Migration to cloud services is increasingly becoming the norm as businesses seek to improve scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. In this article, I'll guide you through my experience of migrating an on-premises web server and database to Amazon Web Services (AWS) using the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS).
Establishing the Lab Environment
The migration journey began by setting up the lab environment. To streamline this process, I used a CloudFormation template, which allowed me to create the necessary infrastructure on both the simulated on-premises and AWS side with just one click. The output included separate instances for the Web server and Database, VPCs, and related network resources like subnets and route tables.
Creating a VPC Peering Connection
Next, I created a VPC peering connection between the AWS and on-premises environments, simulating a Direct Connect or VPN connection between the two. I added a peering connection and updated the necessary routes to three Route Tables: On-prem-public router, AWS Private and Public Router. This connectivity is crucial for enabling seamless interaction between the two environments.
Creating an RDS Instance and an EC2 Instance
The third step involved creating an RDS Instance to move the on-premises database instance to AWS. While it was being provisioned, I concurrently created an AWS EC2 Instance with Apache and MariaDB to migrate the on-premises application server to the AWS EC2 Instance. This parallel task management significantly expedited the process.
Migrating the Application Server
I then migrated the application server, which involved copying all WordPress-related content from the on-premises application server to the AWS EC2 Instance. I accomplished this using secure copy (scp) via the CLI.
Migrating the Database
With the application server migration complete, I shifted my focus to migrating the on-premises database. I created a replication instance, and source & destination endpoints in DMS, to create a migration task. Once those were tested and confirmed operational, I executed a migration task to move the on-premises database to the AWS RDS Instance that I provisioned earlier.
Updating Configurations
As the final step of the migration process, I had to modify the AWS Application Server Database configurations as they were still pointing to the on-premises database instance. I updated them with the private IP address and credentials of the AWS RDS. To test the independent operation of the AWS Application server and RDS DB, I stopped the on-premises instances.
Wrapping Up
Once I confirmed that the migration of the on-premises environment to AWS was successful, I deleted all the resources I had created. This step is crucial to prevent unnecessary costs for resources that are no longer in use.
In conclusion, migrating an on-premises web server and database to AWS using AWS DMS is a systematic but straightforward process. It requires careful planning and execution but ultimately provides a scalable, flexible, and cost-efficient solution. The key takeaway is that while migrating to AWS can seem daunting, it's a manageable task with the right tools and step-by-step implementation.
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