shift)** — Make targeted optimizations during migration without changing core architecture. Examples: moving from self-managed MySQL on EC2 to RDS, or from self-managed Redis to ElastiCache. Low effort, meaningful operational improvement.

**3. Refactor (Re-architect)** — Redesign applications to take full advantage of cloud-native services. This is where cloud infrastructure modernization happens — decomposing monoliths into microservices, moving to containers, adopting serverless, or rebuilding on event-driven architectures. Most effort, greatest long-term benefit.

**4. Repurchase** — Replace existing software with a SaaS or managed equivalent. Common examples: self-hosted email to Amazon SES, legacy middleware to managed services.

**5. Retire** — Identify and decommission applications no longer needed. Our discovery phase typically identifies 10–20% of workloads that can be retired outright, reducing migration scope and cost.

**6. Retain** — Some workloads are not ready to migrate — recently purchased hardware, compliance constraints, or systems requiring significant refactoring. These stay on-premises for a future phase.

Building your migration strategy means assigning a migration approach to every workload, then grouping workloads into waves based on dependencies and risk. We also help organizations that want to go further than rehost — our [AWS Application Modernization](/services/aws-application-modernization/) service handles the full cloud-native transformation for workloads targeted for refactor.

## The 7 Rs of Cloud Migration

AWS defines seven migration strategies, commonly called the 7 Rs. Understanding which strategy applies to each workload is the foundation of a successful migration plan.

### Rehost (Lift and Shift)

Move applications to AWS as-is, without code changes. This is the fastest path to the cloud and is appropriate for workloads that need to move quickly — data center lease expirations, hardware end-of-life, or cost reduction targets.

**Tools:** AWS Application Migration Service (MGN), CloudEndure Migration

**Best for:** Web servers, application servers, batch processing systems, and any workload where the primary goal is getting off on-premises hardware.

### Replatform (Lift, Tinker, and Shift)

Make targeted optimizations during migration without changing the core architecture. Common replatforming moves include migrating databases from self-managed MySQL on EC2 to [Amazon RDS](/services/aws-rds-consulting/), or moving from self-managed Redis to Amazon ElastiCache.

**Best for:** Databases, caching layers, message queues, and other infrastructure components where managed services provide clear operational benefits.

### Refactor (Re-architect)

Redesign applications to take full advantage of cloud-native services — containers, serverless, managed databases, and event-driven architectures. This is the most effort-intensive strategy but delivers the greatest long-term benefits.

**Best for:** Applications with scalability challenges, monoliths being decomposed into microservices, and workloads moving to [serverless or container architectures](/services/devops-pipeline-setup/).

### Repurchase (Drop and Shop)

Replace existing software with a SaaS equivalent. For example, migrating from self-hosted email servers to Amazon SES, or replacing an on-premises CRM with a cloud-native alternative.

**Best for:** Legacy commercial software with modern SaaS alternatives, email systems ([migrating to SES](/services/aws-ses/)), and collaboration tools.

### Retire

Identify and decommission applications that are no longer needed. Our discovery phase typically identifies 10-20% of workloads that can be retired, immediately reducing scope and cost.

### Retain

Some workloads are not ready to migrate — recently purchased hardware, applications with compliance constraints, or systems requiring significant refactoring. These stay on-premises for now and migrate in a future phase.

### Relocate

Move VMware workloads to AWS using VMware Cloud on AWS, preserving your existing VMware tooling and operations while running on AWS infrastructure.

## Our Migration Process

### Phase 1: Assessment and Discovery (Weeks 1-3)

Before moving anything, we need to understand what you have. This phase answers three critical questions: What are we migrating? What does it depend on? What is the right strategy for each workload?

