AWS Migration Competency

Consulting Partner Validation Checklist

August 2019
Version 3.1

This document is provided for informational purposes only and does not create any offer, contractual commitment, promise,
or assurance from AWS. Any benefits described herein are at AWS’s sole discretion and may be subject to change or 1
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termination Competency: Consulting
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This document not part Checklist, v3.1it modify, any agreement between AWS and its customers
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Table of Contents
AWS MIGRATION COMPETENCY PROGRAM PREREQUISITES................................................................... 4
1.0 APN Program Membership .......................................................................................................................... 4
2.0 AWS Case Studies........................................................................................................................................ 4
3.0 AWS Migration Practice and Focus .............................................................................................................. 5
4.0 Partner Self-Assessment ............................................................................................................................. 5
AWS MIGRATION COMPETENCY PARTNER VALIDATION CHECKLIST ....................................................... 7
1.0 Migration Practice Overview ........................................................................................................................ 7
2.0 Technical Requirements .............................................................................................................................. 8
APPENDIX A: MIGRATION STRATEGY (PATTERN) .................................................................................. 14
APPENDIX B: MIGRATION COMPLEXITY .................................................................................................15
APPENDIX C: EXAMPLE OF ARCHITECTURE DIAGRAMS ......................................................................... 16
APPENDIX D: EXAMPLES OF OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE ......................................................................17
APPENDIX E: EXAMPLES OF SECURITY BEST PRACTICES ....................................................................... 18
APPENDIX F: EXAMPLES OF RELIABILITY BEST PRACTICES ................................................................... 19
APPENDIX G: EXAMPLES OF PERFORMANCE EFFICIENCY BEST PRACTICES ........................................... 20
APPENDIX H: EXAMPLES OF COST OPTIMIZATION BEST PRACTICES ......................................................21

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Introduction
The goal of the AWS Competency Program is to recognize APN Partners who demonstrate technical proficiency
and proven customer success in specialized solution areas. The Competency Partner Validation Checklist is
intended for APN Partners who are interested in applying for AWS Competency. This checklist provides the
criteria necessary to achieve the designation under the AWS Competency Program. APN Partners undergo an
audit of their capabilities upon applying for the specific Competency. AWS leverages in-house expertise and a
third-party firm to facilitate the audit. AWS reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time.

Expectations of Parties
It is expected that APN Partners will review this document in detail before submitting an application for the AWS
Competency Program, even if all of the prerequisites are met. If items in this document are unclear and require
further explanation, please contact your Partner Development Representative (PDR) or Partner Development
Manager (PDM) as the first step. Your PDR/PDM will contact the Program Office if further assistance is required.

When ready to submit a program application, APN Partners should complete the Partner Self-Assessment column
of the AWS Competency Program Validation Checklist set forth below in this document.

To submit your application:

1. Log in to the APN Partner Central (https://partnercentral.awspartner.com/), as Alliance Lead
2. Select “View My APN Account” from the left side of the page
3. Scroll to “Apply for Competencies” section
4. Select “Apply” next to AWS Competency you wish to apply for
5. Fill out Program Application and Click “Submit”
6. Email the completed Self-Assessment embedded in this document to [email protected]

If you have any questions regarding the above instructions, please contact your APN Partner Development
Representative/Manager.

AWS will review and aim to respond back with any questions within five (5) business days to initiate scheduling of
your audit or to request additional information.

APN Partners should prepare for the audit by reading the Validation Checklist, completing a self-assessment
using the checklist, and gathering and organizing objective evidence to share with the auditor on the day of the
audit.

