AWS Application Discovery Service
AWS Application Discovery Service is a migration service of Amazon Web Services that helps organizations plan migration projects by gathering information about their on-premises data centers. AWS closed the service to new customers starting November 7, 2025; existing customers can keep using it to finish in-flight discovery projects (typically ~4 months), but AWS is directing everyone else to AWS Transform, its newer agentic migration service, which now provides equivalent (and expanded) discovery and assessment capabilities. It was typically used alongside AWS Server Migration Service (itself retired, superseded by AWS Transform MGN) and AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) when planning a move to AWS.
Key points
- Closed to new customers as of November 7, 2025 — AWS will keep the service secure and available for existing customers’ ongoing projects but is not adding new features; for any new discovery project, use AWS Transform instead, which requires no data migration from Application Discovery Service and needs no special tooling to adopt.
- Gathers information about on-premises servers and databases to support migration planning, integrating with AWS Migration Hub (which aggregates discovered servers/applications and tracks migration status) and with AWS DMS Fleet Advisor for database-specific assessment.
- Three collection methods:
- Agentless Collector — a downloadable VMware vCenter appliance (OVA file) that identifies VMs/hosts and collects static configuration data (hostnames, IPs, MAC addresses, disk allocations, database engine versions/schemas) plus utilization metrics (CPU, RAM, disk I/O), without installing anything inside each VM. It also has a database-and-analytics collection module that gathers metadata/utilization via LDAP/Active Directory queries.
- Discovery Agent — installed directly on each Windows/Linux VM or physical server; collects everything the Agentless Collector does plus process-level detail and inbound/outbound network connections, at a much finer collection interval (~15 seconds vs. ~60 minutes for Agentless Collector).
- File-based import (and third-party APN partner tools) — lets you import on-premises inventory data into Migration Hub directly, without deploying either collector.
- Provides access to information such as host name, IP address, and MAC address of on-premises servers.