Migrating to AWS using CloudEndure
This Blog has moved from Medium to blogs.tensult.com. All the latest content will be available there. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated.
In this blog, I will be walking you through steps on how to migrate a Linux machine from Azure to AWS using CloudEndure.
CloudEndure is a Saas service offering from AWS to migrate from any source(Physical, Virtual or Cloud) to AWS or from one AWS region to another within an AWS account and across different AWS accounts.
CloudEndure helps us in rapid and reliable migration with minimal disruption using a self-service platform.
It uses Block level continuous replication to replicate data on to the target AWS environment and automatic machine conversions to spin up target machines.
Get started with CloudEndure by Signing up for a CloudEndure Account. Subscribe to CloudEndure from the AWS marketplace in your AWS account.
Login to the CloudEndure console and set up a migration project by specifying the AWS credentials, replication settings, and other settings. In addition to this, you will need a set of permissions in the form of an IAM policy in your target account. You can get the IAM policy here.
Install the CloudEndure agent on the source machine to initiate replication. We have centos VM with Apache service installed in the Azure environment(source machine). See more on installing the CloudEndure agent here.
Once the agent installation on the source machine is completed, CloudEndure scans the disks and identifies the disks to be replicated, and is listed under machines in the CloudEndure console.
Replication is initiated after the initial sync, and the status changes to continuous data replication. We can view the properties of the source machine under the source tab. At this stage, you can configure the Blueprint to edit the properties of the Target machines you intend to launch on AWS.
Note: Make sure the subnet chosen for the target machine has an IP range that can accommodate your source machine’s IP.
CloudEndure launches a replication server in the target AWS account for the continuous data replication as specified in the replication settings. They are automatically launched in the Staging Area and discarded when no longer needed. Replicated data is in the form of EBS snapshots.
Once the data replication has finished and there is no lag seen on the CloudEndure console we can Launch the target machine in test mode for testing.
CloudEndure will launch a Machine Converter server to convert the replicated data in the form snapshots to a exact replica of the source server in the target environment.
CloudEndure Machine Converter will be terminated as soon as the conversion is completed and Target Machine is launched.
Note that the target is launched in the same network as mentioned earlier in the Blueprint. It also uses the same security group as mentioned in the Blueprint.
To test the target server, log in to the migrated server with the same username and password you used for the source server and edit the inbound rules in the security groups to allow traffic to the migrated server.
Once all the testing is done, we will us now make changes on the source server and launch the target server in the cutover mode for migration.
I have changed the contents of index.html file in the source server for testing the changes in cutover mode.
Note: CloudEndure terminates the server which was launched in Test mode and replaces the server with a new one with the latest replicated data to reduce cost.
Let us now check the server for the replicated changes.
That brings us to the end of this blog. Hope this was informative. Kindly share your thoughts in the comments section below.
