Description

This curriculum spans the equivalent of a multi-workshop technical advisory engagement, covering the same technical breadth and decision frameworks used in enterprise cloud migrations, from initial readiness assessment to post-migration operations.

Module 1: Strategic Assessment and Readiness Evaluation

Conduct workload dependency mapping to identify tightly coupled on-premises systems that may require refactoring before migration.
Evaluate application retirement candidates by analyzing usage metrics, maintenance costs, and business alignment.
Define migration sequencing based on business criticality, technical complexity, and compliance requirements.
Establish cross-functional migration governance teams with clear RACI matrices for decision rights and escalation paths.
Assess cloud readiness across network bandwidth, identity integration, and data sovereignty constraints.
Develop a total cost of ownership (TCO) model comparing on-premises, hybrid, and cloud operational expenses over a five-year horizon.

Module 2: Cloud Architecture and Target Environment Design

Select appropriate cloud regions based on data residency laws, latency requirements, and disaster recovery objectives.
Design multi-account structures using organizational units and service control policies in AWS Organizations or Azure Management Groups.
Implement network topology decisions including hub-and-spoke vs. mesh architectures using cloud-native transit gateways or third-party appliances.
Define VPC and subnet CIDR strategies to avoid IP overlap and support future scalability.
Choose between shared services models and dedicated environments for security, cost, and operational overhead trade-offs.
Integrate centralized logging and monitoring at the architecture design phase to ensure visibility across accounts and workloads.

Module 3: Data Migration Planning and Execution

Select migration methods for databases based on size, downtime tolerance, and consistency requirements (e.g., native replication, AWS DMS, Azure Data Box).
Implement data classification and encryption strategies prior to migration to meet regulatory and access control standards.
Design and test data cutover procedures, including rollback plans for failed migrations.
Coordinate data migration windows with business stakeholders to minimize disruption to transactional systems.
Validate data integrity post-migration using checksums, record counts, and reconciliation scripts.
Establish ongoing data synchronization for hybrid scenarios where legacy systems remain partially active.

Module 4: Application Refactoring and Modernization

Determine whether to rehost, refactor, rearchitect, or replace applications based on technical debt and long-term maintainability.
Migrate monolithic applications to containerized environments using Kubernetes while preserving session state and configuration.
Implement feature flagging to decouple deployment from release during phased rollouts in cloud environments.
Refactor stateful applications to use managed cloud storage services (e.g., Amazon EFS, Azure Files) instead of local disk dependencies.
Integrate cloud-native services such as serverless functions or managed databases to reduce operational overhead.
Address DNS and routing changes required for applications with hardcoded endpoints or legacy service discovery mechanisms.

Module 5: Identity, Access, and Security Integration

Extend on-premises Active Directory to the cloud using AD Connect or AWS Managed Microsoft AD with secure connectivity.
Implement least-privilege IAM policies using attribute-based access control and just-in-time elevation.
Enforce multi-factor authentication for all administrative access to cloud management consoles and APIs.
Integrate cloud logging with existing SIEM systems using native streaming or third-party connectors.
Configure encryption key management using customer-managed keys in AWS KMS or Azure Key Vault.
Perform permission boundary reviews to prevent privilege escalation in multi-tenant cloud accounts.

Module 6: Network Connectivity and Hybrid Operations

Establish private connectivity using AWS Direct Connect or Azure ExpressRoute with redundant physical circuits.
Configure BGP routing policies to control traffic flow between on-premises and cloud environments.
Implement DNS resolution strategies across hybrid environments using split-horizon or conditional forwarders.
Design firewall rules and security groups to enforce segmentation between cloud workloads and legacy systems.
Monitor latency and packet loss on hybrid links to validate application performance SLAs.
Plan for failover scenarios where cloud connectivity is lost, including local caching and degraded mode operations.

Module 7: Governance, Cost Management, and Optimization

Implement tagging standards across resources for cost allocation, ownership, and automation enforcement.
Configure budget alerts and anomaly detection using AWS Cost Explorer or Azure Cost Management.
Negotiate reserved instance commitments after analyzing utilization patterns over a 90-day period.
Enforce resource provisioning policies using AWS Config or Azure Policy to prevent non-compliant deployments.
Conduct monthly cloud spend reviews with business unit leaders to align usage with strategic objectives.
Automate shutdown schedules for non-production environments to reduce idle resource costs.

Module 8: Operational Readiness and Post-Migration Validation

Update runbooks and incident response procedures to reflect cloud-specific failure modes and tooling.
Validate backup and restore processes for cloud-native services such as RDS, Cosmos DB, or S3.
Conduct load testing in the new environment to confirm performance meets or exceeds on-premises baselines.
Perform disaster recovery failover tests using cloud-native capabilities like AWS Backup or Azure Site Recovery.
Train operations teams on cloud console navigation, CLI usage, and monitoring dashboards.
Establish KPIs for migration success, including system availability, mean time to recovery, and user satisfaction scores.