Understanding SaaS

SaaS, or cloud application services, are services where most of the heavy lifting is done by the cloud provider (in this case, AWS). In this case, you will not have to install software or worry about the operating system or software patches. Your focus will be on customizing the application's business logic and supporting your users. Most SaaS will only need browser access as most of the computation will be done on the cloud side.

SaaS gets rid of the need for your staff to visit individuals' devices in terms of software installation. AWS is fully responsible for any issues on the server, middleware, operating system, and storage levels. Let's now analyze the characteristics that makeup SaaS, the advantages and disadvantages of using a SaaS deployment, and some SaaS examples.

Characteristics of SaaS

These are the clues that will help determine if a service is a SaaS:

• It is managed by the vendor (such as AWS).
• It is hosted on a third-party server.
• It...

Selection by use case of SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS

Each model you learned, including the on-premises model, has advantages and disadvantages. The one you should choose depends on your specific business requirements, what features are needed, and the developers and testers that comprise your team. You might need a fully out-of-the-box solution, and time to market might be a more important consideration than price. Or perhaps you have regulatory constraints that force you to have complete control of the environment. AWS offers a lot of assurances regarding their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and compliance certifications. The more levels in the stack you decide to manage, the more effort you will exert to verify that your systems comply with the different regulations.

In general, one good rule of thumb is to let AWS take over the management of your resources whenever possible. You only take over the responsibility whenever necessary. For example, could you imagine trying to implement the functionality...

Cloud Migration Strategy

The proportion of IT spending shifting to the cloud is accelerating. With predictions, over 45% of system infrastructure, infrastructure software, application software, and more will move from traditional solutions to the cloud by 2024. Migrating to AWS Cloud makes your organization more innovative by enabling them to experiment and be agile. The ability to move fast and achieve business values quickly for your users is what truly matters for your company's cloud migration.

By migrating your digital assets to the cloud, you can gain better insights from your data, innovate faster, modernize aging infrastructure, scale globally, and restructure organizational models to create better customer experiences. Often, cost reduction is one of the primary drivers of migrating workloads to the cloud. In practice, organizations regularly see the value of migration going well beyond the cost savings from retiring legacy infrastructure.

As you have started to discover...

The three-phase migration process

The followings are three phases of cloud migration:

1. Assessment phase – This is the discovery phase where; you can assess your on-premises or co-location resources and build out a right-sized and optimized cost projection for your specific needs for running workloads in the cloud. You can build a Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA) to evaluate an organization's cloud readiness using AWS Migration Evaluator, formerly known as TSO Logic. You can use AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) to guide cloud readiness and migration organizations. You will learn details about CAF later in this chapter.
2. Mobilize phase- In the Mobilize phase, you address gaps in your organization's readiness uncovered in the assessment phase. Your focus should be on building your baseline environment, driving operational readiness, and developing cloud skills. You can use the AWS cloud adoption readiness tool that helps you develop plans for your cloud adoption based...

Cloud migration patterns - The 7 R’s

There is more than one way to handle migration. The followings are the 7 R’s cloud patterns defined by AWS:

1. Rehost
2. Re-platform
3. Refactor
4. Relocate
5. Repurchase
6. Retain
7. Retire

Creating a detailed strategy that identifies your workloads’ best patterns is essential to accelerating your cloud journey and achieving your desired business objectives. Let’s learn a full breakdown of the 7 R’s and what each migration pattern brings to the table.

Rehost in the cloud

This method is also commonly known as lift and shift. By rehosting your application in the cloud, you perform the least work to move your workloads to the cloud. Applications are being rehosted as they are in a different environment. Services are simply migrated. Let's say, for example, that you are hosting a simple three-tier application on your on-premises environment that is using the following:

• A webserver
• An app server
• A database server

Using the lift...

Migration assessment tools

You don't have to reinvent the wheel as you migrate your workloads and projects from your current environment to the cloud. As you can imagine, many others have already started this journey. AWS and third-party vendors offer various tools to facilitate this migration to facilitate this process. A few examples of services and tools that are worth exploring are as follows:

1. AWS Migration Hub: AWS Migration Hub is a central repository that can be used to keep track of a migration project
2. AWS Application Discovery Service: AWS Application Discovery Service automates the discovery and inventory tracking of different infrastructure resources, such as servers and dependencies.
3. AWS Migration Pattern Library: This is a collection of migration templates and design patterns that can assist in the comparison of migration options and alternatives.
4. CloudEndure Migration: CloudEndure Migration is a product offered by AWS that simplifies cloud migration by automating many...

Implementing a digital transformation program

In the previous section, you spent some time understanding AWS cloud migration strategy. In this section, you will learn how to perform the transformation from legacy on-premises technologies into the cloud.

As you can imagine, this can be a difficult exercise, especially for large enterprises that have a long history of using old technologies and have made significant investments in them. Deciding to start migrating applications and on-premises services to the cloud is not a decision that can be made lightly. A complete migration will likely take years and potentially can cost millions of dollars just on migration, transformation, and testing costs.

For this reason, important decisions need to be made along the way. Some of the most critical decisions that need to be made are as follows:

Should you perform the bare minimum amount of tasks to achieve the migration, or do you want to use this change as an opportunity to refactor, enhance, and...