Academic Calendar Constraints
Educational systems cannot be migrated during finals, enrollment periods, or active semesters. Migration windows are narrow — summer break and winter break — requiring precise planning.
Cloud Migration
AWS Cloud Migration for Education & EdTech
We migrate educational institutions and EdTech platforms to AWS on a timeline that respects academic calendars — no migrations during finals, enrollment, or critical academic periods — with FERPA-compliant data handling throughout.
- The current estate is inventoried.
- Assessment models post-migration TCO and a 7R path per workload.
- Rehost moves what should move as-is, with MGN or DMS where they fit.
- Refactor lands what should land on managed services or containers.
- Cutover waits for the agreed window.
- The workload is live on AWS with the roster still attached.
Key Challenges We Solve
LMS Data Migration Complexity
Learning Management Systems (Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard) store course content, grades, and student activity data in complex relational schemas that require careful migration to preserve data integrity.
FERPA-Compliant Data Transfer
Student education records cannot use public internet transfer without encryption. FERPA requires data handling agreements with any vendor that processes student records during migration.
SSO & Identity Migration
Campus identity systems (Shibboleth, Active Directory, LDAP) must be federated into AWS IAM Identity Center, maintaining single sign-on for all educational applications.
Our Approach
Academic Calendar Migration Plan
Migration phases aligned to the academic calendar — infrastructure preparation during the semester, data migration during spring break, and cutover during summer break with fall semester readiness testing.
LMS Migration Toolkit
Tested migration procedures for Moodle, Canvas, and Blackboard — database schema mapping, file store migration to S3, and post-migration validation scripts that verify course content integrity.
Campus Identity Federation
AWS IAM Identity Center configured for SAML federation with campus Shibboleth or Active Directory — preserving student and faculty SSO access to all AWS-hosted applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the best time to migrate a university's infrastructure to AWS?
The ideal migration window is summer break (June-August for most institutions). We use the spring semester for preparation — infrastructure setup, security configuration, and staging environment testing. Summer is used for data migration and cutover. Fall semester begins on the new platform with staff trained and runbooks in place.
How do you migrate Moodle to AWS?
Moodle migration involves: (1) RDS Aurora for the Moodle MySQL database with DMS replication, (2) S3 for the moodledata file store with DataSync migration, (3) EC2 or ECS for the Moodle application tier, (4) CloudFront for static asset delivery, and (5) ElastiCache for session storage. We maintain the source Moodle instance in parallel until validation is complete.
Does AWS sign a FERPA data processing agreement?
Yes. AWS provides a FERPA-compliant data processing agreement that designates AWS as a "school official" under FERPA for the services you use. This agreement is available through AWS Artifact. You must also ensure that any AWS services processing student data are configured to meet FERPA requirements for data protection and access controls.
Ready to Get Started?
Talk to our AWS experts about aws cloud migration for education & edtech.