What is Azure Migration? How does the Azure migration work?

Azure is the Microsoft computing cloud platform where you can avail cloud services and resources to make your business future ready.

What is Azure Migration?

Azure Migration is moving the on-premises infrastructure to the Azure cloud. Azure migration services open doors to endless computing possibilities. It offers numerous cloud services and resources to optimize your business for desired outcomes. The Azure cloud services and resources include cloud migration, data storage, building, deploying, and managing applications based on your needs. So, to gain access to these Azure cloud services and resources, all you need is an internet connection and go for hosting your business in the Azure cloud.

How does the Azure migration work?


When going for Azure Migrate-Step by Step process for a Successful Azur Migration, you need to do this-

Discover & Evaluate

Here you will earn about the Azure migration discovery and assessment tools.

Follow the below steps before you embark on Azure cloud migration-

1. Make a thorough assessment of your on-premises infrastructure.
2. List out the applications, servers, and services that need Migration.
3. Make a complete list of the servers and services you wish to migrate, along with Azure prerequisites and dependency map. It helps use these to learn how services interact with one another. Do a complete investigation before Migration for each application.

Choose the Migration Approach

In Azure, you will have specific migration options in the Azure Migration and Modernization program. So, a careful application assessment is required to decide which option is suitable for migrating a particular application. Here let us know the types of primary Azure migration options-

1. Rehost- To re-structure your on-premises infrastructure on Azure, primarily involves the transfer of a virtual machine from your private data center to a Virtual machine on Azure. It is also called the lift and shift approach. The work is less when re-hosting as the Migration includes some minor changes.

2. Refactor: Refactor is moving the services from on-premises Virtual Machine to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). By doing this, you can experience an improved agile environment and reduce operational overhead while keeping expenses low. When ms are implemented, Azur Cloud ensures superior functionality of the hosted services.

3. Rearchitect- You can go for rearchitect to make your applications cloud-native or to establish new software approaches like containers and microservices.

4. Re-build- It is a cost-effective solution over rearchitect. If you find re-architecting your applications costlier than building the application on Azure, re-build can be your choice.

5. Replace- Before choosing any of the above options, try evaluating the possibilities of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS); it can show up alternative solutions for good outcomes.

Deploy Cloud Infrastructure: Before migrating resources to Azure, you must create an Azure environment. Meanwhile, the deployment cloud infrastructure target is the specific cloud environment in which an application is deployed and run. The choice of the cloud environment is based on various factors. However, the adopted cloud environment must ensure that the application meets the organization’s needs. This involves setting up your Azure subscription, creating resource groups, and configuring your network and security settings.

Prepare your resources for Migration: Once your Azure environment is set up, you must prepare your resources for Migration. This involves making necessary changes to ensure compatibility with Azure, such as updating operating systems, modifying applications, and configuring network settings.

Migrate your resources: You can begin the migration process with your resources prepared. This typically involves using tools like Azure Site Recovery, Azure Database Migration Service, or the Azure Migrate service to move your resources to Azure. Depending on your chosen migration approach, you may need to make additional changes during this process to ensure that your resources are fully optimized for Azure.

Validate your Migration: Once your resources are migrated to Azure, you must validate that they function correctly. This involves testing your applications, databases, and other resources to ensure they work as expected in the Azure environment.

Optimize your Azure environment: With your Azure data migration from on-premises to cloud complete, you can now focus on optimizing your Azure environment for performance, cost, and security. This may involve adding changes to your applications and infrastructure to take advantage of Azure services and implement the best security and compliance practices.

Monitor and manage your Azure environment: Finally, you need to monitor and manage your Azure environment to ensure that it continues to meet your needs over time. This involves using Azure monitoring and management tools to track performance, identify issues, and adjust your resources and infrastructure.

What are the Azure migration tools?

Azure provides several migration tools to help organizations move their applications, servers, and data to the cloud. Here are some of the most used Azure migration tools:

Azure Migrate: Azure Migrate is a free service that provides a centralized hub for the discovery, assessment, and Migration of on-premises servers, applications, and databases to Azure. It supports multiple migration scenarios, including rehosting, refactoring, and rearchitecting.

Azure Site Recovery: Azure Site Recovery is a disaster recovery and business continuity service that helps protect your on-premises applications and data by replicating them to Azure. It also provides site-to-site failover and failback capabilities.

Azure Database Migration Service: Azure Database Migration Service simplifies migrating on-premises databases to Azure. It supports multiple database platforms, including SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.

Azure Data Box: Azure Data Box is a physical appliance that simplifies transferring large amounts of data to Azure. It supports one-time data migrations or recurring data transfers.

Azure Data Factory: Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based data integration service that helps move data from various sources to Azure. It supports multiple data sources, including on-premises databases, cloud-based sources, and SaaS applications.

Azure Data Migration Assistant: Azure Data Migration Assistant is a tool that helps assess the compatibility of on-premises databases with Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance. It also provides recommendations for resolving any compatibility issues.

Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure Database for MySQL: Azure provides managed database services for PostgreSQL and MySQL that simplify migrating existing databases to Azure. These services offer high availability, automatic backups, and other features to help ensure data integrity and reliability.

Wrapping up

Microsoft Azure is a widely used cloud computing platform across industries. With its broad spectrum of functionalities, leveraging Microsoft Azure helps grow your business on multiple fronts.
Your next step should be to partner with a reliable and trusted organization for cloud migration and managed services. In that case, no look further, WinMethods Technologies is the right choice for you to collaborate with. Its in-house staff are experts in providing secure and effective cloud solutions and managed services.