Description

This curriculum spans the equivalent of a multi-phase cloud migration advisory engagement, covering technical, operational, and governance activities performed across infrastructure assessment, hybrid networking, workload transformation, and post-migration optimization in regulated enterprise environments.

Module 1: Assessing On-Premises Infrastructure Readiness

Conduct inventory audits of existing server hardware to identify end-of-life systems incompatible with cloud integration tools.
Evaluate legacy application dependencies on physical infrastructure, such as direct hardware access or proprietary drivers.
Map network latency between data center segments to determine which workloads can tolerate cloud-based processing delays.
Identify compliance-bound systems (e.g., air-gapped environments) that must remain on-premises due to regulatory constraints.
Quantify current power and cooling utilization to model cost avoidance from decommissioning physical racks.
Assess virtualization maturity by reviewing VM density, hypervisor versions, and snapshot management practices.
Determine storage tiering configurations and IOPS requirements to project cloud storage class needs.
Validate backup and disaster recovery configurations for alignment with cloud-native alternatives.

Module 2: Cloud Provider Selection and Contract Negotiation

Compare SLA terms across providers for guaranteed uptime, support response times, and financial credits for outages.
Negotiate reserved instance commitments based on projected workload stability over 1- and 3-year horizons.
Review data egress pricing models to avoid unexpected costs during large-scale data migrations.
Validate regional availability zones for alignment with data sovereignty laws in regulated industries.
Assess provider-specific tooling lock-in risks when adopting managed services like serverless databases.
Require contractual clauses for audit access and security incident reporting timelines.
Compare network peering options (e.g., AWS Direct Connect vs. Azure ExpressRoute) for hybrid connectivity.
Verify provider compliance certifications (e.g., FedRAMP, ISO 27001) against organizational requirements.

Module 3: Hybrid Network Architecture Design

Design VLAN-to-VPC/VNet mappings to maintain consistent segmentation during workload transition.
Implement BGP routing policies to enable dynamic failover between on-premises and cloud gateways.
Configure DNS split-horizon setups to resolve internal services across hybrid environments correctly.
Size and deploy redundant VPN tunnels or dedicated interconnects based on bandwidth utilization forecasts.
Enforce TLS 1.3 encryption on all cross-environment data transmissions.
Integrate on-premises identity providers with cloud directories using SAML or SCIM protocols.
Test latency-sensitive applications (e.g., real-time analytics) across hybrid topologies before cutover.
Deploy network monitoring agents to track packet loss and jitter across hybrid links.

Module 4: Data Migration Strategy and Execution

Select between online and offline data transfer methods based on dataset size and network throughput limits.
Use change data capture (CDC) tools to synchronize databases during phased migration windows.
Encrypt data at rest and in transit using customer-managed keys prior to cloud upload.
Validate referential integrity after migrating relational databases with foreign key constraints.
Implement throttling policies to prevent saturation of production network links during bulk transfers.
Stage data in landing zones with strict access controls before redistribution to target services.
Reconcile checksums between source and destination datasets to detect corruption.
Decommission on-premises storage arrays only after confirming data immutability and retention policies in cloud storage.

Module 5: Workload Refactoring and Optimization

Determine whether to rehost, refactor, or rebuild applications based on technical debt and cloud compatibility.
Containerize monolithic applications using Docker and orchestrate via Kubernetes for portability.
Modify application code to replace hardcoded IP addresses with DNS-based service discovery.
Replace legacy load balancers with cloud-native equivalents (e.g., ALB, NLB) and reconfigure health checks.
Implement auto-scaling policies using CPU, memory, and custom metrics from application logs.
Optimize stateful workloads by decoupling storage from compute instances using managed file or block services.
Refactor batch jobs to use serverless functions with event-driven triggers where feasible.
Re-architect session management to use distributed caches instead of local server memory.

Module 6: Security and Identity Governance

Enforce least-privilege access using IAM roles and policies mapped to job functions.
Integrate cloud identity with on-premises Active Directory via hybrid identity federation.
Deploy cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP) for runtime threat detection.
Implement centralized logging of all API calls using cloud-native audit trails (e.g., AWS CloudTrail).
Rotate access keys and secrets using automated credential management systems.
Apply data loss prevention (DLP) rules to detect and block unauthorized exfiltration of sensitive data.
Conduct permission boundary reviews to prevent privilege escalation in multi-account environments.
Enforce encryption of all managed disks and databases using customer-controlled keys.

Module 7: Cost Management and Resource Governance

Tag all cloud resources with cost center, project, and environment metadata for chargeback reporting.
Set up budget alerts and automated shutdown policies for non-production environments.
Right-size virtual machine instances based on CPU and memory utilization trends over 30-day periods.
Implement landing zones with service control policies to restrict unauthorized region or service usage.
Compare spot instance pricing against workload fault tolerance to determine eligibility for cost savings.
Consolidate billing accounts and enable payer account oversight for centralized financial control.
Monitor storage lifecycle policies to transition infrequently accessed data to lower-cost tiers.
Conduct monthly showback meetings with business units to review cloud spend variances.

Module 8: Operational Continuity and Monitoring

Integrate cloud monitoring tools (e.g., CloudWatch, Azure Monitor) with existing SIEM platforms.
Define and deploy standardized alert thresholds for latency, error rates, and resource saturation.
Establish runbooks for common failure scenarios, including DNS resolution failures and IAM misconfigurations.
Conduct failover drills between cloud regions to validate disaster recovery procedures.
Instrument applications with distributed tracing to diagnose performance bottlenecks across microservices.
Maintain immutable backups of critical databases using versioned, write-once storage buckets.
Rotate on-call responsibilities across teams with documented escalation paths for cloud incidents.
Perform quarterly configuration drift audits to ensure compliance with baseline security standards.

Module 9: Post-Migration Optimization and Decommissioning

Validate application performance benchmarks against pre-migration baselines to confirm SLA adherence.
Terminate redundant on-premises hardware and update asset inventory records accordingly.
Reclaim unused cloud resources identified through tagging and utilization reports.
Update disaster recovery plans to reflect revised RTO and RPO targets in cloud environments.
Conduct knowledge transfer sessions to transition operational ownership to cloud operations teams.
Archive legacy configuration management databases (CMDB) with final state documentation.
Re-evaluate vendor contracts for data center colocation, power, and cooling services for early exit options.
Implement continuous improvement cycles using cloud health assessments and architecture reviews.