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AWS Cloud Adoption Strategies and the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF)
See how organizations actually move from on‑premises to AWS by exploring common migration strategies and the structured perspectives of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework.
From On‑Premises to AWS: Why Cloud Adoption Needs a Strategy
Why a Strategy Matters
Moving to AWS is more than a technical task. It changes how the business operates, how teams are organized, how budgets work, and how risk is managed.
Cloud Adoption vs Migration
Cloud adoption includes business drivers, migration strategies, and organizational change. Migration is one part of that bigger adoption journey.
Exam-Relevant Goals
For the Cloud Practitioner exam, you must recognize adoption drivers, name migration strategies, and understand that AWS CAF provides structured perspectives.
The City Analogy
Think of your data center as an old city and AWS as a new flexible city. Cloud adoption is the multi-year urban renewal plan for what to move, rebuild, or replace.
Why Organizations Adopt AWS: Common Drivers and Patterns
Business Drivers
Organizations move to AWS for cost optimization, agility and speed, scalability and elasticity, global reach, resilience, and innovation.
Technical Drivers
Technical triggers include ending data center contracts, hardware refresh cycles, software end-of-support, and security or compliance modernization needs.
Adoption Patterns
Patterns include large-scale migrations, starting with net-new cloud-native projects, or a hybrid of migrating some workloads while building new ones on AWS.
Exam Connection
Expect scenarios where you must connect a business situation, such as a lease expiring, to its cloud driver and a likely migration strategy.
AWS Migration Strategies: The 7 Rs (and How to Recognize Them)
The 7 Rs Overview
AWS describes seven migration strategies: retire, retain, rehost, replatform, repurchase, refactor, and relocate.
Low-Change Options
Retire removes unused apps. Retain keeps them where they are. Rehost is lift and shift: move to AWS with minimal changes.
Moderate Change Options
Replatform makes small optimizations, like moving to Amazon RDS. Repurchase replaces an app with a SaaS product.
High-Change Options
Refactor re-architects for cloud-native features like microservices or serverless. Relocate moves infrastructure with no app or hypervisor change.
Exam Keywords
Minimal change and tight deadlines hint at rehost; small optimizations suggest replatform; modernization and microservices point to refactor.
Introducing the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
What is AWS CAF?
The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework is a structured way to plan and execute cloud adoption using a set of perspectives.
Why Perspectives?
CAF says you must advance business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations together, not just migrate servers.
The Six Perspectives
AWS CAF includes Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations perspectives.
Exam Focus
Know that CAF provides structured perspectives, remember their names, and match simple scenarios to the correct perspective.
Business, People, and Governance Perspectives
Business Perspective
Business perspective focuses on why the organization adopts cloud and how it creates value, with topics like business cases and portfolio prioritization.
People Perspective
People perspective focuses on who does the work, how teams are organized, and how skills are developed for cloud adoption.
Governance Perspective
Governance perspective focuses on how decisions are made and controlled, covering policies, cost management, risk, and compliance.
Spotting Exam Clues
Business value and ROI hint at Business; training and roles hint at People; policies, guardrails, and budgets hint at Governance.
Platform, Security, and Operations Perspectives
Platform Perspective
Platform perspective focuses on the technical foundation on AWS: landing zones, account structure, networking, and core shared services.
Security Perspective
Security perspective focuses on protecting data and systems: identity and access, encryption, threat detection, and compliance alignment.
Operations Perspective
Operations perspective focuses on running workloads day-to-day: monitoring, incident management, change management, and continuous improvement.
Bringing Them Together
Platform, Security, and Operations combine to ensure workloads are well-architected, secure, and reliably operated on AWS.
End-to-End Example: A Retailer Migrates to AWS Using CAF
The Scenario
A mid-size retailer must leave its data center in 18 months and expand globally. Its e-commerce and inventory run on-premises today.
Business, People, Governance
Business sets drivers and priorities, People builds a CCoE and training, Governance defines regions, tagging, and account approvals.
Platform and Security
Platform designs a multi-account landing zone and VPC; Security defines IAM roles, MFA, logging, and encryption for customer data.
Applying the 7 Rs
They refactor the e-commerce frontend, replatform the inventory database to RDS, and retire a little-used legacy reporting tool.
