De-Risk the Transition from VMware
As an AWS Advanced Services Tier Partner with a two-decade history of managing complex enterprise applications, Sierra-Cedar has developed a structured approach designed to help reduce the cost, complexity, and uncertainty of your move from VMware to the cloud.
Services
Discovery and Inventory
Sierra-Cedar deploys an automated, agentless discovery tool to create a data-driven view of the VMware environment without disrupting production operations.
Discovery Outputs:
- Detailed VM inventory, typically comprising specifications and configurations
- Application dependency and communication flow mapping
- Network topology, storage arrays, and resource utilization
- Real-time affinity analysis and performance baselines
Analysis and Assessment
The assessment engine analyzes discovery data to evaluate migration strategies, identify risks, and build a detailed business case for your transition to AWS.
Analysis Focus Areas:
- Migration strategy options per workload (rehost, replatform, retain, retire)
- Software End of Life/End of Support status (VMware, Windows, SQL Server, Oracle)
- Current environment costs to AWS in a total cost of ownership model
- Environment utilization for right-sizing recommendations and risk assessment
Strategic Planning and Mobilization
Sierra-Cedar collaborates with your team to develop a migration roadmap, comprising of wave sequencing, landing zone design, and operational readiness planning.
Key Deliverables:
- Prioritized wave plan with move groups and timelines
- AWS landing zone architecture with Sierra-Cedar’s FlexOps® framework
- Governance implementation roadmap
- Stakeholder alignment and an operational readiness plan
From Assessment to Go-Live
An Established Five-Phase Approach
Access
Conduct discovery to evaluate infrastructure, identify requirements, and constraints. Automated discovery maps apps, dependencies, and consumption.
Deliverable: Assessment report with wave plan
Mobilize
Review assessment, develop migration roadmap, and plan operational waves. Define timeline, technical approach, and risk mitigation.
Deliverable: Detailed migration plan
Migrate
Establish AWS landing zone with FlexOps governance. Transition applications with delta sync, designed to help limit downtime during replication.
Deliverable: Migrated workloads in AWS
Test
Conduct mock go-lives, confirm configurations, and validate functionality. Your team leads User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
Deliverable: Validated, production-ready environment
Go-Live & Operate
Deliverable: Operational AWS environment
*AWS utility costs begin at migration (Phase 3). Sierra-Cedar services and Infrastructure Managed Services are billed separately.
Supporting Long-Term Operations
Infrastructure Managed Services for AWS Operations
The migration is the first step. Our 12-month Managed Services contract helps provide the day-to-day guidance needed to manage your new environment. With Sierra-Cedar’s FlexOps, organizations benefit from policy-driven coverage and automated guardrails that deliver consistent, auditable infrastructure aligned with code through GitOps discipline.
Six Core Capabilities
Named Client Services Manager
A single point of contact and strategic advocate aligned with your objectives.
Server Management
Full lifecycle management – provisioning, configuration, patching, performance optimization, and retirement.
Network & Connectivity
Secure network architecture including VPC design, firewall management, private connectivity, and traffic distribution.
Backup & Data Protection
Automated backup execution with monitored jobs, and optimized retention policies.
Change Management
Structured change control with risk assessment, scheduled maintenance windows, and validated rollback procedures.
24x7 Operations
Round-the-clock monitoring, alert triage, infrastructure incident response, and root cause analysis with defined escalation paths.
Infrastructure Managed Services
Sierra-Cedar’s service offering is designed to meet security and operational requirements.
Operational Stability and Resilience
The operational foundation for AWS infrastructure with essential security controls, active threat detection, and response.
Core Operations
- Change Control & Validation
- Automation & Orchestration
- Service Desk & Infrastructure Incident Response
- Resource Lifecycle Management
Proactive Monitoring
- Environmental Consistency Management
- Cost Allocation & Optimization
Infrastructure Policy & Access Control
- IAM & Access Governance
- Network Architecture Management
Data Protection
- Storage Tier & Lifecycle Optimization
- Backup & Recovery Management
Security Operations
- 24×7 SOC Monitoring & Threat Correlation
- Advanced Threat Detection & Behavioral Analysis
- Security Incident Response & Investigation
Threat Protection and Threat Intelligence
- Endpoint & Server Malware Protection
- Network-Level Threat Protection (IPS/IDS, WAF)
- Container Security & Runtime Protection
- Global Threat Intelligence Integration
Vulnerability and Access Management
- Continuous Vulnerability Management
- Privileged Access Management
Additional Add-On Services
Modular capabilities to further enhance managed services based on organizational requirements.
Add-On: Managed Database Services
Extensive DBA support for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server environments on AWS, extending Foundation IMS capabilities with specialized database administration, performance optimization, and lifecycle management.
- Database administration for Oracle and SQL Server
- Performance tuning and optimization
- Database lifecycle and patch management
Add-On: Cloud Resilience
Enterprise-grade business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities designed to support mission-critical workloads with multi-region architecture and automated failover capabilities.
- Multi-region DR architecture with cross-region replication
- Periodic DR drills and failover testing on client request
- Enhanced RTO/RPO objectives for critical workloads
*Infrastructure Managed Services is billed per managed cloud instance per month, with volume discounts available. The program is designed for environments starting at 100 VMs and includes a 12-month subscription term. AWS utility and marketplace fees are billed separately by AWS.
What Makes Us Different: The FlexOps® Advantage
FlexOps® is our integrated infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and policy-as-code framework built on GitOps, Terraform, Scalr, and Open Policy Agent. It helps provide the automation backbone that is designed to help provide consistency and auditability across all infrastructure changes.
Consistency & Repeatability
Standardized, repeatable deployments and modular patterns designed to help reduce errors.
Infrastructure Policy Enforcement
Automated guardrails, pre-deployment validation, and audit trails.
Operational Efficiency
Configuration drift detection, self-service capabilities, and faster deployments.
FlexOps in Action
Analyze: Assess current state, identify automation opportunities
Design: Architect IaC modules, state management, and pipelines
Develop: Build modules, policies, and CI/CD workflows
Test: Validate with automated testing, security scanning, cost estimation
Deploy: Roll out via GitOps pipelines with approval gates
Enforce: Apply policy-as-code guardrails with Scalr and OPA
Manage: Operate with drift detection, state monitoring, updates
Track: Measure KPIs: deployment frequency, lead time, MTTR
From VMware to Cloud Innovation: Our Story
For more than a decade, we ran our hosting business on VMware in our data centers, growing to over 1,800 VMs. With that scale came escalating expenses for hardware refreshes and software licensing.
We migrated our entire infrastructure and all hosting clients to AWS and developed a platform built for automation. Today, with no data center footprint, the future we envisioned is our reality.
What We Learned
Our migration experience directly informed the development of FlexOps and our Managed Services. Every capability we deliver comes from solving real problems in our own environment first.
Ready to De-Risk the Transition from VMware?
Schedule a complimentary infrastructure assessment to discover how we can deliver stable, well-managed AWS operations with potential zero-cost migration for eligible engagements through AWS program funding.
