Icon source: AWS
AWS Application Discovery Service
Cloud Provider: AWS
What is AWS Application Discovery Service
AWS Application Discovery Service is a cloud-based service designed to help enterprise customers streamline migration planning by automatically identifying and cataloging applications and dependencies running in on-premises data centers.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Application Discovery Service is designed to help organizations streamline the process of migrating applications to the cloud. This service provides an in-depth mechanism for accurately and efficiently identifying and mapping application dependencies and performance profiles within an IT environment. By facilitating a comprehensive understanding of on-premise data centers, AWS Application Discovery Service enables enterprises to make informed decisions about migration strategies, aiming to reduce costs, minimize risks, and expedite the relocation of applications from traditional infrastructures to the cloud.
The service operates by gathering information about the IT infrastructure it is analyzing. It can collect a wide variety of data, including information on servers, virtual machines, applications, and services, as well as their interdependencies. This information is crucial for understanding how different components of an IT system interact with each other, which in turn helps in planning the migration of these components to AWS in a manner that maintains or enhances application performance and availability.
AWS Application Discovery Service employs various methods for discovering and collecting data. It can directly connect to the physical or virtual servers in an enterprise's data center and use agents to collect information. Alternatively, for environments where the installation of agents is not feasible, it can utilize agentless methods that rely on network protocols and integrations with configuration management databases (CMDBs) to gather the necessary data. Once the data is collected, AWS Application Discovery Service analyzes it to provide detailed insights into the performance characteristics and resource utilization of the applications and services running in the data center. This analysis assists in highlighting potential challenges that might be encountered during the migration, such as performance bottlenecks or underutilized resources that can be optimized in the cloud environment.
Armed with this information, organizations can plan their migration projects with greater precision, optimizing resources and costs. The service not only aids in the technical aspects of migration but also supports project management by allowing stakeholders to visualize dependencies and prioritize the migration of applications based on their complexity and criticality to the business.
Furthermore, AWS Application Discovery Service integrates with other AWS services and migration tools, providing a seamless pathway from discovery and analysis to the actual migration and optimization of applications in the AWS Cloud. This integration ensures that the detailed inventory and performance data collected during the discovery phase can be directly utilized to guide migration efforts, simplifying and accelerating the transition to the cloud.
In conclusion, AWS Application Discovery Service plays a critical role in helping organizations understand their existing IT landscapes and strategically approach cloud migration. By offering detailed insights into the infrastructure, application dependencies, and performance, it enables businesses to plan more effectively, reduce migration risks, and leverage the full benefits of cloud computing.
Key AWS Application Discovery Service Features
AWS Application Discovery Service facilitates migration planning by automatically identifying servers, collecting detailed inventory and configuration data, offering both agentless and agent-based discovery, integrating with migration tools, ensuring secure data handling, and allowing data export.
AWS Application Discovery Service automatically identifies and lists servers in your on-premises data center or cloud environment, aiding in the initial phase of migration planning with minimal manual effort.
It collects detailed information about servers, including installed software, network dependencies, and configuration details, providing comprehensive insights for migration planning and application dependency mapping.
The service offers both agentless and agent-based data collection methods, allowing flexibility in gathering data without or with installing software on each target server, respectively.
Seamlessly integrates with AWS Migration Hub and other migration tools, enabling efficient tracking of the migration process and the ability to use discovered data for migration planning and execution.
Ensures data security and privacy by encrypting discovery data in transit and at rest, adhering to AWSâs rigorous security standards.
Enables exporting of the collected discovery information into CSV format for easy use in documentation, reports, and migration planning tools outside AWS ecosystem.
AWS Application Discovery Service Use Cases
AWS Application Discovery Service facilitates migration planning, cost estimation, resource optimization, and strategic decision-making by providing detailed inventory and usage information about on-premises IT infrastructure.
AWS Application Discovery Service provides detailed information about the software and hardware of on-premises data centers, enabling businesses to plan their migration strategies efficiently by assessing dependencies and workload sizing.
By uncovering the specifics of your current infrastructure and applications, AWS Application Discovery Service aids in accurately estimating the costs involved in moving to the AWS Cloud, helping organizations budget effectively for their migration projects.
Before migrating, organizations can use AWS Application Discovery Service to identify underutilized resources or overprovisioned instances for optimization, leading to cost savings and performance improvements in their existing environments.
AWS Application Discovery Service automatically compiles an inventory of your physical and virtual server environments to create a complete mapping of applications and infrastructure, simplifying the complexity of large-scale migrations.
With insights on performance and usage patterns from AWS Application Discovery Service, businesses can make informed decisions about which applications and workloads to migrate, modernize, or retire, tailoring their cloud journey to their specific needs.
Services AWS Application Discovery Service integrates with
Data stored in Amazon S3 can be queried using Amazon Athena. This allows you to analyze large sets of data collected by Application Discovery Service for detailed insights without the need to set up complex data processing pipelines.
AWS Glue can be used to prepare and transform the collected data stored in Amazon S3. This is useful for cleaning and organizing data before performing more detailed analysis and reporting.
Amazon QuickSight can be used to visualize data collected by Application Discovery Service. Combined with data stored in Amazon S3 and queried with Amazon Athena or prepared by AWS Glue, it offers powerful visualization capabilities for better insights.
AWS Application Discovery Service integrates with AWS Migration Hub to collect and present data about your on-premises environments. AWS Migration Hub provides a single location to track the progress of application migrations across multiple AWS and partner solutions.
Application Discovery Service can export collected data to Amazon S3, enabling long-term storage, further analysis, and as an input source for data integration and transformation processes.
AWS Application Discovery Service pricing models
AWS Application Discovery Service uses a pay-as-you-go model for data processing and storage, charging based on the amount of data processed and stored, with no upfront costs.