Sep 25th, 2026
Migrating On-Prem Applications to AWS or Azure: A Step-by-Step Guide
As organizations grow, many of the applications they rely on continue supporting critical business operations, but the infrastructure behind them can struggle to keep pace with changing business needs. What once met operational needs may eventually limit scalability, agility, and long-term efficiency. These problems may prompt IT leaders to consider moving to the cloud as part of their overall technology approach.
Migrating applications to AWS or Azure could improve scalability, enhance business continuity, and simplify on-premises infrastructure management. Cloud migration involves more than moving workloads because each application has unique dependencies, performance requirements, and compliance obligations that influence how it should be migrated.
This guide explains how to plan and execute an on-premises-to-cloud migration, choose the right migration approach, avoid common pitfalls, and prepare applications for long-term modernization.
Why Organizations Move Applications from On-Prem to AWS or Azure
Every on-prem to cloud migration begins with a business or operational challenge rather than a technology decision. As business requirements evolve, traditional on-premises infrastructure often struggles to keep pace with growing operational and technology demands. Supporting growing applications with fixed hardware becomes more expensive and time-consuming, while development teams face longer deployment cycles and infrastructure upgrades that can interrupt day-to-day operations.
Organizations typically begin evaluating cloud migration when they need to:
- Scale infrastructure without investing in additional hardware.
- Reduce the operational effort of managing servers and infrastructure.
- Improve backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
- Accelerate software delivery through automation and managed cloud services.
- Create a foundation for future application modernization.
An on-prem to cloud migration helps address these challenges by providing on-demand infrastructure, built-in resilience, and managed services that reduce routine infrastructure management. As organizations migrate applications to AWS or Azure, engineering teams can spend more time improving applications instead of maintaining servers.
The decision to migrate should always be driven by business priorities, application requirements, and long-term technology goals rather than cloud adoption alone. Choosing the right cloud migration services provider can also help organizations build a migration strategy that aligns with these business objectives.
Assess Your Application Landscape Before You Migrate
A successful migration begins with an understanding of the applications that enable your business, as skipping this step may result in unplanned downtime, compatibility problems, or project delays. To decide how to migrate applications to AWS or Azure, you should first assess your current environment and identify the factors that influence migration effort.
Start by creating an inventory of your applications and classifying them by business value, usage, and technical complexity. Business-critical systems with multiple integrations usually require a different migration approach than standalone applications.
Next, identify application dependencies, including databases, APIs, authentication systems, scheduled jobs, and third-party services. For example, an ERP application may depend on SQL Server, Active Directory, reporting services, and external payment gateways, and missing even one dependency can interrupt business operations after migration.
Also review infrastructure capacity, application performance, security, compliance, and recovery objectives before beginning the migration process. Applications running on VMware, Oracle Database, or legacy Windows Server environments may require additional planning because of licensing and compatibility requirements.
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A thorough cloud readiness assessment provides the information needed to choose the right migration approach. Native services such as Azure Migrate and AWS Migration Hub can simplify application discovery, dependency mapping, and migration planning. Once the current environment is understood, the next step is selecting the right migration strategy for each workload.
Choose the Right Cloud Migration Strategy for Each Application
After completing the assessment, the next step is selecting the right cloud migration strategy for each application. The best approach depends on application architecture, business priorities, performance requirements, compliance needs, and long-term technology goals.
Rehosting (lift-and-shift) is a good fit for applications that require a fast migration process with few modifications, while replatforming optimizes applications through managed cloud services. When long-term scalability and cloud-native capabilities are priorities, refactoring is the preferred option. Other strategies, including repurchase, retain, retire, and relocate, address specific business, technical, or operational requirements.
The table below summarizes the seven migration strategies and the situations in which each is most appropriate.
| Migration Strategy | Best Used When |
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Selecting the right strategy for each workload helps balance migration effort, business priorities, and future growth. Once these decisions are made, the next step is building a structured migration plan that minimizes risk and keeps the project on schedule.
Step-by-Step On-Prem to Cloud Migration Process
A successful on-prem to cloud migration follows a structured process rather than a single migration event. Each phase builds on the previous one, helping teams reduce risks, maintain business continuity, and avoid costly rework. Once the approach has been selected, the focus shifts to planning, execution, and validation.
Step 1: Define Migration Goals
Start by identifying what the migration is expected to achieve, whether that means reducing infrastructure costs, improving application performance, increasing scalability, or supporting faster software releases. Clear objectives help prioritize workloads, allocate resources, and measure success after migration.
Step 2: Build a Migration Roadmap
A migration roadmap outlines the sequence of activities, timelines, workload priorities, and deployment approach. Group applications into migration waves based on their complexity, dependencies, and business impact, starting with a pilot migration to validate the approach before moving production workloads. Define rollback procedures, communication plans, and validation checkpoints so critical applications can recover quickly if unexpected issues occur.
Step 3: Prepare the Cloud Environment
Before migrating any applications, configure the cloud environment to support secure and reliable deployments. This includes setting up networking, identity and access management (IAM), Zero Trust security principles, monitoring, and governance controls. Preparing these foundational services early will help reduce configuration issues, maintain compliance, and create a stable environment for the workloads that will follow.
