Fast, Safe, Cost-Smart — With Evidence
Moving to cloud should accelerate delivery, reduce risk, and improve cost behavior—not the other way around.
SolveForce runs cloud migrations as an engineering system: discovery → landing zone → migration waves → data cutovers → hardening → optimization—Zero-Trust by default, policy-as-code, and wired to evidence so audits pass cleanly.
Connective tissue:
☁️ Cloud foundations → /cloud • 🔗 On-ramps → /direct-connect
🧱 IaC/CI-CD → /infrastructure-as-code • /devops
🛡️ Security → /cybersecurity • 🔐 Keys/Secrets → /key-management • /secrets-management • /encryption
🚪 Access → /nac • /ztna • /sase • 🛡️ Edge → /waf • /dlp
📦 Data → /data-warehouse • /etl-elt • /vector-databases
💾 Continuity → /cloud-backup • /backup-immutability • /draas
📊 Evidence/Automation → /siem-soar • 💸 Spend → /finops
🎯 Outcomes (Why SolveForce for Migration)
- Predictable delivery — wave plans with cutover windows, rollback paths, and capacity pre-checks.
- Zero-Trust posture — identity-, device-, and workload-aware access from day one (no “trust the VPC”).
- Evidence on demand — change plans, test results, access logs, and DR artifacts exportable to auditors.
- Cost behavior — tags/labels, budgets, anomaly alerts, and commitment planning baked in.
- Performance wins — measurable latency/throughput improvements post-move; right-sized instances & storage.
🧭 Scope (What We Migrate)
- Apps — monoliths, microservices, APIs, batch/ETL, serverless candidates, K8s workloads. → /kubernetes • /serverless
- Data — OLTP/OLAP DBs, files/NAS, object/archive; CDC to lake/warehouse; lineage & DQ. → /etl-elt • /data-warehouse
- Networks — hubs, VPC/VNet topologies, Private Link/Endpoints, DNS, egress policy; private on-ramps. → /direct-connect
- Security & access — SSO/MFA federation, PIM/JIT, ZTNA for users, SASE for web/SaaS; NAC on premises. → /ztna • /sase • /nac
- Observability & evidence — logs/metrics/traces to SIEM; SOAR playbooks for rollback & incident. → /siem-soar
🧱 Migration Approaches (6R+)
- Rehost (lift & shift) — speed first; wrap with Zero-Trust and cost guardrails.
- Replatform — managed DBs, container services, object storage, queues.
- Refactor — break hotspots into serverless/functions or microservices.
- Rearchitect/Rebuild — cloud-native patterns for scale/availability.
- Retire — kill shelf-ware; archive data to immutable storage.
- Retain — keep on-prem where latency/regulatory needs apply; integrate with private on-ramps.
We often mix approaches per workload to maximize ROI while reducing risk.
🧰 Cutover Patterns (No-Drama Switchover)
- Blue/Green with DNS/Anycast flip and health gates.
- Canary by % (API Gateway/LB weighted) with automatic rollback on SLO breach.
- Dual-Run (read-only shadow) for analytics/reporting.
- CDC (Change Data Capture) → lag window cut, final delta, validate checksums, promote primary.
- Message drains with idempotency keys & DLQs.
- Feature flags for user-facing changes; flip independently from infra.
📐 SLO Guardrails (Targets You Can Measure)
| SLO / KPI | Target (Recommended) |
|---|---|
| Wave success rate | ≥ 99% (auto-rollback on failure) |
| Change lead time (non-prod → prod) | ≤ 1–24 h (app class dependent) |
| Cutover DNS/route convergence | ≤ 60–120 s |
| Post-move latency delta (p95) | ≤ 0% to −20% vs baseline (improve/hold) |
| DR artifacts present (Tier-1) | = 100% (runbooks, screenshots, checksums) |
| Tag/label coverage (cost-bearing) | ≥ 95–100% |
| Evidence completeness (changes/incidents) | = 100% |
SLO breaches open tickets and trigger SOAR (rollback, reroute, re-key, scale). → /siem-soar
🔒 Security & Compliance (Day-Zero Controls)
- Identity & access — SSO/MFA federation; short-lived roles; PIM/JIT for admins. → /iam • /pam
- Per-app access — ZTNA for users & vendors; SASE for web/SaaS; retire broad VPNs. → /ztna • /sase
- Keys & secrets — CMK/HSM custody, envelope encryption, rotation/quorum; secrets in vault (not code). → /key-management • /secrets-management • /encryption
- Boundary — WAF/Bot for APIs, DDoS stance, DLP egress rules. → /waf • /ddos • /dlp
- Network — private on-ramps, inspection hubs, egress allow-lists, split-horizon DNS. → /direct-connect
- Workload — EDR/XDR agents, image signing/SBOMs, admission policies, drift detection. → /mdr-xdr • /infrastructure-as-code
📦 Data Migration (Integrity First)
- Discover & classify — sensitivity (PII/PHI/PAN/CUI), residency, retention.
