Question

A retail company is planning a large-scale migration of 400 on-premises VMs and several databases to Google Cloud over 18 months. The cloud architect must produce migration documentation that clearly communicates the target-state architecture, dependency mapping between application tiers, and the sequenced wave plan to both executive stakeholders and the engineering teams executing the moves. Leadership wants a single authoritative artifact that keeps architecture diagrams synchronized with the migration wave schedule as plans evolve. Which approach best meets these documentation requirements?

Accepted Answer

Create a migration plan that combines architecture diagrams (current-state and target-state topology with tier dependencies), a wave-based sequencing schedule grouping applications by dependency and risk, and success criteria for each wave, maintained as living documents reviewed at wave milestones.

Answer

Export a Cloud Asset Inventory report of all resources and share it with stakeholders as the migration plan, since it lists every asset that must be migrated.

Answer

Have each engineering team independently document only the specific VMs they own using their preferred tools, then merge the notes into a shared drive before each migration event.

Answer

Produce a detailed cost estimate spreadsheet with per-VM sizing and committed-use discount projections as the primary migration artifact for leadership approval.