AWS recommends that APN Partners have individuals who are able to speak in-depth to the requirements during
the audit. The best practice is for the APN Partner to make the following personnel available for the audit: one or
more highly technical AWS certified engineers/architects, an operations manager who is responsible for the
operations and support elements, and a business development executive to conduct the overview presentation. If
APN Partner fails to meet prerequisites anytime while with a Competency designation, AWS has the right to
revoke said Competency designation. AWS may revoke an APN Partner’s Competency designation if, at any time,
AWS determines in its sole discretion that such APN Partner does not meet its AWS Competency Program
requirements. If an APN Partner’s Competency designation is revoked, such APN Partner will (i) no longer
receive benefits associated with its designation, (ii) immediately cease use of all materials provided to it in
connection with the applicable Competency designation and (ii) immediately cease to identify or hold itself out as
a Partner of such Competency.

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AWS Migration Competency Program Prerequisites
AWS Migration Competency Partners provide solutions or have deep experience helping businesses move
successfully to AWS, through all phases of complex migration projects, discovery, planning, migration, and
operations. They focus on developing their customer’s internal skills and helping to build the foundations required
for complex migrations to AWS. They are experts in reducing friction when migrating legacy applications.

Below are the AWS Migration Competency categories that an APN Partner may apply for. Also, included are
examples of the characteristics a firm would possess to be classified under the respective category.

Category Work Scope

Migration Consulting Migration Consulting Partners provide expertise and training to help develop customers’ cloud capabilities.
These Partners provide Migration, DevOps, application, and environment modernization consulting to set
customers on the path to success.
Migration Delivery Migration Delivery Partners accelerate customer cloud adoption by providing technical personnel, tools,
education, and technical support to customers in the form of professional services. These Partners either are,
or have a relationship with, an AWS certified Managed Service Provider to help customers with ongoing
support of AWS workloads where required.

1.0 APN Program Membership Met Y/N

1.1 Program The APN Partner must read the Program Guidelines and Definitions before applying to the
Guidelines Migration Competency Program. Click here for program details

1.2 Consulting APN Partner must be an Advanced Tier APN Consulting Partner (view requirements)
Partner Tier
2.0 AWS Case Studies Met Y/N

2.1 Migration- APN Partner must provide a minimum of five (5) and no more than 10 unique AWS customer case
Specific Case studies specific to completed Migration projects in Production.
Studies ▪ 2 of the AWS case studies must be a public (i.e., documented in a case study, white paper, or a
blog post). Public case studies must mention AWS, the end customer, and the APN Partner.
▪ Case studies must be related directly to the Migration segment.
▪ Case studies must be for projects started within the past 36 months, and must be for projects
that are in production, rather than in pilot or proof of concept stage.
▪ All case studies submitted must have supporting documentation providing evidence of
compliance to the requirements of this checklist.

This information will be requested as part of the Program Application process in APN Partner
Central.

Note: For best practice on how to write an accepted Public Case Study See Here
2.2 Migration- APN Partner must provide the following information for each case study:
Specific Case ▪ Name of the customer
Study Criteria ▪ Customer challenges
▪ How the solution was designed and deployed to meet the challenges
▪ 3rd-party applications or solutions used
▪ Date the project entered production
▪ Outcome(s)/results

The migration strategy (or strategies) [1] used to migrate each application must be stated.

From the entire submitted case studies, the complexity-weighted [2] number of applications [3]
migrated must be ≥ 50 and the complexity-weighted number of servers must be ≥ 500.

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 This information will be requested as part of the Program Application process in APN Partner
Central.

All of the AWS Case Studies provided will be examined in the Documentation Review of the
Technical Validation. The Case Study will be removed from consideration for inclusion in the
competency if the Partner cannot provide the documentation necessary to assess the reference
against each checklist item, or if there were Critical Findings identified during the validation.

[1] “Migration strategy” is also called “migration pattern.” Refer to Appendix A for specification of
migration strategies.

[2] Refer to Appendix B for definition of “migration complexity”.

