Containerization has rapidly gained traction as a preferred method for application deployment, thanks to its ability to isolate applications, enhance portability across various infrastructures, improve resource utilization, and simplify maintenance. The transition from traditional virtual machines (VMs) to containerized solutions is further facilitated by AWS managed services, which streamline the setup and management of container orchestration platforms. Notable services include Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), and AWS Fargate.
Despite this, many organizations still operate on-premises applications hosted on VMs and physical hardware. These customers often lean towards a straightforward “lift and shift” migration to VMs in the cloud, frequently using Amazon EC2, rather than directly migrating to containers. While some applications can be transitioned to these managed container platforms with minimal adjustments, the process can be time-consuming and fraught with risks, particularly when the number of applications is large. This often complicates the sharing of insights and the establishment of synergies across migration initiatives.
This article highlights a factory-based approach to migrations, where standardized processes and tools are deployed to facilitate the containerization of applications. We will outline the advantages of this method for large-scale migration projects.
Atos Cloud Migration Factory Approach
Atos, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Migration Competency, has developed a migration factory model that expedites the transition from on-premises VMs to AWS container platforms.
Key characteristics of this solution include:
- Utilizing reference architectures built on Amazon ECS, Amazon EKS, and AWS Fargate to minimize operational burdens.
- A well-defined operational process ensures consistency and repeatability during migrations.
- Automation tools are employed to analyze, remediate, and deploy applications.
In many instances, containerization requires non-invasive modifications, allowing for a repeatable and consistent structure. For example, consider a Java application running on a WebLogic server that maintains application state locally. To deploy this on Amazon EKS or ECS, only minor code modifications are necessary, such as removing state or filesystem dependencies, creating container artifacts, and deploying them using CI/CD tools. Notably, there’s no need to alter the WebLogic application server itself.
By implementing the migration factory approach, organizations can enhance their migration engine, resulting in improved and faster returns on investment (ROI).
The cloud migration factory is organized into four streams based on tasks and deliverables that require sign-off from either customers or Atos program leadership:
- Profiling Factory
- Architecture and Design Factory
- Remediation Factory
- Deployment and Testing Factory
Profiling Factory
This stage involves a thorough analysis to understand the technological landscape and business context of the application portfolio. Atos employs the Cloud Code Automation Tool (CCAT) for rapid analysis of application code, which provides insights into the technology landscape and generates an AWS non-compliance report. The Atos Cloud Assessment Tool (ACAT) is also utilized to validate findings and provide rough estimates for manual code modifications and migration timelines. The focus here is on selecting appropriate AWS services that balance scalability with cost-efficiency.
Architecture and Design Factory
During this phase, the team develops an application architecture aligned with enterprise reference architecture and AWS best practices. They assess any necessary architectural changes or design alterations to ensure application compatibility with AWS standards. Impact analyses are also conducted to evaluate how changes may affect the surrounding application ecosystem.
Remediation Factory
In this phase, the application undergoes migration to the targeted architecture. Remediation is performed from both code and configuration perspectives, based on recommendations from the architecture and design team. CCAT serves as an automation tool, addressing common non-compliance issues found in application codebases. Developers conduct unit testing before checking in the code to the selected source code repository, ultimately creating a binary of the remediated application for deployment.
Deployment and Testing Factory
This phase is heavily driven by automation, utilizing AWS CloudFormation templates for infrastructure automation and implementing a CI/CD pipeline through AWS CodePipeline. Automated test scripts are developed to ensure functional accuracy.
Migration Factory Automation Tooling
The efficiency of any factory is largely dependent on a skilled team performing repetitive tasks alongside automated tools. Atos has identified and streamlined tasks across migration factory streams based on engagement patterns. The Cloud Code Automation Tool (CCAT) is an Atos-proprietary solution that automates the analysis and remediation phases of cloud migration, focusing on:
- In the application analysis phase, CCAT automates the evaluation of applications against Twelve-Factor guidelines or customer-defined cloud modernization standards, identifying all non-compliance issues.
- During the design and remediation phases, CCAT can also address common non-compliance solutions.
- In the deployment phase, standard deployment patterns are established through the migration factory approach, utilizing AWS-native tools like AWS App2Container, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS DevOps solutions.
By employing migration factory tooling, the dependency on migration teams to pass on knowledge from one project to another is significantly reduced, leading to shorter migration timelines that align with customer deadlines. CCAT plays a vital role in both the profiling and remediation aspects, making Atos’s execution distinctive.
Let’s examine a customer case study to see how the migration factory methodology and tooling are applied in real-world scenarios.
Customer Case Study: Banking and Financial Services
One of Atos’s clients, a European financial services firm specializing in educational loans for individuals, sought Atos’s expertise to assess their application portfolio and recommend an effective strategy for cloud enablement. You can learn more about engaging with cloud migration strategies from this excellent resource here, and discover further insights in another blog post about cloud migration here.
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