Assess whether an application is ready to migrate to the cloud
A readiness assessment and migration approach for one application, with dependencies, risks, effort, and the questions to answer first.
The prompt
Help me assess whether an application is ready to move to the cloud and how to migrate it.
Application: [WHAT IT DOES, users, business criticality]
Current environment: [on-premises / colocation / another cloud; OS, runtime, database, middleware]
Target cloud and any tools under consideration: [e.g. "AWS, considering an automated modernization service", "Azure", "undecided"]
Architecture and dependencies: [integrations, batch jobs, file shares, licensing, hard-coded IPs]
Data: [SIZE, growth, sensitivity, residency requirements]
Constraints: [downtime tolerance, deadline, budget, compliance, team skills]
Why migrate: [cost, scalability, data center exit, modernization]
Give me:
1. Migration strategy options using the "7 Rs" (retire, retain, rehost, relocate, replatform, repurchase, refactor), the best fit for this app, and why.
2. Readiness assessment across the cloud provider's well-architected pillars (operational excellence, security, reliability, performance, cost, sustainability): a table of Area | Current state | Gap | Severity | Action.
3. Discovery checklist: what to inventory before committing (dependencies, ports, scheduled jobs, licenses, data flows).
4. If I named a migration or modernization tool: what to verify about it (supported source languages and platforms, what it outputs, reports it produces, what still needs human review), marked [CONFIRM IN VENDOR DOCS]. Do not state features you are unsure of.
5. Cutover plan: data migration approach, testing, rollback, and a before/after comparison of operating costs and responsibilities using [ADD] placeholders.
6. Top risks and the decision I should make first.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Software Development prompts
What to fill in
- WHAT IT DOES, users, business criticality
- SIZE, growth, sensitivity, residency requirements
- downtime tolerance, deadline, budget, compliance, team skills
- cost, scalability, data center exit, modernization
- CONFIRM IN VENDOR DOCS
- ADD
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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