With most companies in hybrid limbo, it would help if software applications could talk. Do they want computing to live on-premises or in public cloud? Where would they be cheapest? Where would they perform the best or help further a particular business goal?

A tool to answer these questions is the type of extra-mile service customers crave from cloud providers. Migration misfires can be costly and time consuming. This is why Amazon Web Services Inc. now has 70 certified migration partners to help customers successfully make the move.

Migration and modernization are two main growing pains customers face today, according to Dave McCann (pictured), vice president of the AWS Marketplace. “They’re either building a new app or bringing an app over and moving it onto containers,” he said.

AWS is addressing these needs through a number of services and acquisitions.

McCann spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS re:Inforce event in Boston. They discussed the AWS Marketplace’s latest offerings in migration, security, governance, etc. (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Migration dress rehearsal

The Marketplace now has over 1 million subscribers. AWS is working to cater to all with well-honed services for tough migration, governance, and other problems.

AWS offers a service called Discovery that crawls all of a customers’ servers to find out what they have. Then it helps users make a case for or against migrating apps from on-prem. AWS also acquired a Canadian company called TSO Logic Inc. TSO collects data about apps to determine the most efficient environment for them.

“They have a super tool for building a business case that says, ‘What would this app look like running on AWS?'” McCann said.

AWS is enhancing the tool to help build a business use case for migrating an app. It’s much simpler than a spreadsheet — a sales or business person could learn to use it, McCann explained. It’s built on a database for a rich set of choices, and it features an intuitive user interface.

AWS and its migration partners are helping tons of customers make up their minds about moving apps. “Migration partners are doing three times as many migrations as our old Professional Services team are doing,” McCann concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS re:Inforce event. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE