AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials T1.3

AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF)

• The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) is a set of best practices, tools, and guidance to ensure smooth migration to and operation in the AWS Cloud, aligning with business goals and technical requirements.
• CAF offers multiple benefits including:
  • Reduced Business Risk: Identifies and mitigates potential risks (e.g., data loss, downtime, security, compliance).
  • Improved ESG Performance: Reduces carbon footprint by leveraging renewable energy.
  • Increased Revenue: Accelerates product development and deployment, enabling quicker market entry and service launches.
  • Increased Operational Efficiency: Automates manual processes via tools like AWS Systems Manager and AWS Lambda and optimizes resource utilization through managed services.
• CAF perspectives comprise six key areas for migration guidance:
  • Business: Aligning cloud investments with business outcomes (e.g., portfolio management, strategy).
  • People: Preparing teams for cloud adoption through training and culture shifts (e.g., upskilling).
  • Governance: Ensuring compliance, financial accountability, and risk management (e.g., using AWS Config for compliance monitoring).
  • Platform: Guiding cloud architecture design for scalability and security (e.g., using AWS CloudFormation).
  • Security: Protecting data and applications before and after migration (e.g., using AWS IAM and Amazon GuardDuty).
  • Operations: Optimizing operational processes for cloud environments (e.g., monitoring using Amazon CloudWatch).

Cloud Migration Strategies (6 Rs)

• AWS outlines six common migration strategies:
  • Rehosting (Lift and Shift): Moving applications to AWS with minimal changes (e.g., AWS Application Migration Service (MGN)). Suitable for legacy applications needing quick migration.
  • Replatforming (Lift, Tinker, and Shift): Moving applications to AWS with minor optimizations (e.g., using Amazon RDS). Suitable to boost performance without a full re-architecture.
  • Repurchasing: Replacing applications with SaaS solutions (e.g., replacing a custom CRM with Salesforce). Ideal for reducing maintenance costs and complexity of custom applications.
  • Refactoring/Re-architecting: Rebuilding applications leveraging cloud-native features (e.g., converting a monolithic application to microservices using AWS Lambda). Ideal for applications demanding enhanced scalability or modernization.
  • Retire: Decommissioning obsolete or redundant applications to reduce costs.
  • Retain: Keeping some applications on-premises (due to compliance or other constraints). Best for applications unsuitable or unprepared for immediate migration.

Resources for Cloud Migration

• AWS Migration Hub: Centralized dashboard for tracking migration progress and integrating with other migration tools.
• AWS Application Migration Service (MGN): Facilitates "lift and shift" migrations by converting on-premises workloads to AWS-compatible formats.
• AWS Database Migration Service (DMS): Migrates databases to AWS with minimal downtime, supporting both homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations.
• AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT): Converts database schemas for heterogeneous migrations (e.g., migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL).
• AWS Snowcone/Snowball/Snowmobile: Physical devices for data transfer. Snowcone (smaller datasets), Snowball (mid-to-large), Snowmobile (massive datasets, ideal for full data center transfers).
• AWS Well-Architected Tool: Evaluates workloads against AWS best practices for enhanced reliability, security, and cost efficiency.
• AWS Trusted Advisor: Automates recommendations for security, cost savings, and performance optimization.

Database Migration Strategies

• Database Replication: Uses AWS DMS for real-time data replication from on-premises to AWS to minimize downtime.
• Backup and Restore: Creates a database snapshot and restores it in AWS for simpler migrations.
• Homogeneous Migration: Migrates databases with the same engine (e.g., MySQL to Amazon RDS MySQL).
• Heterogeneous Migration: Conveys data and schemas for different database engines (e.g., converting from Oracle to an Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL database using SCT).

Benefits of AWS Cloud Migration

• Scalability: Auto Scaling tools allow automatic resource scaling for peak demand, avoiding over-provisioning.
• Cost Efficiency: Pay-as-you-go pricing, cost-saving options like Spot Instances or Reserved Instances
• Global Reach: Deploy applications closer to users with global AWS Regions and Availability Zones.
• Security and Compliance: Leverage AWS tools (e.g., IAM, AWS Shield, CloudTrail) to address security and compliance needs.
• Business Continuity: Multi-AZ or multi-region deployments for disaster recovery solutions.

Real-World Migration Scenarios

• Scenario 1 (Online Retailer Scaling): Scaling during holiday traffic surges by automating EC2 instances and leveraging Amazon RDS read replicas.
• Scenario 2 (Data Center Migration): Moving large datasets using a physical AWS Snowball device.
• Scenario 3 (Modernizing Applications): Modernizing monolithic applications into a microservice architecture on AWS.