Cloud Adoption Framework and migration: CLF-C02 study notes and practice questions
What to know about Cloud Adoption Framework and migration for the CLF-C02 exam, from the Cloud Concepts domain (24% of the exam guide), then 4 free questions to test it. Part of the CLF-C02 study guide.
This topic covers how organizations plan and carry out a move to AWS.
AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
The CAF organizes guidance into six perspectives. The first three are business-focused, the last three technical.
Perspective
Focus
Typical stakeholders
Business
Making cloud investments drive business outcomes
CEO, CFO, strategy leaders
People
Culture, skills, organizational change
HR, leaders, staffing
Governance
Orchestrating initiatives, managing risk and spending
Program managers, CFO, risk officers
Platform
Building the cloud foundation and modern architectures
CTO, architects, engineers
Security
Confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and workloads
CISO, security engineers
Operations
Delivering cloud services to agreed service levels
IT operations, site reliability engineers
Benefits named in the CAF: reduced business risk, improved environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, increased revenue, and increased operational efficiency.
Migration strategies (the 7 Rs)
Strategy
What happens
Rehost (“lift and shift”)
Move as is to EC2, no code changes
Replatform (“lift, tinker and shift”)
Small changes for a cloud benefit, such as moving a database to Amazon RDS
Refactor / re-architect
Rebuild with cloud-native features, such as serverless
Repurchase
Switch to a different product, often SaaS
Relocate
Move VMware workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS without changes
Retain
Keep on premises for now
Retire
Turn off applications nobody needs
Migration services
AWS Migration Hub tracks migrations in one place.
AWS Application Migration Service rehosts servers into AWS.
AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) moves databases with minimal downtime; Schema Conversion Tool converts schemas between engines.
AWS Snow Family moves large amounts of data offline on physical devices; AWS DataSync moves data online.
Common traps
Rehost vs replatform. Any change, even swapping a self-managed database for RDS, makes it replatform.
Governance vs operations perspective. Managing risk and cloud spending is governance; running services day to day is operations.
A bank's cloud steering committee wants three things from its migration.
Expected savings must be tracked against a target each quarter, cloud spending must be budgeted and reported by team, and risks, including those that could interrupt business services, must have named owners.
Which AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) perspective focuses on these capabilities?
Choose one answer.
AA. Platform, covering the design and build of the cloud environment and its workloads
BB. Governance, covering business benefits, cloud spending and risk management
CC. Operations, covering how cloud services are run and monitored day to day
DD. People, covering skills, roles and organizational change for the cloud
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: B
A. Wrong: Platform covers building and modernizing the cloud environment and its workloads, such as landing zones and hybrid setups. It does not set benefit targets, cloud budgets or risk ownership, which the committee needs.
C. Wrong: Operations covers running cloud services day to day, including monitoring, incident response and service levels. It does not track migration savings or assign ownership of business benefits.
D. Wrong: People covers skills, roles and organizational change. Training staff matters for a migration, but the perspective does not describe tracking savings, budgets or risk ownership.
Explanation
The Governance perspective helps organizations orchestrate cloud initiatives, get the intended business benefits, manage spending and limit transformation risk. Platform, Operations and People each address other parts of the transformation.
A logistics firm's data center lease ends in three months, and its servers must move before then.
The team plans to move 40 virtual machines to Amazon EC2 with no changes to code or architecture, and to optimize them later once they are running.
Which migration strategy does this describe?
Choose one answer.
AA. Refactor, rewriting the applications to use cloud-native features
BB. Replatform, making some optimizations as the application moves
CC. Rehost, also called lift and shift, moving the application to the cloud without changes
DD. Repurchase, replacing the application with a different product, often software as a service
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: C
A. Wrong: Refactoring rewrites an application to use cloud-native features. The team plans no code changes, so this strategy is far more work than the deadline allows.
B. Wrong: Replatforming moves an application and introduces some optimization during the move. The plan defers optimization and makes no changes at the move, so this is not the strategy.
D. Wrong: Repurchase switches to a different product, typically a SaaS model. The plan keeps the same virtual machines and software, so it does not replace the product.
Explanation
Rehost, often called lift and shift, moves applications to the cloud without changing their code or architecture. It is the quickest way to leave a data center under a deadline, and optimization can follow later. Refactor, replatform and repurchase all involve changes that the plan does not include.
During portfolio assessment, a company's team finds a legacy expense-report tool.
Nobody has logged in for a year, its servers average under 5% CPU use, and the finance director confirms the business no longer needs it. The team wants to stop paying for the tool and its servers.
Which migration strategy should the company apply to this application?
Choose one answer.
AA. Retain, keeping the application where it is for now
BB. Relocate, moving the infrastructure to the cloud at the hypervisor level
CC. Rehost, moving the servers to Amazon EC2 unchanged
DD. Retire, decommissioning the application and removing its servers
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: D
A. Wrong: Retain keeps an application in its current environment, usually because it is not ready to move or has no migration case yet. This tool has no business value, so keeping it would keep paying for unused servers.
B. Wrong: Relocate moves infrastructure to the cloud without buying new hardware or rewriting applications. It would still carry the cost of servers that nobody needs.
C. Wrong: Rehost moves an application to the cloud unchanged. Moving an unused tool would keep paying for its servers in a new location, so this does not stop the cost.
D. Right: Correct. Retire decommissions applications that are no longer needed. The business has confirmed no value, so the company should shut the tool down and stop paying for its servers. Learn more: Paths to the cloud (opens in a new tab)
Explanation
Retire removes applications the business no longer needs, so the company stops paying for their servers. Rehost and relocate would move that cost into the cloud, and retain keeps it in place. Here the business has confirmed the tool has no value, so retiring it is the right step.
A retailer sets up two teams for its cloud transformation.
The first, led by its CTO and made of architects and engineers, will build a scalable hybrid cloud environment and modernize workloads. The second, made of service managers and site reliability engineers, will deliver cloud services at agreed service levels.
Which AWS CAF perspectives do these teams represent?
Choose one answer.
AA. Platform for the first team, with Operations for the second
BB. Business for the first team, and Governance for the second team
CC. Operations for the first team, and Platform for the second team
DD. Governance for the first team, and Security for the second team
B. Wrong: Business covers the outcomes the cloud should deliver, not building the environment. Governance covers managing benefits, spend and risk rather than day-to-day service delivery.
C. Wrong: Operations is about delivering services at agreed levels, and Platform is about building the environment. The two labels are swapped, so each team is matched to the wrong perspective.
D. Wrong: Governance orchestrates benefits, spend and risk rather than building the environment, and Security covers the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. Neither matches the build and service-delivery roles described.
Explanation
Platform covers building the cloud foundations, hybrid environments and modernization. Operations covers delivering cloud services to agreed service levels. The scenario describes these two roles, which are easy to confuse because both involve running technology.
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