[3] Applications need to be distinct. Applications that are services or components of a larger application
are counted as a single application. Please provide the list of application names and a brief description
of each application.
3.0 AWS Migration Practice and Focus Met Y/N
3.1 Migration APN Partner must have the below certifications for the Migration category being applied for:
Certified Staff
Migration Consulting:
▪ ≥ 8 AWS Associate, Professional or Specialty Certified Individuals in total
o ≥ 6 Professional Level AWS Certified Individuals with 3 in DevOps
Migration Delivery:
▪ ≥ 15 AWS Associate, Professional or Specialty Certified Individuals in total
▪ ≥ 8 Professional Level AWS Certified Individuals
▪ Must be an audited AWS Managed Service Provider or hold the AWS DevOps Competency
▪ Provides professional services to perform migrations on behalf of customers
▪ Provides project management functions for migration projects.
3.2 APN Partner AWS customers are looking for expertise in the development and delivery of Migration solutions on
Microsite AWS; a Partner’s internet presence specific to their AWS Migration practice provides customers with
confidence about the Partner’s Migration capabilities and experience.

APN Partner must have a Microsite that describes their Migration practice on AWS. This includes
posting an AWS public support statement, AWS solutions and competency use cases, technology
partnerships, customer references, and any other relevant information supporting the APN Partner’s
expertise related to Migration and highlighting the partnership with AWS through the APN.

Migration practice page must be accessible from the Partner home page. Home page is not
acceptable as a practice page unless Partner is a dedicated Migration consulting company and home
page reflects Partner’s concentration on Migration.

Note: For best practice on how to build an accepted APN Partner Microsite See Here
3.3 Migration AWS Migration Competency Partners are viewed as having deep domain expertise in Migration,
Thought having developed innovative solutions that leverage AWS services.
Leadership
Partner must have public-facing materials (e.g., blog posts, press articles, videos, etc.) showcasing
the APN Partner’s focus on and expertise in Migration. Links must be provided to examples of
materials published within the last 12 months.
4.0 Partner Self-Assessment Met Y/N
AWS Competency APN Partner must conduct a self-assessment of their compliance to the requirements of the AWS
Partner Program Migration Consulting Partner Validation Checklist.
Validation ▪ APN Partner must complete all sections of the checklist.
Checklist Self- ▪ Completed self-assessment must be emailed to [email protected], using
Assessment the following convention for the email subject line: “[APN Partner Name], Migration
Competency Consulting Partner Completed Self-Assessment.”
▪ It is recommended that APN Partner has their Partner Solutions Architect or Partner
Development Manager (PDM) review the completed self-assessment before submitting to
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 AWS. The purpose of this is to ensure the APN Partner’s AWS team is engaged and working to
provide recommendations prior to the audit and to help ensure a positive audit experience.

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AWS Migration Competency Partner Validation Checklist
In preparation for the competency validation process, Partners should become familiar with the items outlined in
this document, and prepare objective evidence, including but not limited to: prepared demonstration to show
capabilities, technical and process documentation, and actual customer examples.

Migration Consulting and Migration Delivery Partners share a common set of validation requirements. Migration
Delivery Partners need to meet two additional validation requirements as indicated in the checklist below.

Please review by the Migration category your firm wishes to apply for (Migration Consulting or Migration
Delivery).

The AWS Competency Program is guided by AWS best practices and Well Architected Framework.

1.0 Migration Practice Overview Met Y/N

1.1 Customer APN Partner has a company overview presentation that sets the stage for customer
Presentation conversations about their AWS Migration practice and showcases Partner’s demonstration
capabilities.

Presentation contains information about the Partner’s AWS Migration practice, including
AWS-specific differentiators, e.g., what is unique about the Partner’s Migration practice that
can only be accomplished leveraging AWS. Overview presentations shall provide the following
information:

▪ Company history
▪ Office locations
▪ Number of employees
▪ Customer profile, including number and size of customers, including industry
▪ Overview of AWS Migration Practice

Evidence must be in the form of a presentation delivered by a business development executive

at the beginning of the validation session and should be limited to 15 minutes.
1.2 AWS Migration AWS customers seeking Migration consulting or delivery services view AWS Migration
Services Expertise Competency Partners as the go-to experts in the field. Potential customers often ask for
examples of solutions built for other customers when choosing a Partner and want confidence
that consultants are up to date on AWS Migration services. APN Partner must have at least
two (2) public case studies to showcase the Partner’s AWS Migration service.
1.3 Maintaining AWS APN Partner can describe how they stay current on AWS Service releases related to their AWS
Expertise Migration Practice.

