AWS Knowledge
Understanding AWS Migration Hub Pricing and Costs
Piyush Kalra
Jan 16, 2025
Migrating to the cloud is revolutionary for companies. It’s not only about shifting workloads but also about optimizing infrastructure, scaling, and remaining competitive in this fast-evolving digital world. AWS Migration Hub simplifies this with a single tool that you can use for managing, monitoring, and even migrating your projects. But how much will it cost? For professionals planning a move to the cloud, knowing AWS Migration Hub pricing and the relevant costs drivers is very important.
With the proliferation of businesses adopting cloud solutions, we can expect cloud migration to grow by 25%. This blog attempts to explain AWS Migration Hub’s features, and pricing and offers tips on how one can minimize expenses while migrating to the cloud.
What is AWS Migration Hub?
(Image Source: AWS Migration)
AWS Migration Hub is a service within Amazon Web Services aimed at facilitating easier migration of applications, data and infrastructure to the cloud. It helps manage the entire migration process by providing a single place from which businesses can monitor all migration efforts through an intuitive dashboard.
Key Features:
Monitor Migration from a Single Interface: Track the migration statuses of applications, databases, and servers over a diverse set of AWS and other vendor applications in one interface.
Journey Templates: Predefined workflows and templates for common migration scenarios.
Application and Server Discovery: Tools such as AWS Discovery Agent and Application Discovery Service can be employed to analyze and map the current infrastructure and dependencies.
AWS Service Integration: The Migration Hub is integrated with other AWS infrastructure services such as AWS Database Migration Service and AWS Server Migration Service for easier migration.
AWS Migration Hub offers much more than just tracking. It helps teams focus on better collaboration, lower the risk of long downtimes, and enhance cost visibility which helps the migration process occur much smoother.
How Does AWS Migration Hub Work?
Assess Your Environment: Use AWS Application Discovery Service to gather data on your existing on-premises environment, such as servers, applications, and dependencies.
Plan Your Migration Path: Group resources into applications and define the migration strategy for each (e.g., rehost, re-platform, or refactor).
Monitor Migration Progress: Track the progress and performance of your migrations from a single dashboard, providing transparency and accountability across teams.
Leverage Cost Management Tools: Tools like AWS Cost Explorer and tags automatically track migration costs, enabling businesses to compare on-premises expenses versus cloud-based savings.
Benefits During Migration:
Clear visibility into migration status.
Reduced risk of unplanned service disruption.
Increased efficiency with the use of process templates and automation.
Deep Dive into AWS Migration Hub Pricing Structure
Most users assume some components of the AWS Migration Hub should have separate charges. In reality, using the Migration Hub for collecting discovery data, planning migration, or tracking progress does not incur any costs. Costs occur from the tools and resources used in AWS while migrating the resources.
1. Data Transfer Costs:
You’ll incur charges for transferring data in and out of AWS. This includes costs associated with network usage and any necessary bandwidth adjustments.
2. Storage Costs:
AWS charges for the storage of migrated data or VM images. For instance:
Amazon Elastic Block Store is billed based on your selected volume type and the amount of data you store.
Amazon S3 offers scalable storage but comes with tiered pricing models.
3. Additional AWS Services Fees:
Migration Hub integrates with services like:
AWS Database Migration Service: Billed by the instance hours and data replication volume.
AWS Application Migration Service: Pricing varies based on VM usage, network traffic, and storage requirements.
4. Refactor Spaces:
Migration Hub Refactor Spaces introduces additional costs like:
$0.028 per environment per hour after the free trial period.
$0.000002 per API request, with 500,000 free API requests per month.
Comparison with On-Premises Migration Costs:
One of the major disadvantages of an on-premises migration is the expense associated with hardware, IT services, and software licenses that must be bought up front. With the AWS Migration Hub, businesses making the transition to the cloud do not have to incur these expenses and can instead adopt a pay-as-you-go model, which is undoubtedly more affordable.
Additional Pricing Benefits
AWS Free Tier:
Get 2,160 hours of free usage of Refactor Spaces environments every month for three months, which is equivalent to running three environments for three months.
Receive 500,000 API calls at no charge every month for Refactor Spaces.
Cost Management Tools:
AWS Cost Explorer and tags such as aws:migrationhub companies can track their expenses in real-time and set budgets more efficiently.
The business compute costs can be reduced using Spot Instances and Reserved Instances.
Case Study: Affinidi’s Success with AWS Migration Hub Refactor Spaces
Affinidi is a data empowerment technology startup and had issues with managing an extensive range of 20 API endpoints with various security protocols. This did not aid in the company’s development by stifling agility, increasing developer effort, and further disintegrating services.
Affinidi took advantage of AWS Migration Hub Refactor Spaces to streamline and enhance their operations substantially. They consolidated the 20 disparate API endpoints into a singular API layer. This reduced developer effort for service APIs by 50% while significantly improving stand-up time from days to minutes. Furthermore, an increase in security standards was established alongside a 25% decrease in monolithic refactoring costs, showcasing the importance of advanced cloud migration tools.
The Results:
Scalable, secure, and flexible architecture achieved.
Engineers are empowered to focus on innovation and productivity.
Ability to scale from 100 thousand to 2 million digital vaults by 2025-26
Minimized risks and improved performance.
Tools and Tips for Cutting AWS Migration Hub Costs
Here are some actionable ways to optimize your AWS Migration Hub costs:
AWS Pricing Calculator: An advanced AWS pricing tool for you looking to move your existing infrastructure to AWS. It is an excellent way to determine your budget and possible expenses at your organization.
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection: This service monitors cloud spending patterns and applies machine learning algorithms to notify you if costs unexpectedly spike.
AWS Budgets: A feature that enables you to keep tabs on their expenses by creating limits on their spending.
Cost Optimization Tips:
Right Sizing Instances: The right sizing of compute resources for your applications ensures that you are not over provisioning instances. This also helps lower costs while still optimizing performance. While underprovisioning can have a detrimental impact on performance, overprovisioning leads to unnecessary costs.
Plan Migrations During Off-Peak Hours: Migrations should be scheduled during times when the application is least used to minimize the impact on business operations. Off-peak migrations carry a lesser risk of downtime affecting customers or vital processes.
Remove and Clean Up Unused Resources: Periodically checking and removing unused virtual machines, storage, or IP addresses can prevent wasted costs and clustered resources. Unused resources result in expenses while decreasing overall efficiency.
Automate Such Tasks: Using the Migration Hub Orchestrator to automate menial tasks greatly saves manual effort and time while minimizing errors. Eliminating human error is one of the main advantages of automation which also ensures that migrations are correctly performed avoiding cost overruns.
Gradual Refactoring: Migration Hub Refactor Spaces allows you to incrementally update applications instead of modernizing an entire system at once. This approach reduces risks, lowers costs, and provides for effective system testing without significantly disrupting normal operations.
Conclusion
AWS Migration Hub facilitates migrating to the cloud, its pricing structure and cost components should be understood for optimal ROI. Cost management during migration can be greatly aided by tools like AWS Cost Explorer and optimization techniques.
AWS Migration Hub isn't just for tracking purposes; it is an enabler of cost-effective, efficient, and seamless migrations. Whether organizations are modernizing applications, moving workloads, or adopting a cloud-first strategy, there is always a tool from AWS Migration Hub to assist.
Get started with AWS Migration Hub and embrace the future of cloud technology.
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