Migrating Your Architecture from On-Premises to AWS Cloud Using AWS Migration Hub
When transitioning from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, it’s crucial to take a systematic approach to ensure data safety and operational continuity. AWS provides an extensive suite of services designed to aid this transition, with the AWS Migration Hub as a pivotal tool.
What is AWS Migration Hub?
AWS Migration Hub is a centralised service designed to track the progress of application migrations to AWS. It offers a single location to track the migration status of AWS resources and applications, providing the visibility needed to manage a large-scale migration.
The Migration Hub consolidates the migration progress of servers and databases from different AWS and partner migration tools, presenting a holistic view. You can use AWS’s tools, like AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MG) — lift-and-shift, AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), or third-party tools like CloudEndure Migration.
Migrating Your Architecture to AWS: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. Migration Assessment
Before you begin the migration, it’s essential to evaluate your current IT environment to understand the scope, costs, and potential benefits of migration. AWS’s ‘Migration Evaluator’ can be utilised to provide a detailed report highlighting these elements.
2. Design Your Cloud Architecture
Next, you’ll need to design your cloud architecture in AWS. AWS’s ‘Well-Architected Framework’ can help guide you through this process, ensuring you construct a secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure.
3. Create a Migration Plan
Develop a comprehensive plan based on the assessment and architectural design. This plan should detail the resources to be migrated, the migration methods used, and any necessary pre- and post-migration tasks.
4. Set Up AWS Migration Hub
Once you have your plan ready, set up AWS Migration Hub. This involves creating a migration project and associating it with your AWS account. You can also customise your migration settings by selecting the relevant AWS Region.
5. Execute Your Migration Plan
Begin executing your migration plan using your chosen migration tools. For example, if you’re migrating servers, you might use the AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MG), which automates, schedules, and tracks incremental replications of live server volumes. For databases, AWS Database Migration Service supports homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations, and ensures continuous data replication with minimal downtime.
During this phase, use AWS Migration Hub to monitor the progress of your migrations. You can use its dashboard to track the status of each application and its resources, and you can also use the discovery feature to find resources that still need to be migrated.
6. Post-Migration Testing
Once your resources have been migrated to AWS, perform comprehensive testing to ensure everything works as expected. This can involve functional testing, performance testing, and security validation.
7. Optimise
After validating the migration, you can start optimising your new cloud environment. AWS provides several services to help with this, such as AWS Cost Explorer for cost optimisation, AWS Trusted Advisor for improving security and performance, and AWS Compute Optimiser for identifying optimal AWS compute resources.
An Example: Migrating an E-commerce Application to AWS
Suppose we have a typical three-tier e-commerce application: a web server layer, an application layer, and a database layer. Here’s how we might migrate it to AWS using AWS Migration Hub:
1. Assessment: Use AWS Migration Evaluator to understand the current infrastructure costs and potential benefits of migration.
2. Design: Design the AWS architecture, aligning it with the AWS Well-Architected Framework. For this application, we might use Amazon EC2 for the web and application servers, Amazon RDS for the database, Amazon S3 for storage, and AWS Auto Scaling to manage demand.
3. Migration Plan: Outline which parts of the application will be migrated first, such as non-critical components, to minimise risk.
4. Set Up Migration Hub: Set up a new project in AWS Migration Hub, specifying the resources to be migrated.
5. Migration: Use AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MG) to migrate the web and application servers, and AWS Database Migration Service to migrate the database. Monitor the migration process through AWS Migration Hub.
Note: AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) has been discontinued as of March 31, 2022. Utilise AWS Migration Hub (AWS MGN) instead.
6. Post-Migration Testing: Test the application extensively to ensure it behaves as expected, and address any issues.
7. Optimise: Use AWS’s optimisation tools to improve the performance and cost-effectiveness of the application.
In conclusion, AWS Migration Hub and the more oversized suite of AWS services provide a comprehensive, reliable, and efficient path for migrating your on-premises architecture to the cloud.