- Choose paths — snapshot & ship, online sync, CDC; plan read-only windows.
- Validate — checksums, row counts, referential integrity, query parity; lineage in catalog.
- Promote — cut traffic; monitor error budgets; keep clean-point catalog for fast rollbacks.
- Decommission — wipe & attest; immutable archives retained. → /backup-immutability
🚀 Optimization after Move (Day-30/60/90)
- Right-size & autoscale (instances, storage IOPS/tier, provisioned concurrency).
- Refactor hotspots → managed services, serverless, containers.
- Cost plan — RIs/Savings Plans, storage lifecycle, egress reduction, CDN/caching. → /finops
- Security posture — tighten roles, rotate keys, block unused regions, extend ZTNA.
- DR drills — runbook tests with artifacts; fix gaps. → /draas
📊 Observability & Evidence
- Dashboards — wave status, latency/throughput deltas, error budgets, cost by tag, security events.
- Logs — CloudTrail/Activity/Config, pipeline logs, DB migration logs, checksum/verifications, WAF/DLP hits → SIEM.
- SOAR playbooks — rollback, re-route, re-key, re-deploy; approval gates and change IDs. → /siem-soar
🛠️ Migration Blueprint (No-Surprise Rollout)
1) Discover & prioritize — app inventory, data classes, SLAs/SLOs, dependencies, regulatory scope.
2) Design landing zone — org/tenants, policy sets, logging, private networking, on-ramps. → /cloud • /direct-connect
3) Security baseline — SSO/MFA, PIM/JIT, ZTNA/SASE, keys/secrets, WAF/DLP.
4) IaC & pipelines — modules, policy gates, signed artifacts; canary/blue-green rings. → /infrastructure-as-code • /devops
5) Data plan — CDC/snapshots, read-only windows, validation scripts, lineage capture.
6) Wave plan — group by risk/coupling; success metrics; rollback criteria; communications plan.
7) Cutover & validate — DNS/route flip, health checks, parity tests; DR readiness verified.
8) Harden & optimize — right-size, commitments, additional refactors; extend Zero-Trust.
9) Decommission — secure wipe/attestation; update CMDB/catalog; archive evidence.
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
- 📋 App list, dependencies, owners, SLAs/SLOs, business criticality.
- 🔐 Regulatory scope (PCI/HIPAA/GDPR/etc.), data classifications, residency rules.
- ☁️ Target cloud(s)/regions, on-ramp POPs, DNS strategy.
- 🧱 IaC/CI-CD stack; policy-as-code maturity; artifact signing/SBOM.
- 🔑 KMS/HSM posture; vault & secret rotations; certificate plan.
- 📦 Data volumes, RPO/RTO, CDC feasibility; validation/test harness.
- 📡 Network map (NAT/egress policy, Private Link/Endpoints), inspection hubs.
- 📊 SIEM/SOAR destinations; reporting cadence; escalation matrix.
- 💸 Budget guardrails; RI/SP strategy; KPI targets for latency/cost.
🔄 Where Cloud Migration Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — migrated workloads ride /connectivity & /networks-and-data-centers.
2) Syntax — deployed on /cloud using /infrastructure-as-code & /devops.
3) Semantics — /cybersecurity preserves truth (identity, keys, logging); /dlp guards data.
4) Pragmatics — /solveforce-ai predicts risk/cost, recommends safe cutovers & optimizations.
5) Foundation — coherent terms via /primacy-of-language; ontology & Codex link everything.
6) Map — indexed across the /solveforce-codex & /knowledge-hub.