Know what needs to move
Inventory applications, integrations, data and operational dependencies. Identify what can tolerate downtime and what must remain available during a migration.
Agree access and responsibility
Document who owns each environment and who can approve access. Separate production from development and make the process for removing access as clear as the process for granting it.
Plan recovery before migration
Define acceptable downtime and data loss with the people responsible for the service. Document backups and test a restore rather than assuming a successful backup means recovery will work.
Understand ongoing costs
Account for storage, traffic, monitoring and support as well as compute. Set budgets and review actual usage after launch. The right architecture reflects your workload and operating capacity.
