Cost optimization journey

The scope, timing, and specific path of your cloud migration journey depends on your business objectives, technical requirements, and other factors. This section provides an example of a cloud migration journey that's focused on Cloud Financial Management with AWS and adheres to MACO recommendations and best practices. You can use this example to gain an understanding of how to design a cloud migration journey for Microsoft workloads.

The following high-level tasks illustrate the approach that an organization could take to implement MACO recommendations and best practices:

• Establish a tagging strategy and enable user-defined cost allocation tags. For more information, see the AWS Whitepaper Best Practices for Tagging AWS Resources.

• Define budgets based on applications, teams, or departments. For more information, see Managing your costs with AWS Budgets in the AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

• Perform an AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment (AWS OLA) to accelerate savings. For more information, see AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment in the AWS documentation.

• Bring Your Own License (BYOL) for Windows and SQL Server workloads by using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Dedicated Hosts. For more information, see the Bring licenses for Windows and SQL Server workloads section of this guide.

• Optimize your SQL Server licensing on AWS. For more information, see the Understand SQL Server licensing section of this guide.

• Select the right instance type for Windows workloads. For more information, see the Select the right instance type for Windows workloads section of this guide.

• Select the right instance type for SQL workloads. For more information, see the Select the right EC2 instance for SQL Server workloads section of this guide.

• Migrate Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) from gp2 to gp3. For more information, see the Migrate Amazon EBS volumes from gp2 to gp3 section of this guide.

• Control workloads with EC2 Instance Scheduler on AWS. For more information, see the Automate stop and start schedules section of this guide.

• Remove SQL Server costs for non-production workloads by using SQL Server Developer Edition. For more information, see the Evaluate SQL Server Developer edition section of this guide.

• Use a single Availability Zone for Amazon FSx for Windows File Server for development and testing workloads. For more information, see the Use a single Availability Zone section of this guide.

• Rightsize your Windows workloads by using AWS Compute Optimizer. For more information, see the Right size Windows workloads section of this guide.

• Optimize spending on Windows on Amazon EC2 by using Savings Plans. For more information, see the Optimize spending for Windows on Amazon EC2 section of this guide.

• Enable data deduplication on FSx for Windows File Server. For more information, see the Enable data deduplication in Amazon FSx section of this guide.

• Use data sharding for file systems on FSx for Windows File Server. For more information, see the Understand data sharding in FSx for Windows File Server section of this guide.

• Optimize your SQL Server backup strategies. For more information, see the Optimize SQL Server backup strategies section of this guide.

• Make static .NET framework apps support dynamic scaling. For more information, see the Support dynamic scaling for static .NET Framework apps of this guide.

• Use serverless .NET microservices. For more information, see the Consider serverless .NET section of this guide.

• Move your Windows apps to containers. For more information, see the Containerize .NET apps section of this guide.

• Use AWS Compute Optimizer to rightsize Windows containers running on AWS Fargate for Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS). For more information, see the Enable Compute Optimizer section of this guide.

• Refactor to modern .NET and move to Linux. For more information, see the Refactor to modern .NET and move to Linux section of this guide.

• Leverage Graviton instances and containers. For more information, see the Use Graviton instances and containers section of this guide.

• Modernize SQL Server databases. For more information, see the Modernize SQL Server databases section of this guide.

• Design Active Directory infrastructure. For more information, see the Active Directory section of this guide.

For more information about a customer journey focused on Cloud Financial Management with AWS, see the AWS Whitepaper Cloud Financial Management capability.