Evidence must be in the form of a document or a verbal description on enablement materials

leveraged by Partner to stay current on AWS services and features.
1.4 End of Project Partner asks customer to complete AWS Customer Satisfaction Survey at the end of the
Customer Satisfaction project. This is accomplished by e.g. searching for the Partner in the AWS Partner Solutions
Survey Finder (or Partner-owned solution) and asking Customer to leverage the “Rate this Partner”
feature.

Evidence must be in the form of a demonstration to show where the “Rate this Partner”
feature is located on the AWS Partner Solutions Finder and proof of implementation of this
process or in the form of an extract from Partner-owner Customer Satisfaction Survey
solution.

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 2.0 Technical Requirements Met Y/N
2.1 Well-Architected Framework

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is based on five pillars — operational excellence, security, reliability, performance
efficiency, and cost optimization.

Case Studies must demonstrate how AWS Well-Architected Framework was applied in the areas outlined below. Deliverables
for the competency application are listed below.
(1) Architecture Evidence must include AWS architecture design and diagrams for each of the
projects or migrated applications per project. The architecture information must
cover all the AWS components and services deployed as well as design
requirements, assumptions, and functional components and their interaction
mechanisms.

For an architecture diagram example, refer to Appendix C.

(2) Operational APN Partner demonstrates the ability to run and monitor systems to deliver
Excellence business value and to continuously improve supporting processes and procedures.

Evidence must be in the form of documentation to show how target environments

were designed and deployed for Operational Excellence which may cover the
following areas:

▪ Security and control

▪ Deployment automation
▪ Configuration process
▪ Change and release process
▪ Business continuity
▪ Operations health
▪ Event and incident process
▪ Business management

For examples of Operational Excellence Best Practices, refer to Appendix D.

Specifically, the following practices in the customer’s new environment must

appear in at least one (1) case study (separate practices may appear in different
case studies):

▪ Implement Identity Access Management with user multi-factor

authentication; create and assign roles and policies for users and processes
according to their responsibilities
▪ Implement monitoring, centralized logging, and alert with such services as
AWS Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, Amazon S3, and Amazon Simple
Notification Service
▪ Automate infrastructure and application deployment using such services as
AWS CloudFormation and AWS CodePipeline

Evidence must be in the form of design documentation or demonstration of the

production deployment in AWS.
(3) Security APN Partner demonstrates the ability to protect information, systems, and assets
while delivering business value through risk assessments and mitigation strategies.

Evidence must be in the form of documentation to show how target environments

were designed and deployed through AWS Security Best Practices which shall
cover the following areas:

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 ▪ Identity and access management
▪ Detective controls
▪ Infrastructure protection
▪ Data protection
▪ Incident response

For examples of Security Best Practices, refer to Appendix E.

Specifically, the following practices in the customer’s new environment must

appear in at least 1 case study (separate practices may appear in different case
studies):

▪ Implement Security Groups to restrict traffic between Internet and VPC and to
restrict traffic within the VPC. In all cases, the implementation allows only the
most restrictive possible settings.
▪ Do not expose AWS Access Keys, except in the following cases:
o humans access AWS services and the keys are stored securely
o a service accesses AWS services where it is not feasible to use an EC2
instance role, ECS Task Role, or similar mechanism and the IAM Policy is
tightly scoped.
▪ Classify, secure, and encrypt data in transit and at rest appropriately
▪ Use KMS or an APN partner solution managed cryptographic keys

Evidence must be in the form of design documentation or demonstration of the

production deployment in AWS.
(4) Reliability APN Partner demonstrates the ability of a system to recover from infrastructure or
service disruptions, dynamically acquire computing resources to meet demand,
and mitigate disruptions such as misconfigurations or transient network issues.

