Self-Hosted PostgreSQL + Redis + Kafka→RDS + ElastiCache + MSK (or equivalent)
Duration Estimate
2–6 weeks
Migration Stages
5
Blocking Prerequisites
3
Confidence
StrongReadiness Checklist(3 blocking, 2 advisory)
Team at mid maturity level
This migration requires mid engineering maturity. The team should have hands-on experience with the relevant technologies and proven ability to execute complex system changes safely.
Guidance: Build team skills through learning modules before attempting this migration.
Production observability baseline established
Comprehensive metrics, logs, and traces must be in place before the migration starts. You need a clear baseline to detect regressions during and after each migration stage.
Guidance: Instrument key metrics (latency p99, error rate, throughput, resource utilization) on all affected components.
Rollback plan documented and tested
Rollback feasibility for this migration is 'complex'. Rollback is possible but may be complex, document the exact rollback steps and test them in a non-production environment.
Guidance: Run a full dry-run in a staging environment that mirrors production load characteristics.
Data backup and validation strategy in place
This migration involves technology changes that affect data storage or access patterns. Ensure full backups are current and a data validation strategy is defined to confirm data integrity at each stage boundary.
Guidance: Perform a full backup before starting. Run data validation checksums after each stage.
Migration trigger condition confirmed
Confirm that the actual trigger for this migration is present. Common triggers: On-call engineers spending more than 20% of time on infrastructure maintenance: disk replacements, version upgrades, replication repairs; Team size insufficient to have dedicated infrastructure engineers: application engineers are managing infrastructure as a secondary responsibility; Compliance requirement for managed backups, encryption at rest, and audit logs: self-hosted configuration requires manual certification.
Guidance: Validate the trigger with production metrics or benchmarks before committing to the migration timeline.
Migration Stages
Provision RDS, ElastiCache, and MSK instances in target configuration. Run connectivity and performance benchmarks from the application's network location: measure connection latency, throughput, and whether any required features are unavailable on the managed service. Identify and resolve feature gaps before committing to migration.
Key tasks
- ·Provision RDS, ElastiCache, and MSK instances in target configuration. Run connectivity and performance benchmarks from the application's network location: measure connection latency, throughput, and whether any required features are unavailable on the managed service. Identify and resolve feature gaps before committing to migration.
- ·Validate rollback capability at this stage boundary before proceeding.
Exit criteria
- ✓'Provision Managed Services and Validate Connectivity' validated in production with no regression in key metrics
Rollback: possible at this stage
Use AWS DMS or pg_dump/pg_restore to seed the RDS instance from the self-hosted primary. For live migration with minimal downtime, configure logical replication from self-hosted PostgreSQL to RDS. Validate row counts, constraints, and index parity. Test application connection to RDS in a staging environment.
Key tasks
- ·Use AWS DMS or pg_dump/pg_restore to seed the RDS instance from the self-hosted primary. For live migration with minimal downtime, configure logical replication from self-hosted PostgreSQL to RDS. Validate row counts, constraints, and index parity. Test application connection to RDS in a staging environment.
- ·Validate rollback capability at this stage boundary before proceeding.
Exit criteria
- ✓'Database Migration: Replica to RDS' validated in production with no regression in key metrics
Rollback: possible at this stage
During a planned maintenance window: stop application writes, allow replication to fully catch up (zero lag), update application connection strings to RDS endpoint, restart application, validate writes and reads. Total downtime target: 5–15 minutes. Keep self-hosted instance available but read-only for 48 hours as rollback option.
Key tasks
- ·During a planned maintenance window: stop application writes, allow replication to fully catch up (zero lag), update application connection strings to RDS endpoint, restart application, validate writes and reads. Total downtime target: 5–15 minutes. Keep self-hosted instance available but read-only for 48 hours as rollback option.
- ·Validate rollback capability at this stage boundary before proceeding.
Exit criteria
- ✓'Database Cutover (Maintenance Window)' validated in production with no regression in key metrics
Rollback: possible at this stage
Migrate Redis: deploy application pointing to ElastiCache. Cache is stateless: application will experience a cold cache period until ElastiCache warms up. Monitor cache hit rate. Migrate Kafka: create matching topics on MSK, configure producers to dual-publish to both clusters, migrate consumers to MSK one consumer group at a time, then cut producers.
Key tasks
- ·Migrate Redis: deploy application pointing to ElastiCache. Cache is stateless: application will experience a cold cache period until ElastiCache warms up. Monitor cache hit rate. Migrate Kafka: create matching topics on MSK, configure producers to dual-publish to both clusters, migrate consumers to MSK one consumer group at a time, then cut producers.
- ·Validate rollback capability at this stage boundary before proceeding.
Exit criteria
- ✓'Redis and Kafka Cutover' validated in production with no regression in key metrics
Rollback: possible at this stage
Run managed services in production for 2 weeks. Validate performance parity, backup restoration procedures, and failover behavior (test RDS failover in staging). After validation, decommission self-hosted instances. Update runbooks to reflect managed service operational model.
Key tasks
- ·Run managed services in production for 2 weeks. Validate performance parity, backup restoration procedures, and failover behavior (test RDS failover in staging). After validation, decommission self-hosted instances. Update runbooks to reflect managed service operational model.
- ·No rollback available after this stage, confirm all exit criteria before proceeding.
Exit criteria
- ✓'Validate and Decommission Self-Hosted' validated in production with no regression in key metrics
Rollback: not available after this stage
Rollback Decision Points
After stage 3
Trigger: Any of the following in the 30 minutes after completing stage 3: p99 latency increases >50% from baseline, error rate exceeds 1%, or data consistency checks fail.
Procedure: Revert stage 3 changes. Rollback is complex, follow the documented rollback procedure for 'self-hosted-to-managed-cloud'. Engage senior engineering support.
Recovery: 1–4 hours (complex rollback)
After stage 5
Trigger: Final validation: confirm all success criteria are met within 24 hours of migration completion. If any success criterion fails, trigger rollback or remediation.
Procedure: If success criteria are not met within 24 hours, escalate to the architecture team. Decide between full rollback, partial rollback, or targeted remediation based on scope.
Recovery: 24–72 hours for full assessment and remediation
Success Criteria
- ✓Target state 'RDS + ElastiCache + MSK (or equivalent)' is stable in production for 72+ hours with no regressions.
- ✓p99 latency on all affected services is within acceptable range (≤110% of pre-migration baseline).
- ✓Error rate is at or below pre-migration baseline.
This migration playbook is derived from structured architecture knowledge. Duration estimates and risk levels are structural approximations based on documented migration complexity and operational risk, not measured execution data. Validate all stages against your specific system constraints before executing.