A self-paced, practical blueprint for IT leads, architects and engineers planning a migration to a major public cloud platform such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. Seven lessons cover discovery and assessment, the business case, choosing migration strategies, building a landing zone, wave planning, data migration and cutover, and post-migration optimisation. The approach is provider-neutral, with notes on where platforms differ. This is independent training and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any cloud provider.
What you will learn
- Discover and assess applications and dependencies
- Build a migration business case and total cost comparison
- Choose a migration strategy for each workload
- Design a secure, governed landing zone
- Plan migration waves and runbooks
- Migrate data and execute cutover safely
- Optimise cost, performance and operations after migration
Lessons
- Discovery and Assessment
- The Migration Business Case
- Choosing Migration Strategies
- Building the Landing Zone
- Wave Planning and Runbooks
- Data Migration and Cutover
- Post-Migration Optimisation
Self-paced course from Tech Skills Library. Educational content only; it is not an accredited qualification, licence or credential. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Lessons
Discovery and Assessment
The Migration Business Case
A business case justifies the migration and sets measurable goals. Drivers Data centre exit, hardware refresh, scalability, agility, resilience, security improvements and access to managed services. Total cost of ownership Compare current costs, including hardware, facilities, power, licences, maintenance and staff time, with projected cloud costs. Include migration costs: tools, partner support, dual running and […]
Choosing Migration Strategies
Different workloads need different strategies. A common framework describes several options. Strategies Retire: switch off applications no longer needed. Retain: keep on-premises for now. Rehost: lift and shift virtual machines with minimal change. Relocate: move virtualised environments with platform tooling. Replatform: make small optimisations, such as moving to a managed database. Repurchase: replace with a […]
Building the Landing Zone
A landing zone is a pre-configured cloud environment with accounts or subscriptions, networking, identity, security and governance in place before workloads move. Account structure Separate environments and workloads using multiple accounts, subscriptions or projects, organised in a hierarchy for policy and billing. Identity Integrate with your identity provider, enforce multi-factor authentication and assign least-privilege roles. […]
Wave Planning and Runbooks
Migrations proceed in waves of related applications. Grouping Group applications that depend on each other into the same wave. Start with low-risk applications to build experience. Pilot Migrate a pilot application end to end to test tooling, processes and the landing zone. Runbooks For each migration, document pre-migration checks, migration steps, testing, cutover, rollback criteria […]
Data Migration and Cutover
Data migration is often the riskiest part. Approaches Offline transfer: copy data during a maintenance window, or ship physical devices for very large volumes. Online replication: continuously replicate data, then switch over with minimal downtime. Database migration services: support homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations. Planning Estimate data volumes and transfer times with available bandwidth. Plan for […]
Post-Migration Optimisation
Migration is the start of cloud operations, not the end. Cost optimisation Right-size resources based on actual cloud usage, use commitment discounts for steady workloads, schedule non-production shutdowns and remove orphaned resources. Performance Monitor latency and throughput; adjust instance types, caching and database configuration. Operations Update monitoring, alerting, backup, patching and incident processes for the […]