Last week, Amazon Web Services released the Database Migration Service, a tool that allows for the migration of databases to AWS without downtime. Yet again, AWS aims to simplify cloud migration for large enterprises and strike at the heart of big database vendors.

There are other services and platforms that facilitate database migration. What is unique about AWS Database Migration Service is that it allows for migration not just from one location to another, but from one database system (i.e. Oracle Enterprise) into another (i.e. AWS RDS), all while the source database remains operational.

Moving databases is always a key challenge in cloud adoption; the database is usually the canonical source of truth, and you never want extended downtime between source and target datasets. Repairing data corruption is expensive and time-consuming. When used to migrate to AWS’ native database solution, RDS (which supports Amazon Aurora, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB), you are moving from a costly database with intensive maintenance requirements to a managed, automatically replicated database with low hourly rates. No doubt enterprises will find this an attractive alternative.

Database Migration Service is only one of many services AWS has released — and likely plans to release — that remove common roadblocks to cloud or orchestrate cloud resources in their overall goal of attracting big enterprise logos. Enterprises that are skittish about vendor lock-in or worry about the cost of migrating into / out of the cloud will find AWS’ ease of migration (and emigration) hard to ignore.

Services like these are also what differentiates Amazon from platforms like Google and Azure, which are behind in offering the breadth of unique services that AWS provides. AWS’ two to four year headstart means that their core services are quite mature and they are pushing the envelop on infrastructure-as-code and automation tools, while Azure and Google are playing catch-up. (Hence Gartner’s IaaS Magic Quadrant, where AWS has been the clear leader for five years.)

Logicworks is fortunate in that we get advanced beta access to these new services. Dan Rosenbloom, our AWS Technical Lead and Sr. DevOps Engineer, went to Seattle late last year to attend a training for Database Migration Service.

The cool part about Amazon’s Beta programs is that we not only learn about new services sooner, but AWS’ engineers are very receptive to feedback. There is nothing more rewarding that sharing our clients’ use cases / concerns and in some small way, helping to influence the future of AWS services.  

Interested in getting out of an expensive database contract? Logicworks helps enterprises migrate complex systems out of on-premises infrastructure and into secure, self-healing AWS systems. Contact us to learn more.

Logicworks is an enterprise cloud automation and managed services provider with 22+ years of experience transforming enterprise IT. Contact us to learn more about our managed cloud solutions.