The Retire migration strategy is one of the seven Rs of cloud migration strategies, representing a critical decision point in workload assessment during AWS migration projects. This strategy involves identifying and decommissioning applications or workloads that are no longer needed, providing sign…The Retire migration strategy is one of the seven Rs of cloud migration strategies, representing a critical decision point in workload assessment during AWS migration projects. This strategy involves identifying and decommissioning applications or workloads that are no longer needed, providing significant cost savings and operational simplification.
When organizations conduct portfolio discovery and analysis, they often find that 10-20% of their application portfolio consists of redundant, obsolete, or unused systems. These applications may have been replaced by newer solutions, serve functions that are no longer relevant to business operations, or have minimal active users.
The Retire strategy delivers several key benefits. First, it eliminates unnecessary migration costs since there is no point investing resources in moving applications that will not provide business value. Second, it reduces licensing fees, infrastructure costs, and maintenance overhead associated with supporting legacy systems. Third, it decreases the attack surface and compliance scope by removing unnecessary systems from the environment.
Implementing the Retire strategy requires careful analysis and stakeholder engagement. Teams must verify that applications are truly unused by examining access logs, user activity metrics, and dependency mappings. Business owners must confirm that retiring specific systems will not impact critical processes or regulatory requirements.
The retirement process typically involves archiving relevant data according to retention policies, documenting the decommissioning decision for audit purposes, communicating changes to affected users, and systematically shutting down infrastructure components.
Organizations should approach retirement decisions methodically, ensuring proper governance and approval workflows are followed. AWS Migration Hub and Application Discovery Service can help identify candidates for retirement by providing visibility into application usage patterns and dependencies.
By strategically applying the Retire approach, organizations can streamline their migration journey, reduce total cost of ownership, and focus resources on applications that deliver genuine business value in the cloud environment.
Retire Migration Strategy - Complete Guide
What is the Retire Migration Strategy?
The Retire migration strategy is one of the 7 Rs of cloud migration, also known as the decommissioning approach. It involves identifying applications and workloads in your portfolio that are no longer useful and can be turned off. This strategy focuses on eliminating redundant, outdated, or unnecessary applications rather than moving them to the cloud.
Why is the Retire Strategy Important?
• Cost Reduction: Eliminates licensing fees, maintenance costs, and infrastructure expenses for applications that provide no business value • Reduced Complexity: Simplifies your IT environment by removing unnecessary components • Security Improvement: Removes potential attack surfaces from legacy systems that may not receive updates • Resource Optimization: Frees up IT staff to focus on applications that matter • Migration Efficiency: Reduces the overall scope and cost of your migration project
How the Retire Strategy Works
Step 1: Portfolio Discovery Use AWS Application Discovery Service or similar tools to catalog all applications and understand dependencies.
Step 2: Business Value Assessment Evaluate each application against criteria such as: • Current usage levels and user base • Business criticality and revenue impact • Maintenance burden and technical debt • Redundancy with other systems
Step 3: Stakeholder Alignment Confirm with business owners that the application can be decommissioned safely.
Step 4: Data Archival Archive any required data to Amazon S3 Glacier or similar storage for compliance and historical purposes.
Step 5: Decommissioning Systematically shut down the application, revoke access, and release associated resources.
When to Apply the Retire Strategy
• Applications with zero or minimal active users • Duplicate functionality that exists in other systems • Legacy systems replaced by newer solutions • End-of-life products with no vendor support • Applications with prohibitive migration costs relative to business value • Systems built for projects that have concluded
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Retire Migration Strategy
1. Recognize Key Indicators: Look for scenarios mentioning applications that are unused, redundant, duplicate, or have overlapping functionality with other systems.
2. Cost-Benefit Analysis: When a question describes an application where migration costs exceed the application's business value, Retire is likely the correct answer.
3. Portfolio Rationalization: Questions about reducing migration scope or simplifying IT portfolios often point toward Retire.
4. Distinguish from Retain: Retire means turn off permanently, while Retain means keep running on-premises for now. Retain is for applications still needed but not ready to migrate.
5. Data Considerations: If the question mentions archiving data before decommissioning, this confirms the Retire strategy while addressing compliance needs.
6. Common Scenario Patterns: • Legacy system replaced by SaaS solution → Retire • Application serving a discontinued product line → Retire • Multiple CRM systems being consolidated → Retire the redundant ones • Test environments no longer needed → Retire
7. Watch for Distractors: Do not confuse Retire with Rehost or Refactor when the question emphasizes that the application has no future business need.
8. Remember the Outcome: Retire results in reduced infrastructure footprint, lower costs, and simplified operations. Select this when these outcomes align with the scenario requirements.