**Workload discovery:**

- Deploy AWS Application Discovery Service agents to catalog servers, applications, and utilization metrics
- Map network dependencies, data flows, and integration points between applications
- Inventory databases with schema sizes, transaction volumes, and engine versions

**Business analysis:**

- Identify business-critical applications and their availability requirements
- Document compliance requirements (HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2) that affect architecture decisions
- Establish RPO and RTO targets for each workload

**TCO analysis:**

- Calculate current on-premises costs (hardware, licensing, facilities, staff)
- Model projected AWS costs using right-sized instances and appropriate pricing models
- Quantify soft benefits (agility, time-to-market, reduced operational overhead)

**Migration plan:**

- Assign a migration strategy (the 7 Rs) to each workload
- Group applications into migration waves based on dependencies and risk
- Build a timeline with milestones, cutover windows, and rollback procedures

### Discovery Week 1 Checklist (Downloadable)

The first week of discovery makes or breaks a migration estimate. The items below are the ones we run on every engagement before writing a fixed-scope SOW. We publish the full markdown checklist as a public Gist so you can fork it, drop it into your wiki, or hand it to your team verbatim.

- **Server inventory with utilization** — every host, p50/p95 CPU and memory, last 30 days
- **Network dependency graph** — application-to-application traffic, including the calls nobody documented
- **Database inventory** — engine, version, size, RPO/RTO target, license terms, and replication topology
- **Zombie resource sweep** — VMs running with zero traffic, orphaned EBS volumes, snapshots older than 90 days
- **License capture** — Oracle, SQL Server, RHEL, VMware — with the audit clause that matters for AWS deployment
- **Compliance scope** — HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, GDPR — and which workloads carry the regulated data
- **Change-window inventory** — when can each workload actually cut over, and who owns approval
- **Egress contract** — colocation egress fees, bandwidth commits, and any minimum-spend clauses that change cost math
- **Identity sources** — every IdP and directory the workloads authenticate against
- **TCO baseline** — current run-rate of the on-premises environment, with all soft costs included
- **Retire candidates** — workloads that nobody can answer "who uses this and why" for
- **Renewal triggers** — VMware, hardware, datacenter lease — anything with a date that constrains the timeline

[Download the full checklist on GitHub Gist](https://gist.github.com/palpalani/b7a81598d481d781e7c4c3256511c358) — fork, edit, share. Attribution: produced by FactualMinds, AWS Select Tier Consulting Partner.

### Phase 2: Foundation (Weeks 3-5)

Before migrating workloads, we build the AWS foundation — the landing zone:

**Account structure:**

- AWS Organizations with separate accounts for production, staging, development, shared services, logging, and security
- Service Control Policies (SCPs) to enforce guardrails across all accounts

**Networking:**

- VPC architecture with public and private subnets across multiple Availability Zones
- Transit Gateway or VPC peering for inter-account connectivity
- VPN or Direct Connect for hybrid connectivity to on-premises during migration
- DNS strategy for gradual traffic cutover using Route 53

**Security baseline:**

- [IAM roles and policies](/services/aws-cloud-security/) following least-privilege principles
- CloudTrail, Config, and GuardDuty enabled across all accounts
- Encryption standards using AWS KMS
- Security Hub with CIS Benchmarks enabled

**Monitoring:**

- CloudWatch dashboards for infrastructure and application metrics
- Alerting for resource utilization, errors, and availability
- Centralized logging with CloudWatch Logs

### Phase 3: Migration Execution (Weeks 5-16+)

Workloads migrate in waves, starting with lower-risk applications to build team confidence and validate processes before tackling business-critical systems.

**Wave 1 — Low risk:**
Development and test environments, internal tools, and non-critical workloads. This wave validates the migration process, networking, and monitoring before production workloads move.

**Wave 2 — Medium risk:**
Production workloads with established rollback procedures and defined maintenance windows. Web servers, application servers, and batch processing systems typically fall here.

**Wave 3 — High risk:**
Business-critical applications, databases, and systems with strict availability requirements. These require rehearsed cutover procedures, parallel running periods, and fallback plans.

