Migrating and Modernizing Windows Workloads with AWS

Cloud adoption statistics continue to rise, but that doesn’t mean your company should jump on the cloud bandwagon — at least not without the right strategy and assistance.

It’s one thing to implement software-as-a-service (SaaS) or a cloud-first strategy for new systems. It’s an entirely different ball game when it comes to migrating Windows workloads to the cloud — particularly legacy systems and those that require high availability.

When moving to the cloud, it’s usually not enough to simply employ the basic “lift and shift” migration strategy, in which workloads are removed from an on-premises environment and placed in a cloud environment without re-architecting them. Many organizations have monolithic applications configured for fixed or static capacity in a few data centers. Some have stringent requirements for uptime.

Simply moving your Windows workloads to the cloud won’t enable them to perform optimally in the new environment or allow them to reap all the benefits that the cloud provides. That’s where cloud modernization comes in. Modernization involves taking an application in its current form and transforming it to run optimally in the cloud.

There’s also the factor of the cloud environment where applications will reside. Cliché as it sounds, not all cloud service providers are created equal. Some have more of a security focus. Others are equipped to offer greater uptime.

Still, others have an extensive track record of proven performance backed by significant resources. So, there are options when it comes to hosting your Windows workloads and optimizing them for the cloud. Perhaps the best option is Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS Credentials for Migrating and Modernizing Windows Workloads

AWS offers a vast toolset that continues to grow exponentially. Its capabilities, experience, reliability, security, and performance are unrivaled. Briefly:

AWS has an extensive global infrastructure for running workloads, requiring high availability with 81 Availability Zones (AZ) across 25 regions. That’s more than twice as many regions with multiple Availability Zones than the next largest cloud provider.
AWS has more than 12 years of experience running Windows workloads in the cloud.
The AWS Cloud platform offers over 200 fully-featured services.
AWS supports everything needed to build and run Windows applications including the first fully managed native Windows file system available in the cloud, FSx for Windows File Server.
With more than 230 security, compliance, and governance services and features, AWS offers five times more options than the next largest cloud provider.
AWS customers experience a 442% projected 5-year ROI when running Windows on AWS, according to IDC.

AWS Migration Resources

Migrating to any cloud platform — even AWS — isn’t easy. That’s particularly true for organizations that don’t have the internal resources and expertise to take on such a major initiative. Things get even more complicated when the complexities of moving legacy systems and meeting stringent uptime and compliance requirements are involved.

Fortunately, AWS offers a wealth of migration resources. They range from Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, which makes public internet transfers to Amazon S3 faster, to AWS Snowball, a petabyte-scale data transport solution that uses secure appliances to transfer large amounts of data in and out of AWS.

AWS Server Migration Service (SMS) makes it easier and faster to automate, schedule, and track incremental replications of live Windows server volumes. AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) supports both homogeneous and heterogeneous migrations, continuously and securely replicating data to and from the most widely used commercial and open-source databases, including Microsoft SQL Server.

In addition, companies lacking internal resources and expertise can accelerate their move to AWS by working with an AWS partner with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in cloud migration.

Why Partner with ClearScale for Modernizing Windows Workloads

This is where ClearScale comes in. ClearScale has been in business for over 10 years and has completed over 900 cloud projects. As one of the exclusive AWS Premier Consulting Partners, ClearScale holds competencies in 11 — including migration and Microsoft Workloads. We’ve helped numerous organizations assess, right-size, and move their Windows and SQL server workloads to AWS.

Check out these case studies as just a couple of examples of how ClearScale has helped our customers migrate and modernize on AWS:

If your organization is considering migrating and modernizing Windows workloads to AWS, let ClearScale help make it a successful endeavor. We can ensure the development of a cloud environment that will meet your needs for high availability, security, and whatever else you require.

Get in touch today to speak with a cloud migration expert and discuss how we can help:

Call us at 1-800-591-0442
Send us an email at sales@clearscale.com
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Read our Customer Case Studies