Step 4: Migrate Applications and Data
Begin with lower-risk applications or pilot workloads to validate the migration approach before moving business-critical systems. During this phase, migrate application data, verify dependencies, and confirm integrations work as expected. Tools such as Azure Migrate and AWS application migration service simplify workload replication and reduce manual effort. Before completing each migration wave, validate application functionality, user access, and critical business workflows. A phased rollout reduces disruption and helps address issues before larger workloads are migrated.
Step 5: Validate, Optimize, and Monitor
The work does not end when applications are running in the cloud, as validating application performance, security controls, and user experience helps confirm workloads operate as expected. Continue monitoring resource utilization, optimize cloud costs, and identify opportunities for application modernization that improve long-term performance and operational efficiency.
Following a structured process helps reduce uncertainty throughout the migration project. Before moving production workloads, take one final step back and validate the key decisions made during planning. The following questions can help confirm that your migration plan is ready for execution.
Before You Start Your Migration, Ask These Five Questions
A migration plan may look complete on paper, but its success often depends on the decisions made before the first workload moves to the cloud. Reviewing the following questions helps identify planning gaps early, reduce project risks, and support better decisions throughout the migration process.
1. Have you identified all application dependencies?
Applications often rely on databases, APIs, authentication services, scheduled jobs, and third-party systems, and missing even one dependency can affect application performance, availability, or migration timelines after deployment.
2. Which applications should move first?
Prioritize workloads based on business value, technical complexity, and operational risk, starting with lower-risk applications to validate the migration approach before moving business-critical systems.
3. Does every application have the right migration strategy?
Rehosting, replatforming, and refactoring serve different business needs, so evaluating each application individually helps balance migration effort with long-term business value and future growth.
4. Is your cloud environment ready?
Before you migrate applications to AWS, confirm that networking, identity management, security controls, monitoring, and governance policies are already in place. Preparing the environment in advance helps reduce deployment issues and improves operational stability.
5. How will you measure migration success?
Define success using business and technical outcomes such as application availability, performance, operational costs, deployment efficiency, and user experience. These metrics provide a clearer picture of migration results than simply confirming workloads are running in the cloud.
Taking time to answer these questions create a stronger foundation for an on-premises-to-cloud migration. It also helps teams identify gaps early, improve planning, and move into the next phase with greater confidence.
AWS vs. Azure: Which Platform Should You Choose?
Choosing the right cloud platform is an important part of an on-prem to cloud migration. Both AWS and Azure provide enterprise-grade cloud services, but the better choice depends on your existing technology environment, application requirements, and long-term business goals.
For organizations currently using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory), Windows Server, SQL Server, or Microsoft 365, migrating to Azure will be much easier because of its close integration with the Microsoft ecosystem. It is also a strong choice for organizations planning a hybrid cloud approach while modernizing applications with Microsoft Azure.
AWS is often preferred for Linux-based applications, cloud-native workloads, containers, and large-scale distributed systems. Its broad range of services and mature cloud ecosystem provides flexibility for organizations building modern applications or expanding globally.
Whether you migrate applications to Azure or AWS, the right platform should align with your business priorities, existing technology investments, and future growth plans. Evaluating these factors before migration helps reduce future rework and creates a stronger foundation for long-term cloud success.
This is why cloud migration should be viewed as the beginning of a broader modernization journey rather than the final objective. Stephen Potter, Cloud Economics Business Value Consultant at AWS, summarizes this perspective well:
“The problem isn’t migrating first. It’s what customers do, or don’t do, next.”
For organizations planning long-term cloud success, migration is only the first milestone. The greatest value comes from the decisions made after migration, including application modernization, performance optimization, and continuous improvement.
Source: Stephen Potter, AWS Migration & Modernization Blog, (Speed to Value: Why Migrate-First Still Wins at Scale | Migration & Modernization)
How Telliant Systems Supports Your Cloud Migration
Every organization has different application portfolios, business priorities, and migration goals, which is why Telliant helps assess migration readiness, develop practical migration roadmaps, and execute cloud migrations with minimal disruption. Whether you migrate applications to AWS or Azure, our engineering teams support every stage of the migration journey, including:
- Migration planning and execution tailored to your business priorities and technical requirements.
- Application modernization using cloud-native architectures, automation, and DevOps practices.
- Post-migration optimization to improve performance, security, and cost efficiency.
From planning and execution to ongoing optimization, Telliant helps organizations build cloud environments that are secure, scalable, and aligned with long-term business goals.
Conclusion
An effective migration from on-premises to the cloud begins with understanding your applications, choosing the right migration strategy, and carefully planning each phase with your business goals in mind. Analyzing dependencies and deciding whether to migrate to AWS or Azure both help minimize risk and set up future success.
The right approach transforms cloud migration from an infrastructure upgrade into a long-term investment that improves application performance, strengthens operational efficiency, supports continuous modernization, and creates a scalable technology foundation for future business growth.
