Cloud Migration Strategy: Step-by-Step Guide for 2026
Cloud migration strategy guide for 2026. Step-by-step assessment, planning and execution with AWS vs Azure vs GCP comparison, cost benchmarks and optimization tips.
AWS Development Services
- 25+ AWS projects
- 10+ certified engineers
- 30+ AWS services used
Key facts:
Pharos Production is an AWS technology partner with 25+ AWS-based projects deployed since 2016. Services span EC2, Lambda, ECS/EKS, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, CloudFront, SQS/SNS and Bedrock. 10+ AWS-certified engineers. Last reviewed: July 2026. Editorial policy.
How our AWS practice differs
Our AWS practice ships production cloud architectures, not click-ops experiments. AWS Solutions Architect certified team, 35+ AWS projects across FinTech, healthcare, e-commerce and enterprise since 2017. Stack covers infrastructure-as-code via Terraform and AWS CDK, ECS and EKS for containers, Lambda and Fargate for serverless, RDS, Aurora and DynamoDB for data, plus AWS Organizations and Control Tower for multi-account governance. Every architecture passes AWS Well-Architected Framework review across the six pillars, with quarterly re-reviews. We follow AWS security guidance for IAM least-privilege, KMS encryption, GuardDuty and Security Hub, and apply FinOps practices for cost discipline. We do not ship root-account architectures, IAM users without MFA or unencrypted S3 buckets - non-negotiable. We routinely advise clients to choose a managed PaaS (Vercel, Render, Fly.io) instead of raw AWS when simplicity and TCO dominate. See our cloud services.
What is AWS development?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud computing platform with 200+ services spanning compute (EC2, Lambda, ECS, Fargate), storage (S3, EBS, EFS), databases (RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache), networking (VPC, CloudFront, Route 53), security (IAM, KMS, WAF) and developer tools. AWS holds 31% global cloud market share and powers Netflix, Airbnb, NASA, Samsung and thousands of enterprises. AWS development includes cloud-native application architecture, serverless computing with Lambda, container orchestration with ECS/EKS, infrastructure as code with Terraform and CloudFormation, CI/CD pipelines with CodePipeline, data engineering with Redshift and Glue and multi-account enterprise landing zones with AWS Organizations and Control Tower.
AWS Development Benchmark 2026
Proprietary research based on 35+ AWS projects delivered by Pharos Production between 2016 and 2026. Dataset covers cloud migrations, serverless architectures, container platforms and enterprise landing zones. Methodology (Pharos Verified Delivery): aggregated delivery metrics with AWS CloudWatch monitoring and cost optimization data. Full report available on request.
8 weeks
Average time to production for AWS cloud projects
99.99%
Average application uptime across AWS deployments
40-70%
Infrastructure cost reduction after optimization
$30K-$280K+
Project cost range depending on migration scope
< 100ms
Average Lambda cold start with provisioned concurrency
35+
AWS projects delivered since 2016
What we build with AWS Development
Serverless application architecture
Event-driven applications with Lambda, API Gateway, SQS, SNS and Step Functions - zero server management, pay-per-invocation pricing, automatic scaling from zero to thousands of concurrent executions.
Container orchestration
Microservices running on ECS with Fargate (serverless containers) or EKS (managed Kubernetes), load balanced with ALB, service discovery via Cloud Map and auto-scaling based on custom CloudWatch metrics.
Cloud migration
Lift-and-shift migrations from on-premise data centers, re-platforming to managed services (RDS, ElastiCache, OpenSearch), database migration with DMS and application modernization from monolith to microservices.
Data engineering pipelines
ETL pipelines with Glue, data lake storage on S3, real-time streaming with Kinesis, analytics with Athena and Redshift and data catalog management for enterprise data governance.
Infrastructure as code
Reproducible infrastructure with Terraform or CloudFormation, multi-environment deployments (dev, staging, production), drift detection, automated compliance checks and GitOps workflows.
Enterprise landing zones
Multi-account AWS Organizations setup with Control Tower, Service Control Policies, centralized logging to CloudTrail/CloudWatch, security baseline with GuardDuty, Config and Security Hub.
AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud for enterprise projects
| Factor | AWS | Azure / Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Market share | 31% global cloud market, largest ecosystem | Azure: 25%. GCP: 11%. AWS leads in IaaS |
| Service breadth | 200+ services, deepest catalog in every category | Azure: 200+, strongest Microsoft integration. GCP: fewer but focused |
| Serverless | Lambda (most mature), Step Functions, EventBridge | Azure Functions (good .NET support). Cloud Functions (simple) |
| Containers | ECS, EKS, Fargate - largest container ecosystem | Azure: AKS (strong). GCP: GKE (best managed K8s) |
| Database options | RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, DocumentDB | Azure: Cosmos DB (multi-model). GCP: Spanner, Firestore, AlloyDB |
| Enterprise adoption | Netflix, Airbnb, NASA, Samsung, Goldman Sachs | Azure: Microsoft shops. GCP: data/ML-heavy companies |
| Pricing | Complex pricing, best savings with Reserved/Spot instances | Azure: EA discounts for Microsoft customers. GCP: sustained use discounts |
Pharos Production recommends AWS for most cloud projects due to its market-leading service breadth, largest talent pool and most mature ecosystem. Azure suits organizations heavily invested in Microsoft 365 and .NET. Google Cloud excels for data analytics, BigQuery workloads and Kubernetes-native architectures.
Limitations: AWS pricing is notoriously complex - 200+ services each with their own pricing dimensions (compute, storage, data transfer, API calls) make cost prediction difficult without dedicated FinOps practices. Vendor lock-in with AWS-specific services (DynamoDB, SQS, Lambda event sources) makes future migration to Azure or GCP expensive. AWS Console UI is outdated and overwhelming for new teams. Data transfer egress charges ($0.09/GB) add significant hidden costs for data-intensive applications.
AWS Development development cost range
AWS architecture design and initial setup starts from $30,000-$65,000. Serverless applications with Lambda and DynamoDB cost $35,000-$110,000. Full cloud migration from on-premise ranges from $70,000-$280,000. Ongoing infrastructure management starts from $2,000/month.
AWS Development projects we delivered
Key takeaways
- AWS holds 31% of the global cloud market and offers 200+ services - more than any other cloud provider, covering every infrastructure and application need.
- AWS Lambda processes billions of invocations daily with pay-per-use pricing, eliminating server management and reducing infrastructure costs by 40-70% for event-driven workloads.
- AWS ECS/Fargate provides serverless containers that auto-scale based on demand - no cluster management, no idle capacity costs, deployments in seconds.
- Pharos Production has delivered 35+ AWS projects across FinTech, healthcare, e-commerce and enterprise infrastructure since 2016.
- An AWS cloud project starts from $30,000-$70,000 for architecture design and initial migration, with ongoing infrastructure costs depending on workload scale.
Limitations and considerations
- AWS pricing complexity is a genuine operational burden - 200+ services with per-second, per-GB, per-request and per-API-call pricing dimensions require dedicated FinOps tooling and expertise to avoid bill surprises.
- Vendor lock-in with AWS-specific services (DynamoDB, SQS, Lambda event sources, Step Functions) makes future migration to Azure or GCP expensive - re-architecting tightly coupled serverless applications can cost 50-80% of the original build.
- AWS data transfer egress charges ($0.09/GB) add significant hidden costs - applications serving large files, video streaming or cross-region replication can see data transfer exceed compute costs.
- AWS releases 2,000+ new features per year - keeping infrastructure up to date, migrating deprecated services and evaluating new options requires continuous engineering investment that smaller teams struggle to sustain.
Key AWS cloud terms 7
- Amazon EC2
- AWS's virtual machine service providing resizable compute instances across multiple instance families optimized for general purpose, compute, memory and GPU workloads with pay-per-second billing.
- AWS Lambda
- A serverless compute service that runs code in response to events without provisioning servers, automatically scaling from zero to thousands of concurrent executions and billing per invocation.