Evidence must be in the form of documentation to show how target environments

were designed and deployed for Reliability including High Availability and
Durability. For examples of Reliability Best Practices, refer to Appendix F.

Specifically, the following practices in the customer’s new environment must

appear in at least one (1) case study (separate practices may appear in different
case studies):

▪ Specify and measure Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point
Objective (RPO) for each of the applications
▪ Design and implement architectures that accommodate failure of services such
as EC2 and the failure of a complete Availability Zone
▪ Design and implement Backup & Restore, cold or warm standby redundancy,
or multi-region Disaster Recovery
Evidence must be in the form of design documentation or demonstration of the
production deployment in AWS.
(5) Performance APN Partner demonstrates the efficient use of AWS resources and solutions to
efficiency meet requirements and how to maintain that efficiency as demand changes and
technologies evolve.

Evidence must be in the form of documentation to show how target environments

were designed and deployed for Performance Efficiency. For examples of
Performance Efficiency Best Practices, refer to Appendix G.

Specifically, the following practices in the customer’s new environment must

appear in at least one (1) case study (separate practices may appear in different
case studies):
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 ▪ Specify and measure performance metrics such as service response time and
database query throughput for each of the applications
▪ Select Compute, Storage, and Network resources or solutions purposefully for
performance efficiency

Evidence must be in the form of design documentation or demonstration of the

production deployment in AWS.
(6) Cost Optimization APN Partner demonstrates a continual process of refinement and improvement of
a system over its entire lifecycle.

Evidence must be in the form of documentation to show how target environments

were designed, deployed, operated with Cost Optimization. For examples of Cost
Optimization Best Practices, refer to Appendix H.

Specifically, the following practices in the customer’s new environment must

appear in at least one (1) case study (separate practices may appear in different
case studies):

▪ Implement auto-scaling at each layer of the architecture

▪ Consistently recommend right-sizing target instances before migration, and
post migration, identify either over or under-provisioning for correction
▪ Identify opportunities to optimize costs using Reserved or Spot Instances

Evidence must be in the form of design documentation or demonstration of the

production deployment in AWS.

2.2 Consistent Methodology and Process

Case studies must demonstrate a consistent methodology and process applied through multiple migration phases as
exemplified below. Though specific details may vary from project to project, a solid migration framework with major phases
and work areas must be clearly identified and exercised consistently across all the projects.
(1) Migration Readiness MRA determines Customer’s readiness based on AWS Cloud Adoption
Assessment (MRA) Framework comprised of Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and
Operations perspectives:

▪ Business Perspective helps Customer move from separate strategies for

business and IT to a business model that integrates IT strategy. It involves
Customer’s IT strategy, IT finance, benefits realization, and business risk
management. Customer’s strategy stakeholders, business managers, finance
managers, and budget owners shall participate in the Migration Readiness
Assessment.
▪ People Perspective helps Human Resources and personnel management
prepare their teams for cloud adoption by updating staff skills and
organizational processes to include cloud-based competencies. It involves
resource management, incentive management, career management,
training management, and organizational change management. Human
Resources, training managers, and people managers shall participate in the
Migration Readiness Assessment.
▪ Governance Perspective provides guidance on identifying and implementing
best practices for IT Governance, and on supporting business processes with
technology. It involves Customer’s program and project management,
business performance measurement, portfolio management, and license
management. CIO, program managers, project managers, enterprise
architects, business analysts, and portfolio managers shall participate in the
Migration Readiness Assessment.

