Description

This curriculum spans the technical and operational rigor of a multi-workshop cloud migration program, matching the depth of an internal capability build for enterprise application modernization across strategy, security, infrastructure, and ongoing governance.

Module 1: Strategic Assessment and Readiness Evaluation

Decide whether to prioritize business-critical applications or low-risk systems for initial migration based on downtime tolerance and recovery requirements.
Conduct a technical inventory to classify applications by dependencies, data sensitivity, and integration points with legacy systems.
Evaluate existing SLAs with on-premises vendors to determine compatibility with cloud provider uptime commitments and support models.
Assess internal team skill gaps in cloud architecture, security, and operations to determine reliance on external consultants or managed services.
Negotiate data sovereignty requirements with legal and compliance teams when selecting cloud regions for deployment.
Establish performance baselines for CPU, memory, and I/O utilization to compare post-migration efficiency and cost.

Module 2: Application Refactoring and Modernization Planning

Determine whether to rehost (lift-and-shift), refactor (platform update), or rebuild (cloud-native) based on application architecture and long-term ownership cost.
Break monolithic applications into microservices only when clear operational benefits exist, such as independent scaling or deployment cycles.
Migrate stateful components cautiously, ensuring persistent storage requirements are met with managed services like cloud disks or databases.
Modify application configuration to support dynamic cloud environments, including auto-recovery, ephemeral IPs, and DNS-based service discovery.
Replace hardcoded on-premises IP addresses and file paths with cloud-native configuration management tools like AWS Systems Manager or Azure App Configuration.
Integrate health checks and liveness probes into containerized applications to align with orchestration platform expectations.

Module 3: Cloud Infrastructure Design and Provisioning

Select virtual machine types based on workload profiles, balancing compute, memory, and network performance against hourly cost.
Design virtual private cloud (VPC) topologies with subnet segmentation for web, application, and database tiers to enforce security boundaries.
Implement infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform or AWS CloudFormation to ensure repeatable, auditable deployments.
Configure DNS routing policies to support blue-green deployments and failover across availability zones.
Size and provision managed database instances with appropriate storage IOPS, backup retention, and read replica needs.
Define auto-scaling policies using metrics like CPU utilization or request latency, including cooldown periods to prevent thrashing.

Module 4: Data Migration and Synchronization

Choose between online and offline data transfer methods based on data volume, network bandwidth, and acceptable downtime windows.
Encrypt data in transit using TLS and at rest using customer-managed or cloud provider keys during migration.
Validate referential integrity after database migration by running consistency checks and reconciling discrepancies.
Use change data capture (CDC) tools to maintain synchronization between source and target databases during cutover phases.
Plan for timezone and locale differences when migrating timestamped or region-specific data.
Test data access performance post-migration to confirm query response times meet application requirements.

Module 5: Identity, Access, and Security Integration

Map on-premises Active Directory groups to cloud IAM roles using federation services like AWS SSO or Azure AD Connect.
Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for privileged cloud console and API access, excluding service accounts with automated rotation.
Apply the principle of least privilege by granting granular permissions instead of administrative roles to application service accounts.
Integrate cloud logging with existing SIEM systems using native export features or streaming agents.
Configure network security groups and firewall rules to restrict inbound access to application ports and administrative interfaces.
Rotate long-lived access keys and secrets using automated credential rotation tools or cloud-native secret managers.

Module 6: Operational Continuity and Monitoring

Deploy monitoring agents to collect application logs, metrics, and traces in a centralized observability platform.
Define alert thresholds for critical metrics such as error rates, latency spikes, and resource exhaustion.
Implement automated backup and snapshot schedules for virtual machines and databases with retention policies aligned to compliance needs.
Test disaster recovery procedures by simulating zone failures and validating failover to secondary regions.
Document runbooks for common operational incidents, including database failover, instance replacement, and DNS misconfigurations.
Establish cost allocation tags for resources to enable chargeback reporting and identify underutilized instances.

Module 7: Governance, Compliance, and Cost Management

Enforce tagging policies using cloud policy-as-code tools like AWS Config or Azure Policy to maintain accountability.
Conduct monthly cost reviews to identify underutilized resources and rightsizing opportunities for compute and storage.
Implement budget alerts and spending caps to prevent unapproved resource provisioning and cost overruns.
Validate compliance with regulatory frameworks (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR) by enabling audit logging and conducting periodic assessments.
Restrict deployment to approved regions and services using service control policies (SCPs) in multi-account environments.
Negotiate reserved instance or savings plan commitments only after analyzing at least three months of stable usage patterns.

Module 8: Post-Migration Optimization and Continuous Improvement

Refactor applications to leverage serverless computing where event-driven processing reduces operational overhead.
Replace provisioned database instances with serverless options when workloads exhibit variable or unpredictable traffic.
Optimize data storage tiers by moving infrequently accessed data to lower-cost object storage classes.
Review API gateway configurations to enforce rate limiting, caching, and request validation for public endpoints.
Update CI/CD pipelines to include security scanning, infrastructure validation, and automated rollback capabilities.
Conduct quarterly architecture reviews to assess alignment with evolving cloud best practices and business requirements.