Ultimate AWS Migration Checklist: Your Business Guide For 2025

Summary

Table of Contents

Introduction

Migrating your data center to AWS can offer immense scalability, performance, security, and cost-efficiency benefits. However, the migration process can be difficult and stressful without a clear plan. To help you make the transition smoother and more manageable, we’ve created this comprehensive AWS migration checklist for secure cloud transition, designed to cover every detail of the process.

With this on premise to AWS migration checklist we ensure you don’t miss any crucial steps, minimize risks, and achieve a seamless migration to AWS. Whether you’re a business with limited cloud experience or an enterprise scaling up to the cloud, here are the steps to migrate workloads to AWS effectively created just for you.

What is an AWS Migration Checklist?

An AWS migration checklist is a step-by-step guide that helps you move your applications, data, and systems to Amazon Web Services (AWS). It helps businesses plan and manage their migration smoothly, reducing risks. It includes tasks like evaluating your current setup, choosing the best migration approach, managing costs, ensuring security and compliance, and optimizing your system after the migration.

AWS Migration Checklist in 10 Simple Steps

Tick off every box in our detailed AWS migration checklist to seamlessly transition and migrate your systems to AWS with confidence and efficiency.

1. Pre-Migration Planning

Here’s an AWS migration preparation checklist for seamless transfer, which will establish a clear roadmap and lay a strong foundation for your AWS migration journey.

a. Assess Your Current Environment

• Infrastructure Assessment: Perform a detailed assessment of your current IT setup. Identify your servers, storage, networking, and applications affected by the migration.
• Dependency Mapping: Map out the dependencies between applications and systems to ensure a smooth migration that avoids business disruptions.
• Resource Utilization: Understand how resources are currently utilized. What are the performance limitations, and how can they be optimized in the cloud?

Read more in detail about Cloud Readiness Assessment

b. Define Business Objectives

• Clear your “Why’s”: Are your goals clear? Consider whether AWS provides significant cost savings, scalability, enhanced security, and better performance.
• Cost Savings: Will AWS provide significant savings over your current data center?
• Scalability: Is your goal to achieve better scalability and flexibility?
• Security: Are you looking to enhance security and compliance post-migration?
• Performance: Assess how moving to AWS can improve the performance of your applications and services.
• Alignment with Stakeholders: Ensure all key stakeholders understand and approve the migration goals.

Read more in detail about AWS Autoscaling.

c. Establish a Migration Team

• Team Composition: Assign key roles such as Cloud Champion, Project Manager, Solution Architect, Cloud Developer, and System Administrator.
• Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly define each team member’s roles and responsibilities to avoid confusion and ensure smooth coordination.
• Consult Experts: Consider AWS Migration Services or managed service providers to guide the migration process.

2. Financial Analysis and Budgeting

Analyze costs, plan your budget, and account for tools and services to ensure financial efficiency throughout the migration process. Follow these steps and incorporate the AWS migration checklist for a smoother transition:

a. Cost Assessment

• Current Infrastructure Costs: Calculate your current data center costs, including hardware, maintenance, power, and personnel.
• AWS Cost Projection: Use AWS Cost Calculator and AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment (OLA) to estimate the cost of running your infrastructure on AWS.
• TCO Analysis: Perform a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis to compare your current setup with the projected AWS setup.

Read more in detail about AWS Cost Optimization

b. Budget Planning

• Account for Migration Tools and Services: To facilitate the process, consider the necessary migration tools and services, such as AWS Migration Hub and Application Migration Service.
• Contingency Fund: Include a buffer for unexpected costs during the migration process.
• Ongoing AWS Usage: Budget for the ongoing costs of running your infrastructure on AWS after the migration.

3. Security and Compliance

Adhere to these steps in our AWS Migration checklist to strengthen security and ensure compliance with industry standards during and after the migration.

a. Security Assessment

• Current Security Posture: Evaluate your security measures and identify gaps in your on-premise infrastructure.
• AWS Security Services: Leverage AWS security services like IAM (Identity and Access Management), KMS (Key Management Service), and AWS Shield to enhance the security of your data during and after migration.

