AWS has introduced the AWS Well-Architected Migration Lens, an extension of the Well-Architected Framework. This extension incorporates best practices and implementation guidance that customers can utilize in their migration program across the three phases: Assess, Mobilize, and Migrate.
The company describes the Migration Lens as a collection of customer-proven, time-tested design principles, and best practices to help customers align their migration to AWS best practices across the migration phases. The recommendations are based on the company’s insights from supporting thousands of its customers through large-scale cloud transformation projects.
The Migration Lens includes three primary areas:
- Well-Architected Migration Design Principles: a collection of general migration principles that serve as foundational guidelines for the customers’ migration process.
- Migration Phases and Well-Architected Pillars: the Migration phases consist of the Assess phase, where organizations evaluate their current environment and align stakeholders, while the Mobilize phase involves thorough planning, migration strategy formulation, and groundwork for AWS setup, leading to the Migrate phase, where actual migration of applications, data, and workloads occurs with a focus on rigorous testing for seamless post-migration functioning. The Well-Architected Pillars of Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability address the aspects required to create well-architected workload architectures.
- Best Practices: Each migration phase consists of best practices that apply across the Well-Architected Framework pillars, regardless of the customers’ technological context, and provides detailed implementation guidance, including specific recommendations and references to AWS tools, along with a curated list of resources such as links to documentation, blogs, and videos supporting the best practices and their implementation strategies.
Nick Bunev, a Cloud consultant at HeleCloud, tweeted:
I'm seeing a bit of an overlap between the Migration Lens and Assess / Mobilize phases. The Lens would likely help to put some things into perspective, but it's also making it a bit hard to understand when you should do one or the other and how they align.
Continuing in another tweet:
Like when exactly the Lens should come into the picture. Before Assess or after each phase? Logically, you wouldn't need a WAFR before the Mobilize, as there wouldn't be much to review.
Hyperscalers AWS, Microsoft, and Google offer a Well-Architected Framework to guide customers on their cloud platforms. Over the years, these frameworks have been in place to help customers and partners improve their cloud architectures. AWS started in 2015 with the AWS Well-Architected Framework, and Microsoft followed with the Azure Well-Architected Framework in 2020 and Google’s Cloud Architecture Framework.
The Migration Lens joins a collection of lenses in the AWS Well-Architected Framework focusing on specialized workloads such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Gaming Industry, Machine Learning (ML), SAP, and Serverless Applications. More details on the lenses are available on the online documentation pages.