- Amazon S3
- AWS's object storage service offering virtually unlimited durability and scalability for files, backups, static assets and data lake storage, accessed via a REST API or SDKs.
- VPC
- A logically isolated virtual network in AWS where users define IP ranges, subnets, route tables and gateways to control network topology and traffic flow for cloud resources.
- IAM
- AWS Identity and Access Management, the system for defining users, roles and policies that grant or deny granular permissions to AWS services and resources using the principle of least privilege.
- AWS CloudFormation
- An infrastructure-as-code service that provisions and manages AWS resources through declarative JSON or YAML templates, enabling repeatable and version-controlled environment deployments.
- Amazon EKS
- AWS's managed Kubernetes service that runs the control plane across multiple availability zones, integrating with EC2 and Fargate node groups for containerized workload orchestration.
Frequently asked questions
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AWS offers the broadest service catalog (200+ services), largest global infrastructure (33 regions), most mature ecosystem and largest talent pool. Most third-party tools, tutorials and community support target AWS first.
For greenfield cloud projects, AWS provides the most options and flexibility.
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Costs depend entirely on workload. A typical startup runs on $500-$2,000/month.
Mid-size applications cost $2,000-$10,000/month. Enterprise platforms range from $10,000 to $100,000+/month. We perform cost optimization audits that typically reduce existing AWS bills by 30-50%.
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Yes. We follow AWS Migration Acceleration Program methodology - assess current infrastructure, plan migration waves, execute lift-and-shift or re-platform as appropriate, then optimize.
Database migration uses AWS DMS for minimal downtime. Typical migration takes 6-16 weeks.
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Serverless (Lambda) suits event-driven, sporadic workloads with variable traffic. Containers (ECS/Fargate) suit always-on services with predictable traffic.
Many projects use both - Lambda for event processing and API handlers, containers for long-running background services.
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Cloud architecture and initial setup starts from $30,000-$55,000. Full migration projects range from $55,000 to $210,000.
Enterprise landing zone with multi-account setup costs $150,000 to $280,000+. Ongoing infrastructure management starts from $3,000/month.
Reviews
Independent reviews from Clutch, GoodFirms and Google - verified client feedback on our software projects
Based on 323 verified client reviews
Social
Pharos Production Inc.'s dedicated efforts led to a remarkable 95% increase in tracking accuracy for the client. The team used Jira, Trello, and Zoom to communicate and manage the project. Their technical knowledge was a hallmark of their work.
Healthcare
Pharos Production delivered an adaptable digital health platform that enabled us to swiftly introduce new patient services while ensuring robust data security. Their technical skills and forward-thinking attitude gave us the confidence to grow as our user community flourished!
Choose your cooperation model
Pharos Production works in three engagement models, from a focused PoC to a production MVP to a full enterprise platform, with typical budgets from $10,000 to $400,000+ depending on scope and complexity.
PoC
Proof of concept
Focused validation of your riskiest technical assumption with a working spike and a clear build-or-pivot recommendation.
$11,000 - $35,000
Popular choice
MVP
MVP build
Production-ready first version with core flows, real backend and the integrations to onboard first paying users.
$55,000 - $160,000
Enterprise
Enterprise platform
Full-scale build with architecture, DevOps, QA, security and long-term evolution.
$160,000 - $430,000+
Prices vary based on project scope, complexity, timeline and requirements. Hourly rates range from $35 to $75 depending on role and seniority. Contact us for a personalized estimate.
Trusted & Certified
Partnerships and awards
Recognized on Clutch, GoodFirms and The Manifest for software engineering excellence
20+ industry awards
AWS engineering insights
Microservices vs Monolith: Architecture Decision Guide
Microservices vs monolith architecture decision guide. Comparison table, modular monolith pattern, migration strategies and cost analysis for development teams.
Build with AWS Development
90+ engineers ready to deliver your AWS Development project on time and within budget
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Plan the Goals
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Finalize the Details
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Sign the Contract
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Our offices
Headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada. Engineering office in Kyiv, Ukraine.
We also work with clients through dedicated local teams in Las Vegas, New York and San Francisco.