Cloud Migration Strategies Cheat Sheet
Covers the six R's of cloud migration, migration phases, and key considerations for moving workloads from on-premises to the cloud.
1 PageIntermediateFeb 2, 2026
The 6 R's of Migration
AWS's standard framework for categorizing migration approaches.
- Rehost (Lift and Shift)- Move workloads as-is to cloud infrastructure with minimal changes
- Replatform (Lift, Tinker, and Shift)- Make small optimizations during migration, e.g. moving to a managed database
- Repurchase (Drop and Shop)- Replace with a SaaS product, e.g. moving from self-hosted CRM to Salesforce
- Refactor / Re-architect- Redesign the application to be cloud-native, e.g. breaking a monolith into microservices
- Retire- Decommission applications no longer needed
- Retain- Keep certain workloads on-premises, e.g. due to compliance or dependencies
Migration Phases
Typical stages of a structured migration project.
- Assess- Inventory applications, dependencies, and business drivers for migration
- Mobilize- Build the landing zone, migration tooling, and skills readiness
- Migrate & Modernize- Execute wave-based migrations, validating each application post-move
- Operate & Optimize- Continuously right-size, monitor cost, and improve post-migration
Example: AWS Application Discovery Agent Install
Gathering on-prem server data to plan a migration wave.
bash
# Install AWS Application Discovery Agent on an on-prem serversudo ./aws-discovery-agent.sh install \ --region us-east-1 \ --key-id AKIA... \ --secret-key ...# Verify agent registrationsudo /opt/aws/discovery/bin/aws-discovery-daemon status
Pro Tip
Migrate in waves grouped by application dependency, not by team ownership — splitting a tightly coupled app across waves causes cross-environment latency and broken integrations mid-migration.
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