Is it time to migrate to AWS?

Organisations are increasingly moving their digital operations and on-premise data centres to public cloud architecture. Businesses must adapt to rapidly changing market conditions, manage massive volumes of data, and meet the rising demands of customers. They must modernise, rethink processes and leverage technology to seize opportunities earlier, get maximum value from their investments, move even faster to embrace new work styles, drive down costs, and innovate faster than ever before.

Digital transformation via public cloud solutions such as AWS, promises substantial rewards, such as higher productivity and faster time to market and helps prevent organisations from losing their way.

• 31% average infrastructure cost savings
• 62% more efficient IT infrastructure management*
• 3x more features delivered per year
• 69% reduction in unplanned downtime
• 43% fewer security incidents per year

Migrating to AWS, it’s not a “why” but a “how soon” question. AWS is omnipresent, more so with its edge computing initiatives. Every industry uses AWS to elevate its operations and reduce the stress of dealing with on-premise data centres.

Is it time to migrate?

We often talk with our customers about important challenges and milestones they might have. It is necessary to think about migration and innovation and honestly evaluate the current situation.

1. If you keep your apps and data on-premises, does it help your business in delivering a better customer experience? Is it faster to develop new products and services on-premises? Are you increasing your competitive position and company value with your own data centre?
2. How much time do you spend finding and training skilled professionals to manage, maintain, and provision hardware and software, manage licences, create and maintain security policies, and ensure compliance for things that could be relocated or replaced in the cloud with fully managed offerings?
3. Does your current infrastructure deliver the performance and scale needed to keep teams working efficiently? Is your critical business data accessible and delivering the insights your business needs to compete? Are your legacy systems integrated with modern systems to deliver optimal customer experiences?
4. Does your team have the necessary skills and experience to complete a migration without assistance if anything goes wrong with on-premises? Should you engage with a third-party vendor to provide backup and training and help drive your migration? Will working with an experienced provider accelerate the achievement of your migration and modernization goals?

Once you talk this through with your technical teams, you can start crafting the strategy that will guide you through the actual process of migration.

The right migration strategy

The proper strategy can help you migrate and modernise faster, smarter, and with minimal downtime. We recommend using the following three steps

1. Prioritise which workloads will deliver the most benefit from cloud infrastructure and cloud-native services.
2. Consider the tools and services you’ll need to efficiently migrate your servers, applications, and data to the cloud.
3. Make sure you have a strong foundation in the Cloud Operations team. This team will manage, monitor, and continually optimise your new cloud resources.

Go alone or with a partner?

Here are important AWS migration & transfer services:
Migration Evaluator, AWS Migration Hub, AWS Application Discovery Service, AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Database Migration Service, AWS DataSync and many more to read.

BUT - We recommend choosing your migration partner because the whole process is much faster and cost-effective. Working with a qualified partner to help tackle migration to AWS is like sharing the boat with a trained captain. A partner with the AWS Migration Competency can help you navigate all phases of complex migration projects from discovery, planning, execution, and optimization.

There are three examples of how we can help you

Planning
When you migrate to AWS, you have to think about what data and applications to move and how, evaluate current resources and usage, while maintaining the availability and speed your users or customers have grown used to from your website or applications.
Revolgy will make sure the process meets both your business and your technological needs. An Experienced partner can plan steps and coach you on the best approach. We’ve found that migrations with a partner tend to go 28% faster than those done solo, and also deliver better business outcomes.

You and your AWS partner will work together on determining the optimal migration strategy by conducting the AWS Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA) and applying the AWS Well Architected Framework on planning the future infrastructure. THe most poplupar migration strategy is replatforming which balances the benefits of managed infrastructure and speed of migration.

Cost Optimization
AWS’ pay-as-you-go model makes it easier to save money, but optimising for costs requires ongoing monitoring of what resources are being used and how. A qualified partner can analyse your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and ensure that you’re not paying for more resources than you need. You will receive and AWS Calculator depicting your future estimated AWS costs.

Heavy lifting
Very often companies don’t have skills and resources to migrate everything by themselves. We have an experienced team full of AWS-certified architects and engineers, who do the heavy job for you. There is no need to wait until your team is confident about migrating applications and other resources.

Reduce time spent managing your new infrastructure
Working with a partner like Revolgy lets you offload a lot of the undifferentiated heavy lifting. We determine the workload migration maturity with AWS Well-Architected Tool and we are ready to migrate. Revolgy Managed services include monitoring, alerting, operations and patching of your services with regular reviews of performance metrics. That leaves your own staff available to focus on what actually provides value and drives innovation for your business.

When you’re ready to make the move, contact us.

FAQs

Q1: What are the average benefits organizations see after migrating to AWS from on-premises data centers?

Organizations that migrated to AWS from on-premises saw:

31% average infrastructure cost savings
62% more efficient IT infrastructure management
3 times more features delivered per year
69% reduction in unplanned downtime
43% fewer security incidents per year

Q2: What key areas should a business evaluate to determine if it’s time to migrate from on-premises?

A business should honestly evaluate its current situation by considering if the on-premises setup helps or hinders its ability to deliver customer value, develop products quickly, and maintain a competitive advantage.

Other key considerations include the time and cost spent managing hardware and software, whether the current infrastructure delivers needed performance and scale, and if the internal team has the skills to manage a migration without assistance.

Q3: What is the recommended three-step strategy for approaching a cloud migration?

The recommended strategy consists of three steps:

• Prioritize which workloads will deliver the most benefit from cloud infrastructure and cloud-native services.
• Consider the tools and services you’ll need to efficiently migrate your servers, applications, and data.
• Ensure you have a strong foundation in a Cloud Operations team to manage, monitor, and optimize the new cloud resources.

Q4: What is the most popular migration strategy mentioned?

The most popular migration strategy is replatforming, which balances the benefits of managed infrastructure with the speed of migration.

Q5: What are the main advantages of working with a partner for an AWS migration instead of doing it alone?

Working with a qualified partner makes the migration process much faster and more cost-effective. Partners can help navigate all phases of complex migration projects, from discovery and planning to execution and optimization. Migrations with a partner tend to go 28% faster and deliver better business outcomes.

Q6: How does a migration partner assist with the planning process?

A partner works with you to determine the optimal migration strategy by conducting an AWS Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA) and applying the AWS Well-Architected Framework to plan the future infrastructure. This ensures the process meets both business and technological needs.

Q7: What role does a partner play in cost optimization during and after migration?

A qualified partner can analyze your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to ensure you are not paying for more resources than you need. They provide an AWS Calculator to depict future estimated costs and perform ongoing monitoring of resource usage.

Q8: How can a partner help if a company lacks the in-house skills for the migration?

An experienced partner has a team of AWS-certified architects and engineers who can do the “heavy lifting” for you. This means there is no need to wait until your own team is fully trained and confident about migrating applications and other resources.

* Sources:
IDC #US43535718 - Fostering Business and Organizational Transformation to Generate Business Value with Amazon Web Services; February 2018
Nucleus Research - Guidebook Understanding the Value of Migrating from On-premises to AWS for Application Security and Performance, June 2020
https://aws.amazon.com/cloud-migration/