Architecture
Graviton migration: a decision guide for engineering teams
Where Arm-based instances can improve price-performance, what to test first, and when an x86 workload should stay where it is.
Choose a low-risk first workload
Stateless services, build runners, development environments, and managed data services are usually better first candidates than tightly coupled legacy applications. They provide a useful price-performance signal while limiting migration risk.
Audit the full software path
Confirm that the operating system image, container base image, language runtime, native libraries, monitoring agents, and vendor software all support arm64. A single x86-only binary can change the economics of the project.
- Produce multi-architecture container images in CI.
- Run functional and load tests on representative data.
- Compare throughput per dollar rather than raw request rate.
- Include engineering migration time in the payback calculation.
Measure before expanding
Run the x86 and Graviton versions under the same load profile. Compare latency percentiles, CPU, memory, error rate, and hourly cost. Expand only after the result is stable and the operational team has a clear rollback process.