3 Reasons to Use the AWS Application Migration Service
Businesses looking to move their workloads to AWS quickly are often challenged to pick the best tool for the job. Choosing the best tool depends on the type of application being migrated and the intended disposition of that application on AWS. Fortunately, AWS has a myriad of tools to help customers move their applications swiftly and securely without having to build their own custom solutions, and one of those tools just made migrating to AWS a whole lot better.
This week, AWS added the AWS Application Migration Service (also referred to as “MGN”) to their portfolio of migration tools. This tool is designed to streamline the process of moving virtual, physical, and other cloud-based servers to Amazon EC2 without the need to make changes to source code or infrastructure. In a nutshell, a lightweight agent is installed on the source machine being migrated to AWS. Once installed, the agent performs a block-level copy of data of the source machines disks, syncing with the MGN service and copying the data to a staging area in AWS. Once initial synchronization has been completed and initial source data has been copied to AWS, the agent will continue to synchronize any new data written to the source server in realtime and store it in AWS via EBS snapshots. At that point, a copy of the source machine can be launched on Amazon EC2 with the click of a button: MGN will convert the snapshot then launch a copy of the original source server as an EC2 instance in AWS based on the user-define settings (instance type, VPC networking, etc). This service is based on the widely accepted CloudEndure Migration tool, which has been an integral part of AWS’s migration suite since 2019.
Here’s is why you should start using the AWS Application Migration service today:
1. It’s integrated directly into the AWS console
If you’ve ever used the CloudEndure migration tool to move your workloads to AWS, you already know all of the benefits that it can provide to teams performing large-scale migrations to AWS. Since the inception of CloudEndure into AWS’s portfolio, not much has changed in terms of how users interact with the tool. To get started with CloudEndure Migration, AWS administrators need to perform several steps to get started before they can start syncing their servers to AWS; subscribe to the AWS Marketplace Offering, sign up for a CloudEndure account, then setup an integration with their identity provider if they wish to standardize the way they access the CloudEndure console. While the process to get started with CloudEndure is not a daunting task, setting up and managing migration projects must be performed through an entirely separate system.
With the AWS Application Migration Service, users no longer need to use a separate login or portal to manage their migrations. This means that any user with an existing AWS account and login can get started without having to perform any other addition steps outside of having the proper IAM permissions to use the Application Migration service. Simply login to AWS, go the AWS Application Migration Service, and click the button to “Get Started”.
2. It’s integrated with other AWS services
Having the right tools to know the “who”, “what”, and “where” during a migration are incredibly important to operations teams when troubleshooting issues or gathering audit information. Teams looking to leverage their already existing tooling for auditing and logging can now get the same level of visibility during a migration.
Similar to other AWS services, all API calls executed by MGN or by other users against the service will be logged in AWS CloudTrail. Teams can use their existing SIEM solutions to process these CloudTrail events and take action if necessary. Additionally, all available logging and metrics related to a migration will be sent to CloudWatch, which means that teams can automate alerts and act should an issue arise during a migration or to perform automated testing. For example, once a source machine has been fully synchronized and enters the “READY_FOR_TEST” lifecycle state, it can send an event to EventBridge event. Teams can automate the handling of that event to kick off a test launch of the machine without the need to manually launch the instance, saving time and effort.
3. It’s Secure and Resilient
Security is unequivocally a top priority for businesses looking to migrate their workloads to AWS. Security teams want to ensure that their data is secure both in-transit and at rest at all times, especially when moving large amounts of data en masse. In addition, the core focus of migration teams is getting their systems moved as fast as possible without have to worry about the reliability of the tools. Much like the rest of their services, AWS exceeds customer expectations in both of those areas.
All communication between the source machine agent and the service/staging environment are encrypted end-to-end using AES-256 and TLS. Additionally, the snapshots in AWS created from the source machine and target machine disks can be encrypted at rest using AWS KMS keys. In terms of resiliency, the AWS Application Migration service is fully managed by AWS and all infrastructure provisioning throughout the replication and migration process is completely automated. This means that if one of the staging servers is accidentally deleted, the service will launch a new staging server and resume data replication without any user intervention.
The bottom line? It’s never been easier to migrate your servers to AWS with the AWS Application Migration service. If you’re using CloudEndure today, AWS recommends switching to this new service as the overall migration experience will be much more streamlined and likely to see additional features in the near future as the service continues to evolve.