Operations Perspective
Operations sets up CloudWatch monitoring, incident runbooks, and regular reviews to tune cost and performance after migration.
Thought Exercise: Mapping Scenarios to CAF Perspectives and 7 Rs
Use this exercise to actively connect scenarios to CAF perspectives and migration strategies. You do not need to write code; just reason carefully.
Task 1: Match each scenario to a CAF perspective
For each description, decide which single CAF perspective is the primary focus. (In real life there can be overlap, but choose the best fit.)
- A company sets a rule that any new AWS account must be created through a central request process and must use mandatory cost allocation tags.
- An operations team designs on‑call rotations and incident runbooks for their new AWS-hosted customer portal.
- A security team defines which AWS services must use encryption at rest and configures centralized logging.
- HR and the CCoE design a training path so system administrators can become cloud engineers.
Pause and answer mentally:
- 1 → ?
- 2 → ?
- 3 → ?
- 4 → ?
Check yourself:
- 1 → Governance
- 2 → Operations
- 3 → Security
- 4 → People
Task 2: Choose migration strategies
Now map each workload decision to one of the 7 Rs:
A. A batch job that runs once a month is moved from a physical server to an EC2 instance with almost no changes.
B. A legacy HR system is no longer needed because the company adopts a SaaS HR product.
C. A customer-facing app is redesigned into microservices and moved to serverless using AWS Lambda.
Pause and answer:
- A → ?
- B → ?
- C → ?
Check yourself:
- A → Rehost
- B → Retire or Repurchase (depending on whether you focus on turning off the old or buying the SaaS; exam wording will clarify).
- C → Refactor.
If any of these surprised you, re-read the earlier steps and note the keywords that point to each choice.
Quick Check: CAF Perspectives and Migration Strategies
Answer this exam-style question to test your understanding.
A company wants to move quickly out of its data center before the lease expires. It decides to move most applications to Amazon EC2 with minimal changes, while focusing mainly on building a basic landing zone and setting up IAM roles. Which combination best describes their primary migration strategy and the CAF perspective that is most involved in designing the landing zone?
- Rehost strategy and Platform perspective
- Replatform strategy and Governance perspective
- Refactor strategy and People perspective
- Repurchase strategy and Business perspective
Show Answer
Answer: A) Rehost strategy and Platform perspective
Moving applications to Amazon EC2 with minimal changes is a classic **rehost** (lift and shift) strategy. Designing a landing zone and core infrastructure like accounts, networking, and IAM is part of the **Platform perspective** in AWS CAF.
Quick Check: Business vs People vs Governance
Another short quiz to reinforce distinctions between business-side perspectives.
An organization is planning AWS adoption. A cross-functional team is asked to build a financial model showing expected cost savings and revenue growth from moving key workloads to AWS. Which AWS CAF perspective does this activity primarily belong to?
- People perspective
- Business perspective
- Governance perspective
- Operations perspective
Show Answer
Answer: B) Business perspective
Building a financial model for cost savings and revenue growth focuses on the **business value** of cloud adoption, which is the core of the **Business perspective**. Governance is more about policies and controls, while People is about roles and skills.
Key Term Review: CAF Perspectives and 7 Rs
Use these flashcards to reinforce the core vocabulary for AWS cloud adoption, which is often tested in scenario questions.
- AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
- An AWS framework that helps organizations plan and implement cloud adoption using six structured perspectives: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations.
- Business perspective (AWS CAF)
- The perspective that focuses on why the organization is adopting cloud and how it will create business value, including business cases, ROI, and portfolio prioritization.
- People perspective (AWS CAF)
- The perspective that focuses on who does the work, how teams are organized, and how skills and roles evolve during cloud adoption.
- Governance perspective (AWS CAF)
- The perspective that focuses on how decisions are made and controlled, including policies, risk management, compliance, and financial controls for cloud use.
- Platform perspective (AWS CAF)
- The perspective that focuses on the technical foundation on AWS, including account structure, networking, core shared services, and automation.
- Security perspective (AWS CAF)
- The perspective that focuses on protecting data, systems, and assets on AWS, including identity and access management, data protection, and security monitoring.
