What is AWS MAP (Migration Acceleration Program)?
AWS MAP (Migration Acceleration Program) is a program from AWS for organizations who want to migrate their workloads to the cloud. Cloud migrations can be long, complicated, and expensive projects, but MAP aims to alleviate some of those challenges by providing organizations with tools, best practices, training, investments, and more.
In this post, we’ll take a look at how AWS MAP works in addition to how AWS Migration Competency Partners and AWS migration consultants can help smooth your switch to the cloud. But if you need help now, check out our AWS talent solutions to find the right AWS migration consultant for your move. Our community of US-based AWS professionals is available for hourly, contract, and full-time work to assist with your migration.
How AWS MAP works
Made for enterprise organizations, MAP offers a number of tools and resources to help organizations with migration projects. The program takes a three-phased approach:
- Assess. AWS provides a migration readiness assessment to help you identify the capabilities you’ll need for the migration and create a total cost of ownership (TCO) model.
- Mobilize. In this phase, you’ll fix the capability gaps you identified in the Assess phase to build an operational foundation for the migration. You’ll also create your migration plan.
- Migrate and Modernize. Execute on your migration plan with help from AWS Migration Services, the AWS Professional Services team, and AWS Migration Partners. For most lift-and-shift projects, this phase mainly consists of re-architecting and building your cloud applications in AWS.
MAP also offers MAP-specialized workloads for Mainframe, Databases, VMware Cloud on AWS, Windows, Storage, SAP, and Connect. Each phase of the program comes with its own set of tools, helping you boost productivity and automate tasks where possible.
Benefits of AWS MAP
Apart from providing you with a simple three-step process for migrating your workloads to the cloud, AWS MAP offers a number of other benefits. Consider the following:
- Reduced risk. AWS developed this program over years of working with enterprise customers on migrating their workloads and data. The approach they recommend helps you migrate more quickly, avoid hiccups, and save money by reducing unnecessary spending.
- Access to funding. You can qualify for AWS service credits or partner investments to help offset the one-time expenses associated with moving to the cloud. Companies in migration sometimes have to run parallel environments and hire additional staff, making cloud migration a costly undertaking.
- Cost savings. By working with you to define business objectives from the outset, MAP can help you estimate costs, right-size your cloud infrastructure, and build a business case to your board of directors.
- Minimize downtime. MAP comes with a number of tools to help reduce downtime during the migration process. For example, AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) keeps your databases running during the migration, preventing applications that depend on them from going down.
Whether your organization is looking at doing a lift and shift (rehost) or re-architecting migration, MAP can help make the process as smooth as possible. If you feel you need additional help, AWS also issues certifications to third-party companies who act as AWS MAP partners to advise on your migration.
Should you hire a cloud migration consultant?
If you need a hand with your cloud migration, you might benefit from hiring a cloud migration consultant. Cloud migration consultants are typically AWS Partners who handle your cloud migration for you using the MAP program. These are usually companies that employ cloud solutions architects, but you can hire cloud migration consultants as individuals, too.
AWS created the AWS Competency Partner Program to verify and promote AWS Partners capable of assisting with cloud migrations. These Partners must meet high standards for technical know-how and customer satisfaction to participate in this program, and they usually have experience with a variety of AWS functions and services.
Before hiring a cloud migration consultant, ask yourself the following questions:
- Does our current staff have the bandwidth to take on a project this big?
- Is our staff knowledgeable about the AWS Well-Architected Framework?
- Does our team have experience using AWS CloudFormation to automate tasks and manage infrastructure as code?
- Are we confident we can secure the AWS investments we need to make the migration financially feasible?
- Will we need access to additional funding beyond what AWS can supply?
If you’re worried about funding or your staff is already at full capacity and doesn’t have much previous experience with AWS, it might be a good idea to hire a cloud migration consultant. You’ll see some big names on the AWS website like Accenture, Deloitte, and IBM, but there are plenty of smaller companies to choose from if that works better for your organization.
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