Performance Aspects of Moving to AWS from On-Premise
Tags: aws, cloud, performance
Published: 2023-03-14 06:45:00

Many organizations are considering moving their workloads from on-premise data centers to the cloud, especially to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which offers a wide range of services and features for scalability, reliability, and performance. However, moving to the cloud also involves performance challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed carefully. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the performance aspects of moving to AWS from on-premise and how to optimize them.

**Instance Types and Sizes**

One of the key factors that affect performance when moving to AWS is choosing the right instance type and size for your workload. AWS offers a variety of instance types that differ in terms of CPU, memory, storage, network bandwidth, and other features. For example, there are general purpose instances (such as t3 or m5), compute optimized instances (such as c5 or c6), memory optimized instances (such as r5 or x1), storage optimized instances (such as i3 or d2), etc.

Choosing the right instance type and size depends on your workload's characteristics and requirements. For example, if your workload is CPU-intensive, you may want to use a compute optimized instance type that offers high-performance processors. If your workload is memory-intensive, you may want to use a memory optimized instance type that offers large amounts of RAM. If your workload is storage-intensive, you may want to use a storage optimized instance type that offers fast SSDs or HDDs.

In addition to choosing the right instance type, you also need to choose the right instance size within each type. For example, within the general purpose t3 instance type, there are different sizes such as t3.nano (2 vCPUs and 0.5 GiB RAM) or t3.xlarge (4 vCPUs and 16 GiB RAM). Choosing the right instance size depends on your workload's resource utilization and demand patterns. For example, if your workload has low CPU utilization but high memory utilization you may want to use a larger instance size within the t3 type that offers more memory. If your workload has high CPU utilization but low memory utilization, you may want to use a smaller instance size within the t3 type that offers less memory.
One of the advantages of moving to AWS is that you can easily change your instance type and size as your workload changes over time. You can use features such as auto scaling or spot instances to dynamically adjust your capacity and performance based on demand and cost. You can also use features such as performance insights or cloudwatch to monitor your performance metrics and identify bottlenecks or opportunities for optimization.

**Network Performance**

Another factor that affects performance when moving to AWS is network performance. Network performance involves ensuring that the data transfer between your on-premise and AWS environments, as well as within AWS, is fast and reliable. To achieve network performance in AWS, you can use various methods such as:
•	Direct Connect: Direct Connect allows you to establish a dedicated network connection between your on-premise data center and an AWS region. This can reduce latency, increase bandwidth, and improve security compared to using the public internet.
•	VPN: VPN allows you to create a secure encrypted tunnel between your on-premise network and your VPC in AWS. This can protect your data from unauthorized access or interception while using the public internet.
•	Transit Gateway: Transit Gateway allows you to connect multiple VPCs in different regions or accounts using a single gateway. This can simplify your network architecture and reduce operational overhead.
•	Accelerated Transfer: Accelerated Transfer allows you to transfer large amounts of data from on-premise to AWS or vice versa using AWS services such as S3 Transfer Acceleration or Snowball Edge. This can speed up your data migration and reduce costs compared to using the public internet.

**Conclusion**

Moving to AWS from on-premise offers many benefits but also requires careful planning and execution for performance aspects. Customers need to understand the different instance types and sizes, network performance methods, and other best practices that AWS provides for optimizing their workloads in the cloud.

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