Know more about AWS security best practices

b. Compliance Check

• Industry Standards: Meet industry regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS to ensure compliance.
• Compliance Tools: Use AWS tools like AWS Artifact to access AWS compliance reports and AWS Config to maintain compliance.

4. Choosing the Right Migration Strategy

Review these cloud migration strategies in detail in addition to our AWS cloud migration checklist, and choose the one that best aligns with your goals and available resources.

a. Lift and Shift (Rehosting)

Aspect	Details
What It Is	Move applications to AWS without any changes
Pros	Fast & simple, Minimal disruption, Low initial cost
Cons	Limited cloud benefits, Higher long-term costs, Not future-proof
Time Taken	Weeks to months
Cost	Low initial cost, Higher long-term costs due to less optimization
When to Choose	This is for legacy systems needing quick migration with minimal changes

b. Re-platforming

Aspect	Details
What It Is	Move applications with slight adjustments to optimize them for the cloud
Pros	Some cloud benefits, Faster than refactoring, Minimal disruption
Cons	Partial cloud benefits, Requires development effort, Moderate flexibility
Time Taken	A few months
Cost	Moderate initial cost, Better long-term savings than lift and shift
When to Choose	This is for businesses seeking quicker migration with some cloud optimization but without a full redesign

c. Refactoring (Re-architecting)

Aspect	Details
What It Is	Completely redesign applications to leverage cloud-native capabilities
Pros	Full cloud benefits (scalability, elasticity), Long-term cost savings, Future-proof
Cons	High upfront cost, Longer migration time, Potential disruptions
Time Taken	Several months to over a year
Cost	High initial cost, Significant long-term savings due to cloud-native optimizations
When to Choose	This is for businesses aiming for long-term cloud transformation, scalability, and modernized applications

Note: These are the major cloud migration strategies; choosing the right approach is key. Select the strategy that aligns with your business objectives, budget, and schedule.

Confused about which migration strategy is right for you?

Leverage our AWS Managed Services to guide you through the best approach, ensuring seamless execution, cost optimization, and 24/7 support—so you can focus on business growth.

5. Preparing Your Applications and Data

If you are still constantly worried about how to migrate applications to AWS, Here is your data migration checklist to AWS to ensure compatibility, prioritize workloads, and streamline data migration.

a. Application Readiness

• Cloud Compatibility: Assess if your applications are cloud-ready. Group applications based on criticality, legacy status, and complexity to prioritize migration. Do they require modification, or can they run as-is in AWS?
• Prioritize Applications: Identify which applications should be migrated based on business impact, dependencies, and complexity.
• Evaluate Third-Party Solutions: Assess whether external services or third-party software need updates, replacements, or modifications to integrate smoothly with AWS.

b. Data Migration

• Data Classification: Identify critical, sensitive, and non-critical data to prioritize during migration.
• Online vs Offline Data Transfer: Choose between online (for smaller datasets) or offline (for large datasets) transfer methods.
• Data Integrity Checks: Validate your data’s integrity during and after migration to ensure it is transferred without corruption.

c. Create a Blueprint

Design a detailed cloud architecture blueprint to define the future state of your AWS environment.

• Rollback Plan: Create a backup plan to roll back the migration in case of any issues during the process.

6. Setting Up AWS Infrastructure

Follow these essential infrastructure setup steps in our AWS Cloud migration checklist to design and configure a secure, scalable AWS environment.

a. Designing AWS Architecture

• VPC Configuration: Set up Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and subnets and configure security groups, route tables, and network access control lists (NACLs).
• Network Configuration: Choose Direct Connect, VPN, or AWS Transit Gateway, depending on your network needs.

b. Establishing a Landing Zone

• Security Best Practices: Follow the AWS Well-Architected Framework to design a secure, scalable, cost-effective landing zone.
• Account Structure: Set up AWS Organizations to manage multiple accounts and consolidate billing.