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 ▪ Platform Perspective helps Customer design, implement, and optimize the
architecture of AWS technology based on business goals and objectives. It
helps provide strategic guidance for the design, principles, tools, and policies
Customer will use to define AWS infrastructure. The Platform Perspective
also includes principles and patterns for communicating Customer’s target
state environment, implementing new solutions on the cloud, and migrating
on-premises workloads to the cloud. It involves systems and solution
architecture, provisioning of compute, network, storage, and database, and
application development. CTO, IT managers and solution architects shall
participate in the Migration Readiness Assessment.
▪ Security Perspective helps Customer structure the selection and
implementation of controls. Following this guidance can make it easier to
identify areas of non-compliance and plan ongoing security initiatives. It
involves Identity and Access Management (IAM), detective control,
infrastructure security, data protection, and incident response. CISO, IT
security managers, and IT security analysts shall participate in the Migration
Readiness Assessment.
▪ Operations Perspective helps Customer run, use, operate, and recover IT
workloads to levels that meet the requirements of business stakeholders. It
involves service monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM),
resource inventory, management, release/change management, reporting
and analytics, business continuity/disaster recovery, and IT Service Catalog.
IT operations managers and IT support managers shall participate in the
Migration Readiness Assessment.

Refer to Appendix I for MRA example

Evidence must include an assessment report with identified customer readiness

gaps, suggested actions, and Statement of Work for executing the Migration
Readiness & Planning next.
(2) Migration Readiness & The purpose of MRP is to validate foundational migration capability and business
Planning (MRP) case and plan migration project next. MRP may consist of the following work
streams:

▪ MRP execution and migration planning with role and responsibility

assignment (RACI)
▪ Portfolio discovery and analysis
▪ Operations model assessment and design
▪ Landing Zone design and initial implementation
▪ Security and compliance specification
▪ Migration pilot implementation
▪ Migration team/organization establishment, training plan, and training
activities
▪ Business Case justification supported by Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
calculations

Evidence must reflect the results of each of the work streams in the form of
documentation or demonstration of the production implementation in AWS.
(3) Migration Project The migration project may consist of the following work areas on a per
application basis:

▪ Design: migration pattern, application architecture, operations, cutover plan

and process, reusable templates, migration tooling, and validation test plan
▪ Migration: servers, databases, data, infrastructure services, followed by basic
validation test
▪ Integration: connectivity, application interfaces, operations (backup/restore,
...)

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 ▪ Validation: functionality, performance, reliability, security, compliance
▪ Cutover: meeting RTO and RPO with rollback plan

Evidence must reflect the results of each of the work areas in the form of
documentation or demonstration of the production implementation in AWS.
(4) Optimization It may involve one or more of the following work areas:

▪ Cost optimization (e.g., right-sizing services, resource reservation, leveraging

spot instance, monitoring and analyzing service usage and cost)
▪ Application optimization (e.g., performance, functional, design)
▪ Process optimization (e.g., development process automation)
▪ Operational optimization (e.g., operations support systems, infrastructure as
code)

Evidence must reflect the results of the committed work areas in the form of
documentation or optimization result report or demonstration of the production
implementation in AWS.
(5) Completion Case studies must show completed projects.

Evidence must include customer’s acceptance letter and training materials.

(6) Professional Services Each of the customer case studies must be accompanied by a signed Statement
(Delivery Partner Specific) of Work (SOW) showing the scope and scale of professional services provided.
(7) Project Ownership Each of the customer case studies must be accompanied by a project plan as well
(Delivery Partner Specific) as the SOW with Responsibility Matrix (RACI) that shows the partner jointly or
singly owned project management of the migration.

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AWS Resources

Title Description
How to Build a Practice Landing Page Provides guidance how to build a Practice/solution page that will meet the
prerequisites of the Program.
How to write a Public Case Study Provides guidance how to build a Public Customer Case Study that will meet the
prerequisites of the Program.
How to build an Architecture Diagram Provides guidance how to build a architecture diagrams that will meet the
prerequisites of the Program.
Partner Readiness Doc Provides guidance and best practice examples of the Program perquisites.
Tips for becoming an AWS Migration Learn the key elements of the AWS Migration Competency Validation Checklist
Competency Partner for APN Consulting and Delivery Partners, and explain the principles and
rationales behind the requirements.

