Discovering on-premises resources using AWS discovery tools - AWS Migration Hub
Step 1: Choose a discovery toolStep 2: View server detailsStep 3: Group servers

Discovering on-premises resources using AWS discovery tools

AWS Migration Hub (Migration Hub) provides a single place to discover your existing servers, plan migrations, and track the status of each application migration. Before migrating you can discover information about your on-premises server and application resources to help you build a business case for migrating or to build a migration plan.

Discovering your servers first is an optional starting point for migrations, gathering detailed server information, and then grouping the discovered servers into applications to be migrated and tracked. Migration Hub also gives you the choice to start migrating right away and to group servers during migration.

You get the data about your servers and applications into the AWS Migration Hub console by using the following discovery tools.

  • Application Discovery Service Agentless Collector – Agentless Collector is an on-premises application that collects information through agentless methods about your on-premises environment, including server profile information (for example, OS, number of CPUs, amount of RAM), and server utilization metrics. You install the Agentless Collector as a virtual machine (VM) in your VMware vCenter Server environment using an Open Virtualization Archive (OVA) file. For more information, see Agentless Collector in the Application Discovery Service User Guide.

  • AWS Application Discovery Agent – The Discovery Agent is AWS software that you install on your on-premises servers and VMs to capture system configuration, system performance, running processes, and details of the network connections between systems. Agents support most Linux and Windows operating systems, and you can deploy them on physical on-premises servers, Amazon EC2 instances, and virtual machines. For more information, see AWS Application Discovery Agent in the Application Discovery Service User Guide.

  • Migration Evaluator Collector – Migration Evaluator is a migration assessment service that helps you create a directional business case for AWS cloud planning and migration. For more information, see Migration Evaluator.

  • Migration Hub import – With Migration Hub import, you can import information about your on-premises servers and applications into Migration Hub, including server specifications and utilization data. You can also use this data to track the status of application migrations. For more information, see Migration Hub import in the Application Discovery Service User Guide.

Step 1: Choose an AWS discovery tool

You get the data about your servers and applications into the AWS Migration Hub console by using the AWS discovery tools.

To use the discovery tools

  1. In the Migration Hub console navigation pane, choose Discover and then choose Tools.

  2. On the Discovery Tools page, you can choose to import data, download the Agentless Collector or a Discovery Agent, or you can choose to use the Migration Evaluator Collector.

To help you decide which tool to use, choose Compare AWS discovery tools. The following topics provide information about how to use each of the discovery tools:

Discovery using Agentless Collector

The following procedure describes the discovery process using Agentless Collector for collecting data about your on-premises resources.

To discover resources using the Agentless Collector

  1. In the Migration Hub console navigation pane, under Discover, choose Tools, and then choose Download collector on the Agentless Collector card.

  2. Following the instructions in Getting started with Agentless Collector in the Application Discovery Service User Guide.

Discovery using the AWS Application Discovery Agent

The following procedure describes the discovery process for collecting data about your on-premises resources using an AWS Application Discovery Agent.

You can install Discovery Agent agents on both your VMs and physical servers to not only discover your on-premises servers, but also to capture technical specifications, system performance, network dependencies, and to process information. Network dependency and process information is available, but only for export. Use the Application Discovery Service CLI to export the data and analyze it outside of the Migration Hub. For more information, see describe-export-tasks.

The benefit of using Discovery Agent is that it provides more detailed information than using Application Discovery Service Agentless Collector(Agentless Collector). This information includes system performance and resource utilization. By contrast, the benefit of using Agentless Collector is that it provides a more efficient and faster on-premises infrastructure assessment.

To discover resources using an agent

  1. In the Migration Hub console navigation pane, under Discover, choose Tools, and then choose Download agent on the AWS Discovery Agent card.

  2. In the Download agent dropdown list, choose one of the download options.

  3. Deploy and configure the agent by following the instructions in AWS Application Discovery Agent in the AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide.

  4. After you have successfully installed the agent, return to the in the Migration Hub console navigation pane, under Discover choose Data Collectors. Then, refresh your internet browser.

  5. On the Agents tab, select the agent(s) that you want to start.

  6. Choose Start data collection.

To install additional agents, repeat the procedure.

Discovery using Migration Evaluator Collector

The following procedure describes the discovery process using Migration Evaluator Collector for collecting data about your on-premises resources.

To discover resources using Migration Evaluator Collector

  1. In the Migration Hub console navigation pane, under Discover, choose Tools, and then choose Request assessment on the Migration Evaluator Collector card.

