Introduction
The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) is built upon the learnings from many of customer engagements by AWS. By following the best-practises on AWS, this frameworks assists us in designing and implementing a comprehensive roadmap for our cloud adoption journey.
AWS Cloud Adoption Framework.
Envision Phase
The Envision phase of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) sets the foundation for cloud migration, led by the organization’s senior leadership. During this stage, the leadership team crafts a clear vision and strategy for cloud adoption. They outline key business objectives, desired outcomes, and success metrics to guide the transformation. The phase also involves identifying enabling technologies and prioritizing initiatives that will shape the migration vision. Crucially, senior leaders pinpoint key stakeholders essential for aligning the organization and driving progress in the next phase, Align.
Align Phase
The Align phase bridges the gap between the cloud adoption vision established in the Envision phase and the organization’s readiness to implement it. Key stakeholders, identified earlier, assess capability gaps across the six AWS CAF perspectives: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations. They also uncover cross-organizational dependencies and address stakeholder concerns. With these insights, the organization crafts strategies to enhance readiness, align teams, and implement the required changes. This phase establishes a solid foundation for executing the cloud migration plan.
Launch Phase
The Launch phase focuses on initiating the cloud migration journey and demonstrating its business value. Organizations implement their adoption plan by migrating initial workloads to the cloud and establishing operational processes and support structures. High-impact pilot projects are deployed in production environments to showcase value and inform future transformation strategies. Insights gained during this phase are used to refine the approach, ensuring the readiness for broader cloud migration efforts.
Scale Phase
The Scale phase emphasizes expanding and sustaining the success of initial cloud migration efforts. Organizations scale up pilot projects and validate that cloud investments are delivering the expected benefits. This phase involves optimizing the cloud environment, enhancing governance and operational models, and driving continuous innovation. By focusing on long-term value and transformation, the Scale phase solidifies the organization’s journey toward comprehensive cloud adoption.
Migration Strategies
A migration strategy defines the approach for transitioning a workload to the AWS Cloud. AWS identifies seven key strategies for migrating applications, collectively referred to as the 7 Rs:
- Retire
- Retain
- Rehost
- Relocate
- Repurchase
- Replatform
- Refactor or Re-architect
For large-scale migrations, the most commonly used strategies include rehost, replatform, relocate, and retire. The refactor approach, which involves modernizing applications during migration, is generally not recommended for large migrations due to its complexity and the challenges of managing a large number of applications simultaneously. Instead, organizations are encouraged to focus on rehosting, relocating, or replatforming applications first and address modernization after the migration is complete.
Key Questions for Choosing a Migration Strategy
When determining the appropriate migration strategy, it is essential to gather input from customers and application business owners. Consider asking:
- Who owns or supports the application?
- Which business units rely on this application?
- How critical is this application to the business?
These questions help assess the application’s value, dependencies, and role within the organization, guiding the selection of the most suitable migration strategy.
AWS Well-Architected Framework
This is a guide to help us evaluate the trade-offs of architectural decisions when building systems on AWS. By following this framework, we can adopt architectural best practices to design and operate workloads that are secure, reliable, efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable. It offers a consistent approach to assessing architectures against best practices and highlights areas for improvement. This review process fosters constructive discussions about design choices, rather than serving as an audit. AWS believes that well-architected systems significantly enhance the likelihood of achieving business success.
The framework is organized into six key focus areas, known as the pillars:
Operational Excellence
- Ensures the ability to support development and effectively run workloads.
- Emphasizes gaining insights into operations and continuously improving processes to deliver business value.
Security
- Focuses on safeguarding data, systems, and assets.
- Leverages cloud technologies to enhance security measures.
Reliability
- Ensures workloads perform their intended functions accurately and consistently over time.
Performance Efficiency
- Prioritizes the optimal use of computing resources to meet demands.
- Guides maintaining efficiency as requirements shift and technologies advance.
Cost Optimization
- Aims to maximize resource utilization and achieve outcomes at the lowest possible cost while meeting functional requirements.
Sustainability
- Addresses the environmental impacts of services throughout the workload lifecycle.
- Focuses on reducing resource usage, particularly energy consumption, by applying design principles and best practices.