AWS reserves the right to make changes to the AWS Competency Program at any time and has sole discretion
over whether APN Partners qualify for the Program.

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Appendix A: Migration Strategy (Pattern)
There are seven Migration Strategies or Patterns as defined below. One or more strategy may be used to migrate an
application.

Migration Strategy / Description Examples

Pattern
Retain Workloads are kept in the current state and Unresolvable dependencies, custom Linux
are not changed in any way kernels, non-x86, AS400, etc.
Retire Workloads are retired from use Existing decommission scope
Rehost Workloads moved to the cloud, lift-and-shift Minimal re-engineering, IP, DNS, file path
changes, Win 2008, RHEL6 +, and others
Relocate Workloads relocated to the cloud VMWare to VMWare Cloud on AWS
Docker containers
Replatform Workloads moved to the cloud with some Use of higher-level AWS services, like
changes to support use of cloud concepts, for Amazon Relational Database Service
example, elasticity, failover (Amazon RDS)
Repurchase Workloads are candidates for migration to No infrastructure migration
SaaS-based solutions On-premises CRM to SaaS CRM, HRMS to
WorkDay, Exchange to WorkMail, and
similar
Refactor Significant modernization of the architecture, Going cloud-native; database engine
complex application changes. migration (Oracle to Aurora).

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Appendix B: Migration Complexity
Migration Complexity is measured by the strategy (or pattern) used to migrate an application and the additional
consideration and effort taken during the migration of that application. Each migration strategy has different
complexity weightage and is described as follows.

Migration Migration
Strategy / Complexity
Pattern
Rehost Low
Relocate Low
Replatform Medium
Repurchase Medium
Refactor High

The migration complexity indicates the degree of partner’s competency demonstrated through migration
projects. The migration competency associates the migration complexity with the migrated workloads in terms of
migrated applications and migrated servers. Specifically,

• Complexity-weighted number of applications = (number of migrated applications) x (migration complexity)

• Complexity-weighted number of servers = (number of migrated servers) x (migration complexity)

Complexity per application = [1, 2] for rehost and relocate, [2, 4] for repurchase, [2, 4] for replatform, [4, 8] for
refactor

For example, a Rehost-based migration strategy for 10 applications and a Refactor-based strategy for 5
applications may result in the same complexity-weighted number, since the Refactor can be more complex and
require more effort compared to the Rehost.

Partner will not specify migration complexity on migrated applications within the references. The partner does
need to describe the migration strategy (or strategies) for each of the referenced applications.

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Appendix C: Example of Architecture Diagram

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Appendix D: Examples of Operational Excellence
The competency application shall demonstrate the Operational Excellence including the following areas if
applicable.

Operation Best Practice

Area
Security and ▪ Enforce strict identity & access management
control ▪ Implement centralized logging, monitoring, alert
Deployment ▪ Automate infrastructure deployment
automation ▪ Automate application deployment
Configuration ▪ Use configuration management, license management
process
Change and ▪ Automate application lifecycle management
release ▪ Implement change management
process
Business ▪ Implement Backup & Restore and Disaster Recovery (DR)
continuity ▪ Design for High Availability (HA)
Operations ▪ Monitor, analyze, and report events on security, performance, availability, and scaling
health
Event and ▪ Implement Incident Management
incident
process
Business ▪ Conduct capacity planning & forecasting
management ▪ Manage cloud financials

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Appendix E: Examples of Security Best Practices
The competency application shall demonstrate the Security Best Practices including the following areas where
applicable.

Security Area Best Practice

Identity and ▪ Protect AWS credentials
access ▪ Implement fine-grained authorization
management
Detective ▪ Capture and analyze logs through centralized logging
controls ▪ Integrate auditing controls with notification and workflow
Infrastructure ▪ Protect network and host-level boundaries
protection ▪ Perform system security configuration and maintenance
▪ Enforce service-level protection
Data ▪ Encrypt data in transit and at rest
protection ▪ Use token mechanisms to protect data access
Incident ▪ Perform monitoring, logging, event processing, forensic analysis
response ▪ Isolate and contain incident
▪ Automate restoration post incident

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Appendix F: Examples of Reliability Best Practices
The competency application shall demonstrate the Reliability Best Practices including the following areas where
applicable.

