Migration | AWS Application Discovery Service

Question 1

What is the AWS Application Discovery Service?

General

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 1

AWS Application Discovery Service collects and presents data to enable enterprise customers to understand the configuration, usage, and behavior of servers in their IT environments. Server data is retained in the Application Discovery Service where it can be tagged and grouped into applications to help organize AWS migration planning. Collected data can be exported for analysis in Excel or other cloud migration analysis tools.

Question 2

How does the AWS Application Discovery Service help enterprises migrate to AWS?

General

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 2

AWS Application Discovery Service helps enterprises obtain a snapshot of the current state of their data center servers by collecting server specification information, hardware configuration, performance data, and details of running processes and network connections. Once the data is collected, you can use it to perform a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis and then create a cost optimized migration plan based on your unique business requirements.

Question 3

How does the AWS Application Discovery Service work?

General

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 3

AWS Application Discovery Service supports agent-based and agentless modes of operation. With the agentless discovery, VMware customers collect VM configuration and performance profiles without deploying the AWS Application Discovery Agent on each host, which accelerates data collection. Customers in a non-VMware environment or that need additional information, like network dependencies and information about running processes, may install the Application Discovery Agent on servers and virtual machines (VMs) to collect data.

Question 4

How can I get started using the AWS Application Discovery Service?

General

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 4

To get started with AWS Application Discovery Service, simply visit the AWS Migration Hub console.

Question 5

Where is AWS Application Discovery Service available?

General

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 5

AWS Application Discovery Service is available worldwide. This means you can perform discovery on resources regardless of their location. The service is hosted in the US West (Oregon) region.

Question 6

Should I use agentless or agent-based application discovery?

Agent-based Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 6

Agentless Application Discovery is recommended for VMware customers because it does not require customers installing an agent on each host, and gathers server information regardless of the VM’s operating systems. It does not collect information on non-VMware environments.

If you run a non-VMware environment, or are looking for process and network connection details, use the AWS Application Discovery Agent. You can run agent-based and agentless Application Discovery simultaneously.

Question 7

What data does the AWS Application Discovery Agent capture?

Agent-based Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 7

The agent captures system configuration, system performance, running processes, and details of the network connections between systems.

Question 8

What operating systems does AWS Application Discovery Service provide agents for?

Agent-based Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 8

AWS Application Discovery Service launched a new 2.0 version of the Discovery Agent that offers better operating system support. 2.0 version of the Discovery Agent supports Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2, 2008 R1 SP2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2012 R1, 2012 R2,2016, Amazon Linux 2012.03, 2015.03, Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 16.04, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11, 6.9, 7.3, CentOS 5.11, 6.9, 7.3 and SUSE 11 SP4, 12 SP2.

Question 9

How is the data protected while in transit to AWS?

Agent-based Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 9

The AWS Application Discovery Agent uses HTTPS/TLS to transmit data to the AWS Application Discovery Service. The AWS Application Discovery Agent can be operated in an offline test mode that writes data to a local file so customers can review collected data before enabling online mode.

Question 10

How do I install the AWS Application Discovery Agent in my data center?

Agent-based Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 10

Please refer to the documentation for details on how to install the AWS Application Discovery Agent.

Question 11

Will the AWS Application Discovery Service Agent grant AWS remote access to my data center server?

Agent-based Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 11

No, the AWS Application Discovery Service Agent deployed on your data center server will not grant AWS remote access. However, the Agent does need to establish an outbound SSL connection to transfer the collected data to AWS.

Question 12

Can I run agents in my EC2 instances?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 12

Yes. You can install the AWS Discovery Agents on your EC2 instances to perform discovery and report upon performance information, network connections, and running processes, just as for any other server.

Question 13

What does ‘agentless’ Application Discovery mean?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 13

‘Agentless’ means no software needs to be installed on each host to use Application Discovery. Simply install the AWS Application Discovery Agentless Connector as an OVA on VMware vCenter.

Question 14

What data does the AWS Application Discovery Agentless Connector capture?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 14

The AWS Application Discovery Agentless Connector is delivered as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) package that can be deployed to a VMware host. Once configured with credentials to connect to vCenter, the Discovery Connector collects VM inventory, configuration, and performance history such as CPU, memory, and disk usage and uploads it to Application Discovery Service data store.

Question 15

What operating systems does the agentless discovery support?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 15

Agentless discovery is OS agnostic. It collects information about VMware virtual machines regardless of the VM operating system.

Question 16

How is the data protected while in transit to AWS?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 16

The AWS Application Discovery Agentless Connector uses HTTPS/TLS to transmit data to the AWS Application Discovery Service. The AWS Application Agentless Discovery Connector can be operated in an offline test mode that writes data to a local file so customers can review collected data before enabling online mode.

Question 17

How do I install the Application Discovery Agentless Connector in my data center?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 17

Please refer to the documentation for details on how to install the AWS Agentless Application Discovery Connector.

Question 18

How can I start the data collection?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 18

Data collection can be enabled or disabled from the AWS console or via the AWS Discovery SDK or AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). Newly installed Connectors have data collection initially disabled when installed.

Question 19

Will the AWS Application Discovery Agentless Connector grant AWS remote access to my data center servers?

Agentless Discovery

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 19

No, the AWS Agentless Connector deployed on your VMware environment will not grant AWS remote access to your data center servers. However, the Agentless Connector requires VMware credentials in order to collect data. These credentials reside locally and are never shared with AWS. The Agentless Connector establishes outbound SSL connection to transfer only the collected data.

Question 20

Can I run agentless discovery in my EC2 instances?

Discovered Data

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 20

No. The AWS Agentless Discovery Connector installs on VMware and collects information only from VMware vCenter.

Question 21

What kind of information is captured by AWS Application Discovery Service?

Discovered Data

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 21

AWS Application Discovery Service is designed to capture a variety of data including static configuration such as server hostnames, IP addresses, MAC addresses, CPU allocation, network throughput, memory allocation, disk resource allocations, DNS servers. It also captures resource utilization metrics such as CPU usage and memory usage. In addition, the AWS Application Discovery Agent can help determine server workloads and network relationships by identifying network connections between systems.

Question 22

Does this service capture any storage metrics?

Discovered Data

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 22

Yes, disk metrics, such as read and write volume, throughout, allocated/provisioned and utilized capacity, are captured by this service.

Question 23

How often is the information within AWS Application Discovery Service updated?

Discovered Data

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 23

Information is gathered only when the AWS Application Discovery Agent or the Agentless Discovery Connector is online.

Using the AWS Application Discovery Service Data

Question 24

Can I ingest data into the AWS Application Discovery Service from my existing configuration management database (CMDB)?

Discovered Data

AWS Application Discovery Service | Migration

Answer 24

No, this capability is not supported.