AWS Migration Training Course: Move your applications and data to the Amazon cloud
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Description of the training: AWS Migration Training Course: Move your applications and data to the Amazon cloud
The AWS Migration training course deals with the riskiest moment in the life of an information system: the one where it moves house. Data centre exit, hosting contract ending, hardware reaching end of life — the reasons vary, the difficulty does not. What sinks migrations is almost never the cutover technique; it is what nobody inventoried.
Over 3 days, you follow a migration end to end: discovery and dependency mapping, choosing a strategy for each application (the seven Rs: rehost, replatform, refactor, repurchase, relocate, retire, retain), migrating servers with Application Migration Service, databases with DMS and its continuous replication, bulk data with DataSync and the Snow Family. Then the part everyone forgets: the cutover, the rollback plan if things go wrong, and post-migration optimisation — because an application that has merely been moved often costs more than it did before.
The course draws on the AWS Migration Acceleration Program and its three phases (assess, mobilise, migrate), and covers the migration portion of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) certification syllabus.
If AWS is new to you, our AWS Cloud Practitioner Training Course lays the groundwork, and our AWS Essential Services Training Course covers the target services. To design the destination architecture, see our AWS Solutions Architect Training Course then our AWS Advanced Architecture Training Course, which goes deep on hybrid connectivity and multi-account environments. Hardening the target belongs to our AWS Security Training Course, keeping the post-migration bill under control to our AWS FinOps Training Course, and migrating data warehouses to our AWS Data Engineer Training Course. To industrialise the deployment of the target infrastructure, our Terraform Fundamentals Training Course is a useful complement.
Good to know
Sessions are guaranteed from a single registrant (except in cases of force majeure). A preliminary discussion takes place between the participant and/or a company representative to fully take into account the participant’s profile. Assessment: quizzes, role-play and practical exercises. A certificate of completion is issued at the end of the training. This training covers the migration portion of the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) certification syllabus (exam not included). This training is part of our Cloud Computing Training Courses catalogue. Discover our other cloud training courses to master architectures, services and best practices on AWS, Azure and GCP. To get started on AWS, we recommend our AWS Cloud Practitioner Training Course as a prerequisite, which lays the foundations of the Amazon Cloud.
Objectives of the training: AWS Migration Training Course: Move your applications and data to the Amazon cloud
By the end of the training, participants will be able to:
- Run the discovery phase: inventory, dependency mapping, prioritisation criteria.
- Choose the migration strategy suited to each application (the seven Rs) and own its consequences.
- Build a business case and estimate the real cost of the target.
- Migrate servers with AWS Application Migration Service.
- Migrate databases with DMS, including continuous replication (CDC).
- Transfer bulk data (DataSync, Snow Family).
- Organise the cutover, the rollback plan and post-migration optimisation.
Prerequisites of the training: AWS Migration Training Course: Move your applications and data to the Amazon cloud
- Some initial AWS experience is required: compute, storage and networking services (EC2, S3, VPC, IAM) should already be familiar. The level of the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification is a sufficient base.
- Knowledge of your current information system — systems, databases, network — will be all the more useful given that the labs are built on realistic migration scenarios.
- Because every participant is unique, a personalised discussion with our expert allows us to design a training course perfectly aligned with their objectives.
Target audience of the training: AWS Migration Training Course: Move your applications and data to the Amazon cloud
- Architects and infrastructure engineers running a migration project to AWS.
- Systems and database administrators who must move existing workloads.
- Project managers and technical leads steering a data centre exit.
- Cloud consultants supporting migrations for their clients.
Detailed programme of the training: AWS Migration Training Course: Move your applications and data to the Amazon cloud
Framing the migration: discovery and business case
- What sinks a migration is almost never technical. Discovery phase: estate inventory, application dependency mapping (the one you think you know and do not), measuring real workloads. Tooling: AWS Application Discovery Service, Migration Hub. The AWS Migration Acceleration Program and its three phases: assess, mobilise, migrate. Building the business case: real current cost (usually underestimated) against target cost (usually underestimated too). Prioritisation criteria and wave planning.
