The Process & Tips for Migrating a Site to AWS

Amazon web services is a platform that is increasing in the list of preferences and having tips for migrating a site to AWS is important. With the increase in cloud computing. Many companies are preferring to have their data and information on remote servers rather than the normally owned servers. This reduces the cost of operation and also increases the level of security.

AWS holds more than 40% of the cloud computing market. This is higher than all the other service providers. This makes it one of the best platforms to consider for your website migration. The migration process should ensure no data or information is lost.

To help in migrating a site to AWS we have come up with this article. The article includes important guidelines you need for the move to Amazon Web Services. Moreover, we have listed some tips to ensure all goes well with this process. Are you ready to learn this? Well, let’s get right into it.

Why you might consider migrating your Services to AWS

First, let us learn about what AWS is and how it works. AWS is an acronym for Amazon Web Services, this is a household name when it comes to the field of cloud hosting. The services work in a way that you can rent some servers located in remote locations. Then instead of paying a one-time fee or a monthly fee, you get to pay as you go for the services on-demand.

All the administrative roles are done by the service provider. Then your team will undertake the basic operations.

Many reasons can lead to the migration to Amazon’s platform. Ranging from improved security, flexibility, and horizontal & vertical scalability. This will decrease the cost of operation. The cost is lower because you don’t need the initial capital to purchase the servers. All you need is to sign up for the services, migrate the site, and with that, you are good to go.

Reasons to Migrate to Amazon Web Services

Apart from the above general advantages, that come with migrating a site to AWS. There are other reasons to choose to join the platform. This includes creating a new solution on AWS. Then also migrate your site here. Some common reasons are:

When you don’t have the space for the self-hosted servers. This is not only in terms of the physical space. But also, to increase the professionals and security team. Something which will not be the case with shifting to the cloud.
Increase in operations– An increase in operation for your business means a need for more and higher computational power. In normal situations achieving this needs expensive servers and devices. To avoid this AWS comes in.
When adopting Remote workers – When you start encouraging working from home or hiring a distributed team, cloud computing is the deal. This will ensure you get to use the collaborative tools for more productivity.
For security reasons – In recent years data breaches tend to occur. Due to this, you need to have a high technology infrastructure that will ensure you enjoy levels of security—Count AWS in for this.

The list is endless, but these are some of the common reasons you may consider using amazon web services.

The Process of Migrating a WordPress Site to AWS

Migrating a site to Amazon web services is a process that should proceed in the right steps. This is to ensure the best ethical practices and avoid data loss. We recommend you hire professional service providers for these processes. We recommend checking the WordPress migration checklist.

It’s good to know how to undertake this process This is a plus for configurations and troubleshooting. Here are the steps to begin the process.

1. Begin by Coming up with a Team

You need to have a team to undertake this process. This introduces the role of a Migration Specialist. This is a person responsible for the whole process of migration. You can also use developers with the right skills. The team can consist of one to tens of talents for this. This will ensure the process is perfect.

When hiring, ensure you choose a team of experts that have the right skills. At least they should have the Amazon Web Services Certification. This will ensure you implement all the settings in the right way. Moreover, ensure you elaborate on the guidelines. For this case note to the team that it’s a migration.

2. Start the Planning Phase

After setting up the team, you need to move to the planning for the site. Start the planning with an assessment of the whole company’s infrastructure. This involves reviewing the flowcharts and application processes in the company. The following needs to be done in this phase:

Assess the operation cost and the time it needs to undertake this.
Decide on the tools that you need for this whole process.
With the help of an AWS Migration Specialist. You need to plan and undertake the configurations.
Gather the data for migration and do a backup to avoid data loss.
Ensure that you have a clear strategic plan.

After doing all these and ensuring everything is done you can now proceed to the next phase. Note that you might need to seek some permission from the top management. Moreover, ensure you uphold Sat Protection regulations when handling data.

3. Do the Discovery/ Analysis

The discovery phase calls for you to understand the type of workload. Moreover, consider everything in the process to be affected. Analyze all the areas that will be affected and alert the team in advance of a migration. You also need to study and understand the dependencies between an application on the site.

Here the aim is to analyze and discover all the systems and paths in the organization. Moreover, you need to analyze what information is accessible to who. Doing this will ensure you don’t end up exposing data to other members of the team. The team should familiarize themselves with everything in the organization.

Additionally, analyze which applications will need to be redeveloped and the ones to be maintained before and after the migration.

4. Build a WBS and a task Manager

The process should lead to a well-laid-down work breakdown structure. Do the calculations. Then sort the workload from the non-critical tasks to the critical ones. This will ensure your system operation goes well. Then as you sort, these items consider coming up with documentation on every step. This is key for future references by other software and AWS experts.

The Task Manager will be good to list the duration, the computation, and the tools you need for every workload. You can consider using general tools that AWS recommends you to use. This will ensure no conflicting issues.

In a nutshell, at the end of the day this stage should give you:

A group of the workload
The order of the sensitiveness
The dependencies between application and services
A list of activities and their details.
Get the server information and add update missing info

5. Do an awareness of the Talents

Then do awareness to all the talents explaining to them the changes. Explain what difference the cloud services will bring to the team. For example, the WordPress website to AWS move will call for the team to get new accounts. Doing this before migration is necessary to respond to their queries.

We also recommend opting for pre-migration training to equip the team with important insights. Moreover, announce if there is a change to the business objective and goals.

6. Undertake the Migration

Now it’s time to undertake the migration. Note the migration needs to be swift without affecting the operation of the business. Install the CloudEndure agent. This tool helps during the migration from physical, public/ private clouds, and other virtual data centers to AWS.

Then for each application, the AWS Migration expert should have a checklist to check all applications. Through the help of the team, they should validate them. Afterward, proceed to the network ports and firewalls. Moreover, ensure you go through other security features and validate them.

Then the team should ensure the backup is accurate. Moreover, it needs to be up to date to the day of migration. After that, the AWS specialist will request approvals from the stakeholders. Now from this, the migration can start. Then ensure you document everything. In most cases, a lot of iterative tasks. Be sure to wait until you complete the process.

Conclusion

With the increase in cloud computing operations, everyone is moving to the cloud. These trends cut across all areas of computing. The sooner you realize the importance of cloud computing the better. You may consider WordPress Website Migration. The above process for Migrating a site to AWS will help you achieve this.