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Define the exit decision and its scope
AWS Prescriptive Guidance defines an exit strategy as an organization’s approach to moving one or more workloads from a cloud service provider to another environment. That does not mean every workload must move at once—or that leaving is automatically the right choice. The plan should make the decision and its boundaries explicit.
- Scope: List the workloads, data sets, dependent services, and accounts that are in scope. Identify what will remain and what is excluded.
- Triggers: Document the conditions that would prompt an exit decision, such as a change in business needs, risk tolerance, or contractual circumstances.
- Objectives and success criteria: Set measurable outcomes for the destination, including required functionality, performance, availability, security, and data integrity.
- Ownership and assumptions: Name the decision-maker and workstream owners, record assumptions about the destination and timing, and set a review cadence.
- Residency and obligations: Identify applicable data-location requirements and legal or contractual commitments before choosing a transfer route.
AWS’s planning guidance also calls for risk indicators, technical and operational considerations, tests, and organizational ownership. Use those dimensions to make the plan actionable rather than treating it as a high-level intention. AWS Prescriptive Guidance: Create an exit strategy.
Map dependencies and destination requirements
A list of files is not an exit inventory. Workloads can depend on data formats, databases, application architecture, licenses, managed services, export mechanisms, backups, identity systems, APIs, network connections, and provider-specific features. A dependency that is easy to overlook can determine whether a workload can move as-is, needs refactoring, or should stay put.
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Build a workload-by-workload inventory
- Record data locations, formats, sizes, retention rules, backup copies, and how each data set can be exported.
- Map applications to databases, APIs, identity and access controls, networking, monitoring, and other services they rely on.
- Identify provider-managed features and software licenses that may not transfer, or may require replacement or redesign.
- Check how long exports and backups remain available, including any period after contract termination.
- Estimate the engineering, operational, and staff-training work needed at the destination.
Then compare the destination with the current environment: workload compatibility, required refactoring, data portability, security controls, residency, available skills, and the value of provider-specific functionality. AWS’s 2021 lock-in whitepaper describes switching costs in terms of time, flexibility, functionality, and money; use it as a planning framework, not as current pricing guidance. AWS Whitepaper: Avoiding lock-in.
Check contracts and provider-specific processes
Before budgeting for an exit or committing to a date, review the terms that apply to your actual account and services. Confirm termination rights, outstanding commitments, export access and deadlines, data-deletion requirements, and any notice periods or procedural steps. Keep evidence of the applicable terms and confirm them with the provider or account team; a general program page does not establish eligibility for a particular customer.
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Google Cloud transfer credits
Google Cloud’s published exit page describes transfer credits for eligible customers that follow its notice, initiation, migration, and completion requirements and terminate use of the relevant service. The page specifies a 14-day initial support period, an initiation period that begins afterward, and a migration period of at least 30 days, subject to conditions and possible extensions. It says the offer does not cover transfers when the customer continues using the relevant service. These are program terms, not an automatic entitlement; verify the current rules and their application to your agreement. Google Cloud: Data transfer out program.
AWS data-transfer support
AWS’s FAQ says eligible customers moving all data off AWS may request free data transfer out through Customer Support. It describes a review and approval process, a temporary credit based on stored data volume, and a 60-day period to complete the move after approval, along with account and other criteria. Ask AWS to confirm eligibility and timing for the relevant account before including a credit in the migration budget. AWS: Data Transfer cost FAQs.
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Estimate the full migration, not just bandwidth
Compare transfer options using the same workload scope and destination assumptions. Include the amount of data, elapsed time, security requirements, available tools, and operational effort. The cost model should account for any applicable egress fees, storage and operations during transfer, transfer products, and personnel. A longer migration can also affect the cost of running source and destination environments in parallel.
For a large data set, compare online transfer over a network with any suitable offline method. An offline approach may reduce reliance on a sustained network transfer but adds handling, staging, security, and logistics considerations. The right choice depends on volume, time constraints, available tools, and the organization’s controls—not on a universal size threshold. Google Cloud’s migration guide discusses networking, storage and operations, transfer products, and personnel costs for transfers to Google Cloud; its cost categories are useful for planning, but its named options do not necessarily apply to an exit from Google Cloud. Google Cloud: Transferring large datasets.
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- To get set up, connect the portable hard drive to a computer for automatic recognition no software required
- This USB drive provides plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch USB 3.0 cable
- The available storage capacity may vary.
Do not treat a provider credit as the baseline in the business case. Model the move using the terms you have verified, and keep potential credits separate until the provider confirms eligibility and the required process.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Rehearse, validate, and control cutover
A successful transfer is not just a completed export. Test whether the destination can ingest the data, operate the workload, meet requirements, and recover if cutover fails. AWS recommends including exercises such as tabletops and gamedays in exit planning; adapt the exercise to the risks and architecture of each workload.
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- Test representative exports: Move a sample that exercises real formats, permissions, dependencies, and edge cases.
- Verify integrity: Compare counts, checksums or other appropriate integrity evidence, metadata, and application-level results.
- Test restore and import: Confirm that the destination can load the data and that backup and recovery procedures work there.
- Exercise the application: Validate functionality, identity and access, integrations, monitoring, security controls, and operational runbooks.
- Run a cutover and rollback exercise: Confirm decision authority, sequencing, communications, acceptable downtime, and the conditions for returning to the source environment.
- Plan source closure: After acceptance, follow the applicable retention and deletion requirements and retain evidence that the agreed disposition was completed.
Track test results, unresolved risks, owners, and decision points in the exit plan. Revisit the plan when workloads, contracts, provider processes, or destination assumptions change.
Choose the next move using comparable criteria
Whether the destination is another cloud or on-premises infrastructure, compare options against the same workload requirements rather than ranking providers in the abstract.
| Decision area | Questions to answer |
|---|---|
| Workload fit | Will the application run as designed, or does it require refactoring or replacement services? |
| Data portability | Can the data be exported in usable formats, with required metadata and licenses? |
| Transfer plan | Which online or offline methods are feasible, and what are their cost, time, security, and staffing implications? |
| Total cost | What are the costs of transfer, parallel operation, destination infrastructure, engineering, training, and contract commitments? |
| Security and residency | Can the destination meet required controls and data-location obligations? |
| Operational readiness | Does the organization have the skills and processes to run the destination reliably? |
| Provider-specific value | What functionality or flexibility would be lost, and is that value worth the switching cost? |
| Exit terms | What notice, export, termination, deletion, and credit rules apply to the actual account and services? |
The result may be a full move, a phased move, or a decision to retain some workloads. The plan is useful either way: it turns an eventual exit from an emergency scramble into a decision supported by known dependencies, costs, tests, and responsibilities.
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