The seven Rs: a strategy per application
- The core decision, and the one you regret longest. Rehost (lift-and-shift): fast, no immediate cloud benefit. Replatform: some optimisation without rewriting. Refactor: the real benefit, the real cost. Repurchase: replace with SaaS. Relocate: VMware Cloud on AWS. Retire: the most profitable strategy, and the most overlooked — up to 10% of an estate serves nobody. Retain: what does not move, and why. Workshop: classify a real application estate and defend your choices.
Server migration
- AWS Application Migration Service (MGN): continuous replication of the source server, testing without disrupting production, cutover when you are ready. Agents and network prerequisites. Migrating from VMware, Hyper-V, physical servers or another cloud. Sizing the target: the trap of the same shape as before, which reproduces the data centre overprovisioning. Migrating Windows servers and their licensing. Lab: migrate an application server end to end, with a test before cutover.
Database migration
- AWS Database Migration Service (DMS): homogeneous migration (same engine) and heterogeneous (engine change). Continuous replication (CDC): the mechanism that turns a whole weekend of downtime into a few minutes. Schema Conversion Tool: converting an Oracle or SQL Server schema to PostgreSQL, and honestly measuring what does not convert. Data validation after migration. Choosing the target: RDS, Aurora, or a self-managed instance on EC2.
Bulk data and storage transfer
- When the network is no longer enough. Calculating the real transfer time — a calculation that often changes minds. AWS DataSync for network file transfers, with integrity checking. Snow Family (Snowball, Snowmobile): when shipping disks beats fibre. Storage Gateway for transitional hybrid architectures. Migrating file shares to Amazon FSx and EFS. S3 storage classes and lifecycle policies from day one, so you do not pay hot-storage rates for archives.
Cutover, rollback and risk management
- The day that counts. Preparing the cutover window: go / no-go criteria, dress rehearsal, communication. DNS cutover and TTL management. Rollback plan: the one plan you hope never to run, and the only one whose absence is unforgivable. Wave-based migration: start with what hurts nobody. Temporary coexistence between old and new, and what that period costs. What you watch in the 48 hours that follow.
After the migration: optimise rather than endure
- An application that has merely been moved often costs MORE in the cloud than before. Right-sizing once real workloads are observed. Savings Plans and Reserved Instance commitments, once the estate has settled. Shutting down idle resources. Progressive modernisation: what you refactor afterwards, and in what order. Disaster recovery for the migrated environment. Decommissioning the old data centre — the step that finally realises the savings. Capstone workshop: build the full migration plan for a fictional estate.
Course highlights
- follows a real migration end to end: discovery, the seven Rs, cutover, rollback, optimisation;
- confronts what actually sinks migrations: the incomplete inventory and the sizing copied across as-is;
- devotes around 60% of the time to hands-on work in the AWS console (MGN, DMS, DataSync);
- runs in a group of 1 to 3 participants, which allows work on your own estate and your own cutover constraints.
FAQ
Do I need an actual migration project to take this course?
No, but it is the most common case — and that is where the 1-to-3-participant format earns its keep: the preliminary discussion lets us gather your real constraints (systems, databases, cutover window) and steer the labs towards them.
How does this differ from the AWS Solutions Architect training course?
Solutions Architect teaches you to design an architecture on AWS — the destination. Migration deals with the road there from what you already have: inventory, the seven Rs, replication tooling, cutover, rollback. The two complement each other: many participants take Solutions Architect for the target, then Migration for the journey.
Does the course prepare for a certification?
It covers the migration portion of the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) syllabus, but there is no AWS certification dedicated to migration. If certification is your goal, our AWS Solutions Architect Training Course is the route to take.
Does it cover Oracle and SQL Server migration?
Yes — it is a central case in the database module: schema conversion with SCT, heterogeneous migration to PostgreSQL or Aurora, and above all an honest assessment of what does not convert automatically, which is where the real workload hides.