**Database migration approach:**

- AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for continuous replication from source to target
- Full load followed by change data capture (CDC) for near-zero downtime
- Data validation using AWS DMS data validation or custom comparison scripts
- Parallel running period where both databases serve reads until cutover is confirmed

### Phase 4: Optimization (Weeks 16-20)

After workloads are stable on AWS, we optimize:

- **Right-sizing** — Analyze actual utilization data from the first 2-4 weeks and downsize oversized instances
- **Reserved Instances / Savings Plans** — Identify steady-state workloads and recommend commitment-based discounts
- **Storage optimization** — Move infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage tiers
- **Architecture improvements** — Identify opportunities for managed services, caching, and autoscaling

For ongoing cost management after migration, see our [AWS Cloud Cost Optimization Services](/services/aws-cloud-cost-optimization-services/).

## Migration Tools We Use

| Tool                                    | Purpose                                                 |
| --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| AWS Application Discovery Service       | Workload discovery and dependency mapping               |
| AWS Migration Hub                       | Central tracking dashboard for migration progress       |
| AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) | Server replication for rehost migrations                |
| AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)    | Database migration with continuous replication          |
| AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT)        | Database schema conversion for heterogeneous migrations |
| AWS Transfer Family                     | SFTP, FTPS, and FTP file transfer to S3                 |
| AWS Snowball Edge                       | Large data transfer for multi-terabyte datasets         |
| CloudFormation / CDK                    | Infrastructure-as-code for repeatable environments      |

## Common Migration Challenges

### Challenge: Application Dependencies Are Unclear

Most organizations do not have accurate, up-to-date architecture documentation. Dependencies between applications are often undocumented, discovered only when something breaks.

**Our approach:** We combine automated discovery (Application Discovery Service) with manual interviews of application owners. Dependencies are validated in lower environments before production migration.

### Challenge: Database Migration Complexity

Databases are the hardest component to migrate because downtime tolerance is low and data integrity is non-negotiable.

**Our approach:** For homogeneous migrations (same engine, e.g., MySQL to RDS MySQL), DMS handles replication with minimal configuration. For heterogeneous migrations (e.g., Oracle to Aurora PostgreSQL), we use the Schema Conversion Tool for schema translation and DMS for data replication, with thorough testing of stored procedures, triggers, and application compatibility.

### Challenge: Network Connectivity During Transition

During migration, applications span both on-premises and AWS environments. Network connectivity, DNS resolution, and latency between environments must be carefully managed.

**Our approach:** We establish VPN or Direct Connect connectivity before migration begins. DNS cutover is managed through [Route 53](/blog/aws-route-53-dns-traffic-management-patterns/) with weighted routing to gradually shift traffic. Latency-sensitive applications migrate together in the same wave.

### Challenge: License Compliance

Some software licenses have specific cloud deployment terms. Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and other commercial software may require license modifications for AWS deployment.

**Our approach:** We audit licenses during the assessment phase and recommend the most cost-effective approach — bring-your-own-license (BYOL), license-included instances, or migration to open-source alternatives.

### Challenge: Team Readiness

Even a technically perfect migration fails if your operations team is not ready to manage workloads on AWS.

**Our approach:** We provide hands-on training during the migration process — your team works alongside ours, learning AWS operations, monitoring, and incident response in the context of your actual workloads.

## Industries We Serve

We have executed AWS migrations for organizations across industries, each with specific requirements:

- **Healthcare** — HIPAA-compliant architectures with encrypted data, audit logging, and BAA coverage
- **Financial services** — PCI DSS and SOC 2 compliant infrastructure with strict data residency requirements
- **SaaS** — Multi-tenant architectures with per-customer isolation and independent scaling
- **eCommerce** — High-availability architectures designed for traffic spikes during seasonal peaks
- **Education** — Cost-optimized environments with burst capacity for enrollment periods

## Getting Started

Every migration begins with understanding where you are and where you need to go. Our assessment phase provides a detailed migration plan with timeline, cost projections, and risk analysis — giving you the information you need to move forward with confidence.

For workloads targeted for modernization after migration, see our [AWS Application Modernization](/services/aws-application-modernization/) service — we help teams move from rehosted workloads to cloud-native, container-based, or serverless architectures in a structured second phase. For DevOps and CI/CD automation post-migration, see [AWS DevOps Consulting](/services/devops-pipeline-setup/).

[Book a Free Migration Assessment →](/contact-us/)