Migration lifecycle

The iterative approach to cloud adoption discussed in this guide can be broken out into the three high-level phases of assess, mobilize, and migrate and modernize. These phases are briefly described below, and each phase could be considered as a separate process.

Figure 1- Migration Phases

Assess

Planning data center migrations can involve thousands of workloads that are often deeply interdependent. Server utilization data and dependency mapping are important early first steps in the migration process. The first phase of a cloud migration begins with collecting configurations, usage, and behavior data from your servers to help you better understand your workloads. For more information, see Assess phase.

Mobilize

The goal of the mobilize phase is to build foundational capability both in the organization and the AWS environment, with hands-on migration experience focused on security and operations automation. This process brings together your portfolio of tools and practices in a scalable and secure AWS landing zone. In this phase, you migrate a small set of business applications to the cloud, while enforcing an agile and scalable delivery culture, team structure, and change management process. Some of the activities of Mobilize phase include defining applications for migration and selecting the migration strategy for each, defining and automating security, and building a team of skilled staff to manage the migration. For more information, see Mobilize phase.

Migrate and modernize

The migrate phase uses the patterns, processes, tools, resources, and methodology defined and tested during the mobilize phase to migrate applications at scale. After using the best practices and lessons learned from the earlier phases, you can implement a migration factory solution through automation and agile delivery. For more information, see Migrate phase.

Well-Architected migration

While migration is usually a linear process, the cloud adoption journey consists of ongoing constant and recursive improvement cycles.

Regardless of where you are in your migration journey, you can apply the Well-Architected Framework and Migration Lens perspectives. Each pillar of the Migration Lens has specific questions and best practices aligned per migration phase, so you can navigate to the most relevant recommendations related to your current migration phase, or review all recommendations per pillar across all the phases. The Well-Architected migration lifecycle, shown in Figure 2, takes the migration phases described and applies the Well-Architected Framework pillars to each phase.

Figure 2- Well-Architected Migration