  2. Following the instructions in Getting started with Migration Evaluator.

Using Migration Hub import

If you have already performed discovery using an AWS Migration Partner discovery tool or have existing data from data sources such as a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) or IT Asset Management System (ITAM), you can use Migration Hub import to upload this data. For more information, see Migration Hub Import in the Application Discovery Service User Guide.

Step 2: View server details and dependencies

The following procedures describe how to view detailed information about servers discovered with AWS discovery tools.

Viewing server details

The following procedure describes how to view information about the servers discovered by using any of the AWS discovery tools.

To view details about a discovered server

  1. In the navigation pane, under Discover, choose Servers.

  2. To view details about the server, choose the hostname of the server from the Server info column. The server's detail page displays information about the server, such as hostname, IP address, performance metrics, and so on.

Exploring server network connections

If you use AWS Application Discovery Agent or Migration Evaluator Collector for discovery, you can explore server network connections by using the network diagram in AWS Migration Hub.

Start exploring by choosing a single server or by choosing multiple servers at the same time. Use the network diagram to explore your discovered servers and their connections to help you decide on how to group them together to assist in your migration planning.

To explore network connections starting with a single server

  1. In the navigation pane, under Discover, choose Servers.

  2. To view details about the server, choose the hostname of the server from the Server info column. The server's detail page displays information about the server, such as hostname, IP address, performance metrics, and so on.

  3. Choose Network. The icon for the server you choose is centered in the network diagram. Connections fan out from the center server to servers that are directly connected to the server you choose.

  4. Choose a server icon to see details about the server. For information about how to work with the network diagram, see Viewing network connections in Migration Hub.

To explore network connections starting with multiple servers

  1. In the navigation pane, under Discover, choose Servers.

  2. To see the network connections for multiple servers, select the check box for each of the servers you want in the network diagram, and then choose Visualize network.

  3. You can modify the network diagram for the servers you chose. For information on how to work with the network diagram, see Viewing network connections in Migration Hub.

Step 3: Group servers as applications

The following procedures describe how to group servers as applications. Because applications can have multiple servers, it can help simplify migration tracking to group them into logical units.

Grouping servers as applications from the servers list

The following procedure shows you how to select the servers you want to group for your application, how to create your application and name it, and how to add identifying tags.

Tip

You can import application groups in bulk using the AWS CLI for Application Discovery Service and calling the CreateApplication API. For more information, see CreateApplication in the Application Discovery Service API Reference.

To group servers into a new or existing application from the servers list

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Servers.

  2. In the servers list, select the check box for each of the servers that you want to group into a new or existing application.

    1. You can also search and filter on any of the criteria specified in the headers of the server list. In the search box choose an item from the dropdown, then choose an operator from the next dropdown, and then type in your criteria.

    2. Optionally, for each selected server, you can add a descriptive tag by choosing Add tag from the Actions menu. Doing so shows a dialog box where you can type a value for Key, and optionally a value for Value.

  3. To create your application, or add to an existing one, choose Group as application.

  4. In the Group as application dialog box, choose either Group as a new application or Add to an existing application.

    1. If you chose Group as a new application, type a name in the Application name field. Optionally, you can type a description in the Application description field.

    2. If you chose Add to an existing application, choose an application from the Choose existing application dropdown menu.

  5. Choose Group.

Grouping servers as applications from the network diagram

You must select the servers in the network diagram that you want to group into a new or existing application.

The following procedure shows you how to select the servers you want to group for your application from the network diagram, how to create your application and name it, and how to add identifying tags.

To group servers into a new or existing application from the network diagram

  1. Set up a network diagram following one of the procedures in the Exploring server network connections section.

  2. You can use the following options to select servers from the network diagram:

    • Choose a server node icon. Details about the server show in the server details pane, where you choose Select server.

    • Open the context (right-click) menu on the server node icon, and then choose Select server.

    • Choose Select all to select all the servers for grouping that are in your diagram. Only the servers with the Discovery Agent running on them or are being monitored by the Migration Evaluator Collector can be selected.

    • Hold shift to select multiple servers at the same time.

    Selected servers are shown in a list in the same pane as the server details. You can toggle back and forth between the server details view and the selected server list view by choosing the server icon.

  3. After you select one or more servers, create your application, or add to an existing one, by choosing Group as application.

  4. In the Group as application dialog box, choose either Group as a new application or Add to an existing application.

    1. If you chose Group as a new application, type a name in the Application name field. The servers that are members of the group are labeled on the diagram with the application name.

      Optionally, you can type a description for Application description.

    2. If you chose Add to an existing application, choose an application from the Choose existing application dropdown menu.

  5. Choose Group.

  6. Optionally, you can add a descriptive tag to the selected servers by choosing Add tag from the Actions menu. Doing so shows a dialog box where you can type a value for Key, and optionally a value for Value.