1.1 Project Overview

Overview of Project

Scenario

CloudHR Systems, a growing HR software provider, relies on an internal Employee Directory Web Application to manage staff profiles, roles, departments, and employee documents.

The system currently runs on a single on-premises Linux server, storing data in a local MySQL database and serving the application backend directly from that machine.

As the company expands to multiple offices, the IT team is facing serious problems:

  • Frequent server downtime
  • Storage limitations
  • Poor scalability
  • Increasing maintenance overhead
  • Risk of data loss due to lack of redundancy

To improve reliability and prepare for long-term growth, CloudHR Systems has decided to migrate the entire application to AWS.

Your role as the Cloud Engineer:

Perform a full migration of the Employee Directory Application, including the application backend and database layer, from the on-prem environment to a scalable, cloud-native architecture using Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS, with AWS DMS handling the database migration.

Our Solution

We will rebuild the Employee Directory App in AWS using a modern two-tier cloud architecture.

You will:

  • Deploy the application server on Amazon EC2.
  • Migrate the MySQL database from the on-prem instance to Amazon RDS (MySQL) using AWS Database Migration Service (DMS).
  • Configure security groups, networking, and environment variables.
  • Perform end-to-end testing and complete the migration with a proper cutover.

This approach mirrors real application migration projects performed by Cloud Engineers during cloud adoption.

About the Project

In this hands-on project, you will:

  • Set up and run the Employee Directory App locally.
  • Deploy the application backend on EC2.
  • Use AWS DMS to replicate and migrate the MySQL database into Amazon RDS.
  • Perform the migration cutover.

By the end of this project, you’ll have a fully functional cloud-hosted version of the Employee Directory App running entirely on AWS, a professional portfolio project demonstrating real migration experience.

Steps To Be Performed 👩‍💻

We’ll walk through the following steps in the next lessons:

  1. Set Up the Local “On-Prem” Application
  2. Migrate the Application Server to Amazon EC2
  3. Migrate the Database to Amazon RDS using AWS DMS
  4. Update Application Configuration & Test
  5. Perform Final Cutover

Services Used 🛠

  • Amazon EC2 - Compute layer for application backend
  • Amazon RDS (MySQL) - Fully managed relational database
  • AWS DMS - For replicating and migrating the MySQL database into RDS
  • IAM - Secure access control and permissions
  • VPC, Subnets, and Security Groups - Networking and access co

Estimated Time & Cost ⚙️

  • Estimated Time: 2-3 hours
  • Cost: $2-4 (mostly free-tier usage)

➡️ Architectural Diagram

This is the architecture diagram:

Final Result

At the end of the project, you’ll have:

  • The Employee Directory Application deployed on Amazon EC2
  • The MySQL database migrated to Amazon RDS (MySQL)
  • A fully functional cloud-hosted Employee Directory App

Complete and Continue