AWS MGN lift-and-shift migration service overview and tips

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizations around the globe transitioned to the cloud to enable their newly remote workforces. This year could also see continued interest in cloud adoption as organizations make long-term commitments to remote work and hybrid work models. On Monday, Channy Yun, an AWS principal developer advocate, penned a blog post outlining the company’s new lift-and-shift application migration service. The piece provides an overview of the service, migration tips, product availability and more.

AWS lift-and-shift application migrations

In the AWS blog post, Yun explained that the recently launched AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) is now the recommended primary migration service for migrations to AWS. For future lift-and-shift migrations to AWS, Yun said the company now encourages switching to AWS MGN for people currently using CloudEndure and AWS SMS.

The blog post outlines a number of advantages offered by the AWS MGN cloud migration service. For example, Yun said AWS MGN allows organizations to “move applications to AWS without having to make any changes to the applications, their architecture, or the migrated servers.” Other noted benefits include the ability to automatically replicate servers and convert “source servers from physical, virtual, or cloud infrastructure to run natively on AWS” and minimize “error-prone” and “time-intensive” manual processes.

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“The service simplifies your migration by enabling you to use the same automated process for a wide range of applications. By launching non-disruptive tests before migrating, you can be confident that your most critical applications such as SAP, Oracle, and SQL Server will work seamlessly on AWS,” Yun said.

Because organizations can use AWS MGN to migrate “any application” from OS-supported source infrastructure, Yun said the service offers decreased migration costs as “there is no need to invest in multiple migration solutions, specialized cloud development, or application-specific skills.”

Tips: Using AWS MGN

The blog post also details general tips to bear in mind when using AWS to help people new to the service. To start out, customers will need to use the AWS MGN console to create a replication settings template and Yun recommends that organizations make sure they meet network requirements to run AWS MGN prior to configuring a template.

As a “best practice,” Yun recommends performing a weekly test at a minimum before an organization attempts to migrate their source servers as this will give teams “time to identify and solve problems before the cutover takes place.” To connect an instance and to “ensure that everything is working correctly,” Yun suggests using SSH or RDP once a team has launched test instances.

Additionally, Yun also recommends selecting a cutover time upfront as a best practice and redirecting users to the migrated source servers from the original post-cutover once the servers are migrated.

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AWS MGN availability

AWS MGN is available in a number of markets and regions including Northern Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Frankfurt, Ireland and Stockholm, according to AWS. If AWS MGN is not available in an organizations’ region, Yun suggests that customers consider CloudEndure Migration and with AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) listed as an option for customers who are unable to install an agent on their servers.

People seeking more information about AWS MGN can peruse the full AWS blog post.

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