- Operations perspective (AWS CAF)
- The perspective that focuses on operating and supporting workloads on AWS, including monitoring, incident management, and continuous improvement.
- Rehost (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy where applications are moved to AWS with minimal changes, often called lift and shift, such as moving VMs to Amazon EC2.
- Replatform (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy that makes small optimizations while moving to AWS, such as migrating a database to Amazon RDS without major architectural changes.
- Refactor (or Re-architect) (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy that redesigns an application to use cloud-native capabilities like microservices, containers, or serverless for greater agility and scalability.
- Retire (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy where applications are decommissioned because they are no longer needed, reducing scope and cost.
- Retain (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy where applications remain in their current environment for now, often due to low business value or high migration risk.
- Repurchase (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy where an existing application is replaced by a different product, often a SaaS solution.
- Relocate (7 Rs)
- A migration strategy that moves infrastructure to AWS with no changes to the application or hypervisor, such as using VMware Cloud on AWS.
Apply It: Mini Migration Plan for a Simple Workload
To cement this module, sketch a quick migration plan using the ideas you have learned. Imagine you are advising a small startup that runs a single web application and database on one on‑premises server.
Context:
- The startup expects rapid growth in the next year.
- They have only two developers and one part‑time system administrator.
- Their landlord is converting the office, so they must shut down their server room in 9 months.
Step 1: Identify main drivers
Write down (mentally or on paper): Are their main drivers cost, agility, scalability, global reach, or something else? Pick 2–3.
Step 2: Choose a migration strategy (7 Rs)
Given the small team and 9‑month deadline, which strategy fits best?
- Rehost to EC2?
- Replatform the database to Amazon RDS?
- Fully refactor to serverless?
You might reasonably choose: rehost the web app to EC2 and replatform the database to RDS, with limited refactoring later.
Step 3: Map to CAF perspectives
For each perspective, note one action:
- Business: How will they measure success (for example, uptime, cost per month)?
- People: What training do the developers need on AWS?
- Governance: What simple cost controls or tagging rules should they set?
- Platform: How will they structure accounts and VPCs for dev vs prod?
- Security: How will they manage IAM users and roles, and protect data?
- Operations: What basic monitoring and alerting will they enable?
Spend 2–3 minutes thinking this through. This kind of holistic reasoning is exactly what higher quality exam questions are testing.
Key Terms
- Rehost
- A migration strategy where applications are moved to AWS with minimal changes, often called lift and shift, such as moving VMs to Amazon EC2.
- Retain
- A migration strategy where applications remain in their current environment for now, often due to low business value or high migration risk.
- Retire
- A migration strategy where applications are decommissioned because they are no longer needed, reducing scope and cost.
- Relocate
- A migration strategy that moves infrastructure to AWS with no changes to the application or hypervisor, such as using VMware Cloud on AWS.
- Replatform
- A migration strategy that makes small optimizations while moving to AWS, such as migrating a database to Amazon RDS without major architectural changes.
- Repurchase
- A migration strategy where an existing application is replaced by a different product, often a SaaS solution.
- People perspective
- An AWS CAF perspective focused on who does the work, how teams are organized, and how skills and roles evolve during cloud adoption.
- Business perspective
- An AWS CAF perspective focused on why the organization is adopting cloud and how it will create business value, including business cases, ROI, and portfolio prioritization.
- Platform perspective
- An AWS CAF perspective focused on the technical foundation on AWS, including account structure, networking, core shared services, and automation.
- Security perspective
- An AWS CAF perspective focused on protecting data, systems, and assets on AWS, including identity and access management, data protection, and security monitoring.
- Governance perspective
- An AWS CAF perspective focused on how decisions are made and controlled, including policies, risk management, compliance, and financial controls for cloud use.
- Operations perspective
- An AWS CAF perspective focused on operating and supporting workloads on AWS, including monitoring, incident management, and continuous improvement.
- 7 Rs migration strategies
- A set of common migration approaches defined by AWS: retire, retain, rehost, replatform, repurchase, refactor, and relocate.
- Refactor (or Re-architect)
- A migration strategy that redesigns an application to use cloud-native capabilities like microservices, containers, or serverless for greater agility and scalability.
- AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
- An AWS framework that helps organizations plan and implement cloud adoption using six structured perspectives: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations.