Migration
GCP Migration Tools
Practical tools for executing cloud migration
AWS equivalent
AWS MGN / DMS / Snowball equivalents noted
Architecture Diagram
Migration Journey & Tools
AWS → GCP: Key Differences
- ▸
Migrate to VMs ≈ AWS Application Migration Service (MGN). Continuous replication, minimal cutover downtime.
- ▸
Database Migration Service ≈ AWS DMS. Online database migration with CDC.
- ▸
Transfer Appliance ≈ AWS Snowball. Physical device for offline data transfer.
Key Concepts to Know
- 1
🔵 Migration Center: free assessment. Discovers on-prem VMs, databases, apps. Maps dependencies.
- 2
🔵 Migrate to Virtual Machines: agent-based continuous replication from on-prem/AWS/Azure to GCP. Cutover in minutes.
- 3
🔵 Migrate to Containers: analyzes VMs and generates Dockerfiles + Kubernetes manifests.
- 4
🟢 Database Migration Service (DMS): online migration with CDC. Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server.
- 5
🟢 Storage Transfer Service: scheduled/one-time transfers from S3, Azure Blob, on-prem to GCS.
- 6
🟡 Transfer Appliance: for 100TB–1PB offline transfers. Data encrypted on device.
- 7
🟡 BigQuery Migration Service: migrate Redshift, Teradata to BigQuery. Translates SQL dialects.
DCE Interview Tips
- ★
Security during migration: 'All transfers via DMS are TLS encrypted. For large bulk transfers, Transfer Appliance never touches the public internet. Post-transfer, we validate using checksums.'
- ★
Migration assessment pitch: 'We start every engagement with Migration Center — it gives us a full inventory, maps dependencies, and generates a rough cost estimate for GCP.'
- ★
Parallel running: 'Before cutover, we run both environments in parallel and compare outputs. Only after sign-off do we cut over and decommission the source.'
Common Gotchas
- !
DMS requires network connectivity between source DB and GCP.
- !
Transfer Appliance has a lead time of several weeks — plan early.
- !
SQL dialect translation (BigQuery Migration Service) is not perfect — always validate.