Reliability Best Practice

Area
High ▪ Eliminate single point of failure
Availability ▪ Contain faults within instance, host, VPC, or Availability Zone
Durability ▪ Replicate data across multiple instances, Availability Zones, or Regions

Disaster ▪ Implement Backup & Restore, cold or warm standby redundancy, or multi-
Recovery region disaster recovery
Fault ▪ Automate operations to minimize errors
coverage ▪ Test failure scenarios through fault injection

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Appendix G: Examples of Performance Efficiency Best Practices
The competency application shall demonstrate the Performance Efficiency Best Practices including the following
areas where applicable.

Performance Best Practice

Area
Selection ▪ Determine right Compute resources (instances, containers, functions)
▪ Choose right Storage services and characteristics per access pattern
▪ Optimize Database solutions per database technologies (OLTP, NoSQL, OLAP, …), and
efficiency factors (access patterns, characteristics, operational requirements, …)
▪ Design Network per traffic locality (Placement Group, Edge Location, …), networking features
(Route53, Direct Connect, …), and product features (SR-IOV, ...)

Validation ▪ Define performance metrics

▪ Construct load generators for performance test
▪ Conduct performance test, analysis, and further optimization
Monitoring ▪ Implement performance monitoring in production and analyze data for performance
improvement
Tradeoffs ▪ Make design tradeoffs between constraints and performance

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AWS Migration Competency: Consulting Partner Validation Checklist, v3.1
Appendix H: Examples of Cost Optimization Best Practices
The competency application shall demonstrate the Cost Optimization Best Practices including the following areas
where applicable.

Cost Best Practice

Optimization
Area
Cost-effective ▪ Right-size resources based on usage over time
resources ▪ Purchase resources per business needs (e.g., EC2 On Demand, Spot, or
Reserved Instances)
▪ Select proper geographic locations
▪ Use Managed Services (e.g., Amazon RDS, AWS Lambda, …)
Matching ▪ Use Demand-based, Buffer-based, or Time-based approach
supply with ▪ Apply auto-scaling to grow or shrink resources at run time
demand
Expenditure ▪ Estimate, monitor, plan, report on, and analyze AWS spend
awareness ▪ Assign costs to owners with account structuring and tagging
▪ Track project and product lifecycle to reduce unnecessary costs
Optimizing ▪ Measure, monitor, and improve
over time ▪ Use the newest services, features, and instance types

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AWS Migration Competency: Consulting Partner Validation Checklist, v3.1
Appendix [I]: Migration Readiness Assessment
The Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA) is a process of assessing a customer’s current state, identifies
readiness gaps and makes recommendations to fill gaps in information and preparation for scoping the MRP and
selecting portions that are needed vs not and tailoring the engagement and the Statement of Work (SOW).

The MRA is completed interactively in a cross-group setting involving key stakeholders across your IT
organization, building a common view of your current state. You may have representatives from IT Leadership,
Networking, Operations, Security, Risk and Compliance, Application Development, Enterprise Architecture, and
your CCoE or Cloud Business Office (CBO) respond to MRA CAF Aligned questions. Lastly, you will able to create a
migration roadmap and identify the necessary data you will need for your business case.

MRA output includes action plan, next steps, SOW and visuals like a radar chart and heat map. The MRA tool is
available for partner through APN credential from here.

Sample output from MRA workshop:

Example of a Cloud Adoption Framework Radar

Chart
Example of a Cloud Adoption Framework Radar Scoring Chart

Breakdown scoring for the Operation Model

workstream

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AWS Migration Competency: Consulting Partner Validation Checklist, v3.1