What is AWS MAP?

AWS MAP (Migration Acceleration Program) is an AWS initiative designed to help organisations migrate and modernise their workloads into AWS. It is built upon AWS’s own experience in migrating thousands of enterprise customers into the cloud. It is delivered by partners with proven AWS technical expertise, using a three phased framework: Asses, Mobilze, Migrate and Modernise. This outcome driven methodology creates a strong AWS foundational layer, accelerates and reduces risk, and offsets the initial cost of migration.

How does AWS MAP work?

The three phases of a MAP engagement are designed to reduce the complexity and costs of migration and ensure successful delivery of the program.

These phases are:

1. Assess: an in depth analysis is conducted to determine your readiness for migration. This isn’t limited to a technical breakdown of workloads and services but includes detailed fact finding around business case, process and requirements. A migration readiness assessment (MRA) workshop identifies capability gaps and builds a TCO model to determine if MAP is the right program for you.
2. Mobilize: breaking down the mobilize phase into workstream activities we lay the foundations of tooling, processes and culture that will accelerate and derisk migration at scale. This includes adding detail to the business case, an in-depth portfolio discovery, application migration, migration governance, creation of a landing zone, understanding security, risk and compliance requirements, operations and people.
3. Migrate and Modernize: migrating and, where appropriate, modernising your workloads with AWS. We use the building blocks, processes, tools, resources and methodologies defined and tested in the previous phases to ensure a successful engagement.

It’s important to note that the completion of a successful MAP engagement does not always result in a complete migration from legacy data centres or other cloud providers. Scoping and identifying quantifiable success outcomes is extremely important and migration can be broken down into multiple MAP projects.

Benefits of AWS MAP

The AWS MAP program offers a number of benefits to organisations looking to migrate to AWS. These include:

1. A comprehensive set of tools and resources - developed by AWS these tools and resources help organisations follow tried and tested processes that, with the help of an AWS Partner, help ensure the smooth delivery of the migration.
2. MAP helps customers assess their workloads for migration and modernisation rather than just assuming a straight lift and shift. Here at Steamhaus, when we work on a MAP engagement we assist customers in leveraging the power of AWS to build secure, scalable, reliable systems. This may involve small changes to application architecture or utilising best in class AWS tooling but can also extend to modernising applications to give that undifferentiated heavy lifting to AWS so development teams can focus on what makes their product successful.
3. Automating the process can help ensure that all migration steps are completed accurately and consistently.
4. When delivered by a partner MAP gives organisations access to a wealth of specialist AWS knowledge that can be used to both assist in the migration and modernisation journey but should also build a cloud native centre of excellence within the organisation. This transforms and upskills internal teams to continue building on the success of the migration.
5. Funding - AWS makes funding available to help offset the one-off migration costs and is available for all 3 phases of the program. Funding can be unlocked by an AWS Partner and we work with the customer to complete the application.

Use AWS MAP for your migration

The AWS Map program provides a fast and reliable method for cloud migration to AWS, it has been designed for all organisations to accelerate and derisk their journey into the cloud.

Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about have we have helped our customers using AWS MAP.