Know more in detail about the AWS Well-Architected Tool

7. Migration Execution

Execute your migration in stages with a pilot and phased approach to ensure minimal disruption and high efficiency as per our AWS cloud migration checklist.

a. Pilot Migration

• Test with Non-Critical Systems: Start by migrating a small subset of less critical applications to your business operations.
• Identify Issues: Keep stakeholders informed about the migration’s progress and any adjustments to deadlines or project scope.

b. Full-Scale Migration

• Phased Approach: Migrate in stages, starting with non-critical applications and moving to mission-critical systems.
• Monitor and Optimize: Continuously monitor performance and security to ensure everything functions as expected.

8. Post-Migration Optimization

Use these optimization steps from our AWS cloud migration checklist to fine-tune your AWS environment for better performance, reduced costs, and sustained improvements.

a. Performance Tuning

• Right-Sizing: Optimize your AWS resources by adjusting them to your usage, preventing over-provisioning.
• Cost Optimization: Use AWS developer tools like AWS Trusted Advisor, AWS Cost Explorer, and Reserved Instances to reduce costs while maintaining performance.

b. Monitoring and Maintenance

• Continuous Monitoring: Use AWS CloudWatch and CloudTrail to monitor real-time applications, systems, and security events.
• Ongoing Updates: Regularly update your AWS environment with the latest patches and security fixes to maintain top performance.

9. Training and Change Management

These training and change management steps, outlined in the AWS cloud migration checklist, will ensure a smooth transition and align teams and stakeholders with the new cloud environment.

a. Staff Training

• AWS Tools Training: Train your IT staff on AWS management tools, security practices, and best practices for cloud operations.
• End-User Training: Ensure end-users are informed about any changes to their systems.

b. Change Management

• Stakeholder Communication: Regularly update stakeholders on the progress of the migration and any changes to timelines or scope.
• Feedback Collection: After the migration, collect feedback from IT teams and users to find areas for improvement.

10. Post-Migration Review

Now that you have followed our AWS cloud migration checklist evaluate success and identify areas for improvement to refine your AWS setup and plan for the future.

a. Evaluate Success

• Key Metrics: Measure the migration’s success by checking key results like cost savings, better performance, and user happiness.
• Document Learnings: Document lessons learned throughout the migration process to help with future migrations and cloud adoption efforts.

b. Continuous Improvement

• Iterative Enhancements: The cloud environment is ever-evolving. Keep updating your AWS settings and applications to utilize the newest features and improvements.

You should follow these essential steps in the AWS migration checklist for a seamless and cost-effective migration.

Migrate Seamlessly With Bacancy

At Bacancy, we deliver end-to-end AWS migration services tailored to your business needs. Our team supports you every step of the way, from planning to execution, ensuring a smooth, secure, and affordable migration to AWS. Follow our detailed AWS Migration checklist and stay worry-free throughout. Also, here’s how we help you throughout the process:

➮ Cloud Readiness Assessment: We thoroughly evaluate your infrastructure to ensure AWS compatibility and identify potential challenges ahead of migration.
➮ Custom AWS Migration Strategy: We create a migration plan tailored to your unique business objectives, focusing on cost efficiency, performance, and security.
➮ Advanced Migration Tools: Our team uses powerful AWS tools, including Migration Hub, CloudEndure, Server Migration Service (SMS), Database Migration Service (DMS), and AWS Application Discovery Service, to minimize downtime and ensure secure data transfer.
➮ Cost & Resource Optimization: We provide detailed cost projections and TCO analysis to help optimize your long-term AWS spending.
➮ Security & Compliance Assurance: Throughout the migration process, we prioritize data security and ensure compliance with key industry standards, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2.
➮ Application Modernization: We transform legacy applications into scalable, cloud-native solutions, enhancing performance and ensuring future adaptability.
➮ Hybrid & Multi-Cloud Integration: We ensure smooth, efficient connectivity across hybrid and multi-cloud environments for seamless data flow using AWS Direct Connect and Transit Gateway.
➮ Post-Migration Support & Optimization: We continue to offer support, real-time monitoring, and resource optimization to ensure your infrastructure performs at its best and minimizes costs.
➮ Cloud Management & Support: We provide ongoing management, training, and expert support to ensure your AWS environment is optimized and effective.