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Six Rs Cloud Migration Decision Tree

Run the Six Rs MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

When you've got a portfolio of legacy applications and a migration deadline, you need a way to triage — and the Six Rs (Retire, Repurchase, Refactor, Replatform, Rehost, Retain) is the framework most cloud teams use. This decision tree walks through five questions that lead to one of the six recommendations.

How to Use

  1. Click Trace Example: HR Portal for a worked walkthrough
  2. Click any leaf to see what the strategy means, its typical timeline, and a real-world example

Embedding This MicroSim

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/information-systems/sims/six-rs-decision-tree/main.html"
        height="722px" width="100%" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Learning Objectives

By the end of this activity, students will be able to:

  1. Apply the Six Rs decision tree to an unfamiliar workload
  2. Choose the appropriate R and defend the choice
  3. Estimate the timeline implications of each strategy
  4. Identify when Retain is a better short-term choice than any of the others

Suggested Activities

  1. Portfolio Triage (15 min) — Given 8 sample applications, walk each through the tree
  2. Defend Your Choice (10 min) — For your chosen R on one workload, write a one-paragraph rationale
  3. Replatform vs Refactor (10 min) — When does Replatform stop being enough? Where's the threshold?

References

  • AWS. 6 Strategies for Migrating Applications to the Cloud.
  • Gartner. Five Ways to Migrate Applications to the Cloud.