Addressing migration challenges with Breeze

The following metrics are collected by Breeze, which are vital when migrating workloads to the cloud:

• File and network dependencies

• Process tree and scripted infrastructure

• Program arguments and environments

Customers often use a manual process, and leverage the data from Breeze to run an initial proof of concept (POC) on AWS with an environment that is similar to their existing on-premises infrastructure. After the initial POC is completed, the Breeze Command Line Interface (CLI) can be used to automate the process and migrate the remaining workflows.

Application dependencies and containerization

Often, EDA tools can form legacy workflows that make it difficult to determine which files, libraries, and applications are needed. Breeze addresses this issue by automatically detecting which files, libraries, and applications are needed. This can be as fine grain as listing every file, or a more high-level approach can be taken, determining only the mount points that need to be replicated on AWS.

Once the dependencies have been collected with Breeze, you can containerize the workflow. What to include and exclude from the container depends on your long-term data management strategy, and how the container will be used. If the same rules can be applied to multiple workflows, the containerization process can be automated using the workflow dependency output from the Breeze CLI. More details on dependency output are provided later in this whitepaper.

Debugging licensing issues and other changes in environment

Moving an EDA workflow to new infrastructure usually involves changes to the workflow environment. For example, connecting to a license server on AWS might result in quicker access to licenses, and jobs completing faster. Problems that arise could be related to the new environment, the on-premises IT infrastructure, the EDA tool, or the scripted flow that orchestrates it. Breeze helps to debug these problems by capturing the application and how it runs. For example, a file permissions issue would show up as a failed file open. A missing library would be similarly highlighted, and if the tool is looking in the wrong place for a file or license, Breeze will tell you.