Migrating to the Cloud With the AWS Migration Acceleration Program

Companies migrate to the cloud for reasons like reducing infrastructure overhead and improving scalability. Cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure compete for those workloads by offering incentives, tools, and support to reduce the friction and cost of migration. AWS’s version is the AWS Migration Acceleration Program, which incentivizes and streamlines cloud migrations for enterprise workloads.

What is the AWS Migration Acceleration Program

If you’re a company looking to migrate large workloads to AWS, the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) could substantially reduce your migration costs.

MAP is a structured migration incentive program designed for enterprise customers moving from on-premises environments to AWS. It offers a combination of tools, best practices, training, and arguably the most incentivizing benefit: financial credits to offset the cost of migration.

The benefit of using MAP instead of migrating independently is access to AWS-funded credits (typically 25% of eligible spend), support from AWS Solution Architects and Partners, and a structured approach that reduces risk and shortens the migration timeline.

How Does the AWS Migration Acceleration Program Work

To join MAP, companies typically need to work with an AWS account team or an AWS Partner. Once enrolled, the process normally follows a structured approach beginning with assessment and planning, where AWS helps assess your current environment and develop a migration strategy. This leads into the mobilization phase, which involves setting up the foundation, including landing zones, security frameworks, and operating procedures. Finally comes the migrate and modernize phase, where you execute the actual migration with ongoing support.

The way to actually receive MAP credits is by applying specific AWS-provided resource tags to your resources. Every migrated resource must be tagged with the designated MAP tags, and this requirement is non-negotiable; without proper tagging, you won’t receive any credits. It’s important to make sure you’re tagging properly, too, as no retroactive credits are available for resources migrated before proper tagging.

AWS typically provides a 25% credit back on eligible tagged spend, distributed monthly over the program duration, which usually spans one to three years, depending on your commitment.

Seeing AWS Migration Acceleration Program Costs

Once you’ve decided to move forward with your migration through MAP, you’ll want to make sure you’re set up to succeed in terms of cost.

You may already know from researching the cloud, since you’ve gotten this far in that journey, but unlike on-prem environments, where costs are relatively predictable, cloud misconfigurations can lead to runaway costs.

So, tracking your MAP program costs and credits is essential for making sure you’re on the right track and not overspending. It’s also important to follow cost optimization best practices while you’re getting set up, which is part of the MAP support you’ll receive, and to set up billing alerts.

Finally, you’ll want a system in place to make sure all your costs are being tagged properly, so that you’re not leaving money on the table.

You can do these things in the AWS console, or you can do them more efficiently using a Cloud Cost Optimization platform like Vantage. We’ll show you how to do both.

Seeing AWS MAP Costs in AWS Console

In the AWS Console, you can view MAP-related costs in AWS Cost Explorer. Filter your cost views using the specific MAP tags assigned to your resources. This lets you isolate migration spend and track your progress toward the MAP credits each month. You can also create custom reports and dashboards to visualize how much of your AWS usage is eligible under MAP.

Seeing AWS MAP Costs in Vantage

Vantage automatically ingests your AWS billing data and recognizes MAP-specific cost allocation tags, allowing you to easily filter and report on migration spend. With Vantage, you get clear, visual insights across services, accounts, and teams, helping you quickly understand the migration cost breakdown and credit impact without manual tagging effort. This simplifies validation of MAP credits and helps optimize your migration budget.

View of AWS MAP tagged vs untagged services in Vantage

Identifying Untagged/Mistagged AWS MAP Resources

Missing or incorrect MAP tags can lead to lost migration credits and inaccurate cost reporting. Regularly audit your AWS environment using tools like AWS Resource Groups Tag Editor or automated scripts to find resources without the required MAP tags or with typos in tag keys or values. Fixing tagging gaps ensures all eligible usage is accounted for in MAP credit calculations and helps maintain clean cost allocation data.

Or, using Vantage, you can simply filter/create reports on expected MAP tags to identify any resources or usage not properly tagged. The interface makes it easy to drill down by account, service, or team to correct tagging issues and maintain clean cost allocation for MAP credit eligibility. And, as an added bonus, every report will automatically include anomaly alerts so you don’t have to worry about having to manually set them up to avoid cost overruns.