by Chad Epstein Cloud Migration Practice Lead
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation journey of enterprises towards increased use of cloud computing technologies. According to an IDC study, customers that move their Windows workloads to AWS will see a 56% reduction in the cost of operations over five years, and a 442% increase in ROI over the same period. However, one can take this a step further by modernising their applications to use the additional benefits of open-source, containerisation and serverless technologies.
For enterprises running Windows-based workloads, migrating and modernising these applications to the AWS Cloud allows them to leave behind legacy technologies and expensive licensing and gain access to increased agility, performance, reliability and cost savings.
By modernising Windows-based applications to well-architected, cloud-native services in AWS, one can unlock the true power of the cloud environment. Notably, modernisation is not limited to applications running on-premise but also to those already running in the cloud.
Modernisation pathways include:
- Migrate from legacy .NET applications to containerised .NET Core applications or to Lambda i.e. serverless technology – move from monolithic applications to a decoupled architecture for increased cost savings and scalability. Move away from Windows Server to reduce costs and escape licensing restrictions.
- Migrate SQL Server running on Windows Server to Amazon Aurora or SQL Server on Linux – cloud-native services like Amazon Aurora provide the security, availability, and reliability of commercial databases at 1/10th the cost. No longer pay for expensive Windows and/or SQL Server licensing.
Modernisation also provides the opportunity to move from Microsoft software approaching end of life (EOL) – for example Windows 2003 or Windows 2008.
Choosing the right partner is key to navigating the modernisation journey. Synthesis, recently added the AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency to our list of ever-growing competencies, recognising our in-depth expertise and proven track record to design, migrate, deploy, and manage Microsoft-based applications on AWS.
Synthesis offers Windows-based application modernisation in a two-phased approach:
- Discovery – One-month detailed analysis of the application/s to understand component architecture, dependencies, deployment methodology and licensing model and projected migration costs.
- Execution – Phased migration/modernisation approach into AWS, taking into account priority, criticality, dependency and cost considerations.
Through our partnership with AWS, Synthesis can offer substantial savings for modernising Windows-based applications to the AWS cloud.
Organisations can realise an upfront 75% discount when commencing a modernisation Discovery project and up to 50% savings for the Execution of modernisation into AWS.
With a cost-cutting imperative on every companies’ agenda, migrating Windows workloads to AWS is of strategic value to any organisation.
