Practice & Reference · Migration Checklist

The pre-move checklist

A practical, phase-by-phase list to run before, during, and after any migration. It’s the whole course boiled down to “did we remember to…?” Tick items off as you go — your progress is saved in this browser.

☺ Explain it like I’m 10

It’s the list you stick on the fridge before a big move: make a list of everything, label the boxes, keep a plan for if it rains, and don’t throw the keys away until you’re sure the new house works. Tick each box when it’s done so nothing gets forgotten.

🐢Your host for this topic: Timmy the Turtle — slow, careful, and never trusts a move until every box is checked.

The list follows the migration lifecycle from The Journey: Assess (understand what you have), Prepare (build the foundation), Migrate (move in safe waves), and Operate (run it well and clean up). Nothing here is cloud-specific — it works whether you’re heading to AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

🦫 Benny’s workshop · 10 min

Pick one real (or imagined) application. Walk it down this whole list: what’s its R, what does it depend on, what are its RTO/RPO, which wave is it in, and what’s the rollback if the cutover fails? If you can answer every line, you understand a migration end-to-end.

🐢 Timmy’s checkpoint

Which items must be done before you move a single workload, and which is the one item people most often skip (and regret)? Hint: it’s the one that turns a bad night into a five-minute non-event.

Check your answers
  1. Before you move anything: the whole Assess phase (inventory, dependency map, business case, rationalize, assign R’s, set RTO/RPO) plus the Prepare foundation (landing zone, connectivity, IaC, wave plan, cost controls, monitoring). You move only after the foundation exists.
  2. Most-skipped item: the rollback / backout plan (and testing against RTO/RPO). Skipping it is what turns a failed cutover into an outage instead of a quick switch-back. Timmy never lets a wave go live without one.