Quick Answer
AWS MAP is a funding and methodology program that provides credits, tools, and expert guidance for large-scale migrations. AWS Migration Hub is a free tracking service that gives you a single dashboard to monitor migration progress. MAP is a business program; Migration Hub is a technical tool. What AWS MAP Provides The Migration Acceleration Program is structured around three phases: assess, mobilize, and migrate. During each phase, AWS and its consulting partners deliver specific outcomes. In the assess phase, you build a business case. In mobilize, you establish your cloud foundation. In migrate, you move workloads in planned waves. MAP also delivers financial benefits. Qualifying organizations receive credits that offset a percentage of eligible AWS spend during the migration and for a post-migration period. These credits are a direct reduction on your AWS bill, making the total cost of migration significantly lower than a self-funded effort.
Key Topics Covered
AWS MAP is a funding and methodology program that provides credits, tools, and expert guidance for large-scale migrations. AWS Migration Hub is a free tracking service that gives you a single dashboard to monitor migration progress. MAP is a business program; Migration Hub is a technical tool.
What AWS MAP Provides
The Migration Acceleration Program is structured around three phases: assess, mobilize, and migrate. During each phase, AWS and its consulting partners deliver specific outcomes. In the assess phase, you build a business case. In mobilize, you establish your cloud foundation. In migrate, you move workloads in planned waves.
MAP also delivers financial benefits. Qualifying organizations receive credits that offset a percentage of eligible AWS spend during the migration and for a post-migration period. These credits are a direct reduction on your AWS bill, making the total cost of migration significantly lower than a self-funded effort.
Beyond credits, MAP provides access to AWS migration specialists, prescriptive guidance documents, and partner-delivered professional services. The program creates accountability through milestone reviews that keep the migration on schedule and surface risks before they become blockers.
What AWS Migration Hub Does
Migration Hub is a service within the AWS console that aggregates status information from multiple migration tools. Whether you use AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Database Migration Service, or third-party tools, Migration Hub collects their progress data into one unified view.
The service does not perform migrations itself. It receives status updates from connected tools and displays server-level progress: not started, in progress, or completed. This visibility is useful when coordinating multiple migration streams across different teams or business units working in parallel.
Migration Hub also includes a strategy recommendations feature that suggests a migration approach for each discovered server based on its configuration and usage patterns. This analysis helps teams assign workloads to the appropriate migration path without evaluating every server manually.
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How They Work Together
MAP and Migration Hub are complementary. MAP defines the program framework, funding, and methodology. Migration Hub provides operational visibility into the execution. When an organization enrolls in MAP, their consulting partner typically configures Migration Hub as the central tracking dashboard from day one.
During the assess phase, AWS Application Discovery Service feeds inventory data into Migration Hub. This data helps build the portfolio analysis that MAP requires for business case validation. The discovery results populate Migration Hub automatically, creating a server inventory that becomes the migration backlog.
Key Differences at a Glance
MAP requires an agreement with AWS and a minimum spend threshold. Migration Hub is available to any AWS account at no cost. MAP involves financial commitments and structured engagement milestones. Migration Hub requires only that you connect your migration tools and grant the necessary IAM permissions.
MAP engagement typically involves an AWS consulting partner who manages the program lifecycle. Migration Hub can be used independently by your internal team without any partner involvement. You can use Migration Hub without MAP, but MAP engagements almost always use Migration Hub for tracking.
From a cost perspective, MAP credits deliver direct financial returns while Migration Hub is a free service with no consumption charges. The investment in MAP is the commitment to a structured migration process and minimum spend levels. Migration Hub only requires the time to configure tool integrations and set up IAM roles.
When You Need MAP
MAP is designed for organizations migrating a significant number of workloads, generally with projected annual AWS spend above $50,000. If your migration involves tens or hundreds of servers, MAP provides both the financial incentive and the structured methodology to reduce risk and accelerate timelines.
Organizations considering MAP should engage their AWS account team or an authorized partner early. The qualification process includes a portfolio assessment and business case review. Opsio helps organizations through this process as part of our AWS migration services.
When You Need Migration Hub
Migration Hub is useful for any migration, regardless of size. Even a five-server migration benefits from centralized tracking. The service becomes especially valuable when multiple migration tools are in use simultaneously, since it prevents teams from switching between consoles to check progress.
For organizations already enrolled in MAP, Migration Hub serves as the operational backbone. It provides the progress metrics that MAP program reviews require, making status reporting straightforward rather than a manual data-gathering exercise.
Migration Hub also supports grouping servers into applications, which helps teams organize large portfolios. By defining application groups, you can track migration progress at the application level rather than reviewing individual servers, giving stakeholders a higher-level view of overall project status.
Choosing the Right Approach
You do not need to choose between MAP and Migration Hub. They serve different purposes and work best together. If your migration qualifies for MAP funding, enroll in the program and use Migration Hub for tracking. If your migration is smaller or you prefer a self-directed approach, Migration Hub alone provides solid visibility. Read more about the full scope of the AWS Migration Acceleration Program to decide whether MAP fits your project.
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Written By
Country Manager, Sweden at Opsio
Johan leads Opsio's Sweden operations, driving AI adoption, DevOps transformation, security strategy, and cloud solutioning for Nordic enterprises. With 12+ years in enterprise cloud infrastructure, he has delivered 200+ projects across AWS, Azure, and GCP — specialising in Well-Architected reviews, landing zone design, and multi-cloud strategy.
Editorial standards: This article was written by cloud practitioners and peer-reviewed by our engineering team. We update content quarterly for technical accuracy. Opsio maintains editorial independence.