How to Modernize Microsoft Workloads on AWS

Legacy Microsoft technologies are holding companies back in the modern computing age. Windows Server, .NET Framework, SQL Server, and other Windows software formed the IT backbone for countless organizations in the late 80s through the early 2000s. Fast-forward to today, many of these enterprises are now stuck in place or losing ground to more agile, cloud-native businesses.

The problem is that upgrading or replacing these legacy Microsoft technologies is not easy. First, many companies don’t have the in-house expertise to modernize Windows applications successfully on the cloud. Designing effective cloud architectures requires a new way of thinking that emphasizes flexibility and agility. Long gone are the days when having a single codebase (i.e., monolithic applications) was the best way to enable fast development.

What’s more, enterprises that have relied on Windows technologies for decades have so many resources, dependencies, and licenses to consider before moving forward with any migration. One wrong step can create tremendous risk for a company and its customers. And while some organizations may be candidates for lift-and-shift migrations, these projects often leave significant value on the table and don’t fully unlock the power of the cloud.

Getting Microsoft workloads to a cloud platform like AWS and then modernizing appropriately is a massive undertaking. The good news is that it’s worth the investment with the right expertise and solution set involved.

The Benefits of Migrating to AWS

Migrating Microsoft workloads to AWS opens up countless doors of opportunity.

One of the biggest benefits of moving Windows workloads to AWS is that organizations can break free of inflexible licensing agreements and modernize legacy .NET Framework applications to .NET Core. AWS offers pay-as-you-go pricing, which means teams only incur costs for the resources they use. Companies can scale Windows workloads seamlessly with serverless functions, IaC, and containers. Additionally, the AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessment tool helps identify ways to finetune compute resources and lower expenditures across Microsoft licenses when preparing for the migration journey.

Adopt Managed Databases

Furthermore, Microsoft users can adopt managed database solutions that require far less administrative work than legacy MS SQL databases. With managed cloud databases, engineers don’t have to worry about patching, scaling, provisioning, or even securing their Microsoft databases. AWS can handle this automatically based on custom configurations that are tailored to specific use cases. For those with more stringent security requirements, AWS makes it easy to control exactly who can access different resources and quickly identify vulnerabilities, configuration changes, or security gaps.

Accelerate Innovation

Companies can also accelerate innovation with their Microsoft workloads on the cloud. For example, AWS offers powerful data management solutions for every part of the big data pipeline, from ingestion to visualization. Teams can implement purpose-built databases for various microservices, rather than maintain unwieldy monoliths. Plus, building modern applications with the latest GenAI or AI/ML advancements is far less intimidating with AWS’ vast machine learning suite. Then, there’s a host of DevOps services and CI/CD tools that speed up time-to-market for new .NET app features that customers desperately want.

Visit this page to see the full range of the Windows-specific services that AWS provides. No matter the business requirement, AWS has an answer. All organizations have to do is determine what solutions they need to achieve their unique goals. This is where ClearScale comes in.

Modernize Your Microsoft Workloads with ClearScale and AWS

ClearScale is an AWS Premier Tier Services partner that has helped Microsoft users in every industry migrate and modernize Microsoft workloads on AWS. Our team has earned over 100 AWS technical certifications, as well as 12 AWS competencies, including the Microsoft Workloads competency, which demonstrates our ability to deliver tangible results for projects involving Microsoft-based applications. We can accelerate your on-prem to AWS Microsoft migration, mitigate risk, and set your organization up for long-term success on the cloud.

For example, we worked with a health engagement company that was closing one of its on-premises data centers on a short timeline. Our client brought us in to migrate hundreds of virtual machines, applications, and Microsoft SQL databases. We were also charged with building a new microservices platform and leveraging automation wherever possible. Our team executed the migration and deployed an efficient cloud architecture that cut costs and improved the company’s ability to scale quickly with demand.

We also recently helped a customer in the alcohol monitoring industry address uptime and redundancy issues across multiple applications. Our cloud engineers implemented highly available, multi-AZ cloud infrastructure on AWS. We also designed a new CI/CD process that made it easier for our client’s engineering team to deploy app updates by automating the creation of custom Windows Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). As a result of our efforts, the company has much faster application release cycles and minimal downtime or scalability issues.

To learn more about our Windows Modernization services, schedule a call with one of our solutions architects.

You can also download our eBook Modernize Windows Workloads on AWS With ClearScale.