While there are several approaches to migrating applications between clouds, not all of them yield similar results. When it comes to moving SAP workloads, it is important to plan a detailed migration strategy so as to ensure minimal disruption for the business. And hence, it is advisable to know the possible challenges to expect during migration, and how to work around them.
CloudEndure may not work
One way to migrate SAP from Azure to AWS is by using CloudEndure Migration. It offers an automated cloud migration solution with a lift-and-shift approach. However, what appears to be a simple enough solution on paper can run into several roadblocks once executed:
• The CloudEndure agent does not support Linux Suse12 SP3 servers for Azure to AWS migration
• Azure and AWS have different Hardware Virtual Machine (HVM) layers, with varying processor families, leading to compatibility issues
• This can result in having to move all your applications and databases manually from Azure to AWS, which can be an extremely error-prone and cost-intensive process
It is possible to work through these challenges individually, like adopting a different migration path for Linux servers or choosing to move ahead with manual migration of databases. But the overall migration process in itself remains inefficient and can bring down the productivity and performance of the final implementation.
So it’s advisable that you find a more comprehensive solution to migrate SAP workloads from Azure to AWS.
Leveraging AWS Server Migration Service
Starting, April 2019, Amazon announced support for Azure to AWS migration with the AWS Server Migration Service (SMS). Currently, AWS SMS is one of the best methods to migrate your SAP workloads running in Microsoft Azure to AWS Cloud. You can discover your virtual machines running SAP on Azure, bundle them into applications, and swiftly move them to AWS. The key advantages of this are:
• Completely eliminate the hassles of replicating individual servers or decoupling application dependencies
• Reduce time taken for migration
• Reduce the risk of errors during migration and any consequent downtime