Introduction To Cloud Migration Using Amazon Web Services

In the Course ‘Introduction to Cloud Migration with Amazon Web Services’, we will take a lot at various techniques to perform cloud migrations. When doing cloud migrations, there are two main migrations that we can perform: virtual machine migration and database migration. This course will have a general section of cloud migration and then more specific sections on database migration and virtual machine migration.

The idea of the course is to allow the student to follow along in their own AWS environment if they choose to do so. And the course material will be presented using the premise that the student is working for a company and has been given the task of performing a pilot project on cloud migration. By performing smaller scale virtual machine and database migrations during the pilot project, the student will have learned about the challenges of performing cloud migrations and can give their company recommendations and guidance on moving forward with a larger scale migration.

In the first section of the course, Cloud Migration Overview, we will address general techniques that are best practices for migrating to the cloud as well as specific features of the AWS platform that will support migrating databases and virtual machines to the cloud.

We will begin with the importance of establishing a solid performance baseline before migration as well as the importance of documenting your candidate system. We will also look at planning a good time frame for your migration and some of the factors that you need to consider when scheduling your migration window. In addition, we will look at some post-migration steps that are necessary to ensure that your system is operating correctly after the migration has taken place. These include running the necessary smoke test, contacting the right personnel and preparing to establish a new baseline once the system has gone into full production.

In the next section of the class, we will look at database migration and some of the issues that are involved when migrating an on-premise database to the cloud. We will also look at the two major types of migrations homogeneous and heterogeneous and some of the issues that are unique to both of these types of migrations. In addition to the mechanics of performing the migration, we will look at some of the performance considerations when migrating an on-premise database system to the cloud. To conclude the section, we will migrate a database using both homogeneous and heterogeneous techniques.

Next, we will take an in-depth look at virtual machine migrations. We will look at the various techniques that can be used to perform virtual machine migrations and detail the different hypervisors from which virtual machines can originate. We will look at the various operating systems that can be migrated and go in-depth on the file formats used to migrate virtual machines.

Finally, we will walk through the process of migrating a virtual machine from the AWS command line interface using AWS VM Import/Export. After performing an import, we can then export this same virtual machine back out of the AWS cloud environment. The benefits of this are in the area of Disaster Recovery. The section will conclude discussing and walking through various ways that migrating to the cloud can be used to greatly assist Disaster Recovery efforts.

This is an introductory course, and while the intent is not to provide an in-depth example on every possible cloud migration technique, it will provide a solid foundation in cloud migration and the skills to move forward with more complex cloud migration efforts.