Is your organization ready to migrate to the cloud? As IT experts, Nettology has overseen hundreds of successful Azure migrations, and we’re ready to partner with your company to help with yours.
Read on to learn more about Azure migration and how Nettology can partner with your company to ensure success in our comprehensive guide:
What is Azure Migration and Why Migrate to Azure?
Azure migration is the process of moving all on-premises IT infrastructure (i.e., applications, data, etc.) to the Microsoft Azure cloud. There are several benefits of migrating to Azure for businesses, such as reduced costs, enhanced scalability and network flexibility, and improvements in security. Furthermore, the streamlining of operations can help enhance productivity, while Azure’s robust security features help protect data and applications from cyber threats and improve disaster recovery in the event that an external threat does occur.
Here’s a closer look at some of the key reasons businesses choose to migrate to Azure services:
- Data center modernization: Moving IT infrastructure to the cloud eliminates the need for any on-site hardware and any maintenance, upgrades or personnel costs associated with caring for this hardware. It also permits your business to adjust resources based on demand, ensuring you’re only using what you need relative to business requirements.
- Improved disaster recovery tools: Azure Site Recovery is Azure’s premier disaster recovery solution. It helps to ensure business continuity by replicating workloads to a secondary location in the event of an outage or cyber threat, thereby maintaining availability and minimizing data loss. This secondary location may be either an on-site physical location or a different cloud.
- Digital transformation: Azure helps enable digital transformation for businesses, providing access to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to spur innovation and create new, more advanced solutions. Azure migration also helps businesses modernize their IT, while improving flexibility and scalability to drive further innovation and productivity benefits.
Understanding Azure Migration Tools and Services
Microsoft Azure is a preferred migration service due to its combination of discovery, assessment and migration capabilities. More specifically, Azure discovers on-site servers, databases, and other applications and assesses their suitability for Azure migration. It then creates a migration plan and a phased migration approach before execution.
Azure also comes with advanced, specialized tools, including Azure Database Migration Service, App Service Migration Assistant, and Azure Site Recovery, among others, to help with the migration. Here’s a closer look at each of these specialized tools and services:
- Azure Database Migration Service (DMS): DMS is a managed service that simplifies and accelerates the process of migrating existing databases to Azure. It can assist users with moving databases from various sources and streamline the process.
- App Migration Service Assistant: This Microsoft tool helps users migrate ASP.NET applications from on-site servers to the Azure App Service. It assesses compatibility and readiness and then migrates the application and its various settings into the App Service.
- Azure Site Recovery: Azure’s disaster recovery solution, Site Recovery, helps ensure business continuity by replicating workloads to a secondary location in the event of an outage or cyber threat. This maintains availability and minimizes data loss.
Azure Migration Strategies: Choosing the Right Approach
Contrary to what many business owners think, there’s more than one approach to migration — and it’s important to select the best strategy for your organization.
To assess and plan your cloud migration approach, it’s important to consider the six “r’s” of migration. They are:
- Rehost: Also commonly referred to as a “lift and shift,” rehosting consists of moving applications to the cloud without making any changes.
- Replatforming: Unlike rehosting, replatforming involves making minor changes to applications to optimize them for the cloud environment. However, the core architecture tends to remain similar.
- Repurchase: Rather than migrating an existing application, repurchasing consists of switching to an SaaS solution.
- Retire: Fitting to the name, retiring involves shutting down applications that are no longer needed.
- Retain: The opposite of retiring, retaining is keeping applications, whether it’s temporary or permanent.
- Refactor: Also commonly referred to as “re-architecting,” refactoring involves changing the application’s architecture to fully leverage the cloud’s capabilities and maximize performance.
Two cloud computing approaches include IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service). Both have their pros and cons. IaaS virtualizes resources and allows users to manage the operating system, middleware, and applications, while PaaS offers a platform for developing, running, and managing applications.
IaaS is best for organizations that need to migrate existing applications or that require custom applications or specific infrastructure configurations. PaaS, conversely, is ideal when rapid application development is a necessity.
Azure Migration Step-by-Step Process
A seamless Azure cloud migration process consists of a comprehensive, seven-step process. Here’s an overview of the process you can expect when you work with Nettology on your Azure migration:
Step 1 – Strategic Planning and Azure Cloud Adoption Framework
The first step is all about discovery and planning, largely using the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) for migration planning. CAF is a guide and set of best practices designed to help any organization adopt and implement Azure cloud services. It offers a structured approach to planning, building, and managing cloud environments, while also aligning business goals with technical strategies. What’s nice about CAF is that it covers the entire adoption cycle, from the very initial strategy to ongoing management and governance.
CAF can help reduce risk by helping your company follow established best practices. It also helps organizations accelerate the process while protecting sensitive data and optimizing spending.
Step 2 – Discovery and Current State Assessment
The next step is discovery and current state assessment, which consists of inventory and cataloging, a readiness assessment, and cost estimation. It’s best practice to use Azure Migrate during this step to discover, assess, and analyze your current application environment. Azure Migrate can be deployed within an on-premise environment to automate the discovery of VMware, Hyper-V and physical servers. To enable it, you’ll need to create an Azure project and then add the Azure Migrate tool to the project, while making sure that your on-premise environment meets all the necessary qualifications.
Step 3 – Azure Environment Preparation and Landing Zone Setup
Before migration can take place, the environment needs to be prepped, and landing zones need to be set up. Landing zones are pre-configured, best-practice-based environments in Azure that provide the foundation for deploying and managing applications and workloads. They help set up the infrastructure and various configurations required to ensure an ideal Azure environment.
Landing zones are foundational environments that are essentially starting points for your cloud journey. They help enable faster cloud adoption, improve security and governance, and can also accommodate future growth and scalability.
Step 4 – Migration Planning and Sequencing
Azure planning and sequencing help provide the structured road mapping that businesses need for a successful cloud transition while minimizing any risk or disruptions during the process. There are several key components involved in this step, including:
- Cutover planning, which is the process of transitioning from an existing system to Azure with minimal disruption.
- Rollback procedures, or the process of rolling back to on-premises after migration.
- Communications strategies consist of a plan to keep key stakeholders informed about the migration process, its steps, and any potential impact.
Step 5 – Pilot Migration and Testing
Pilot migration and testing involve starting with non-critical workloads to test and verify the process and detect potential issues that need to be resolved. It’s important to begin the cloud migration process with low-risk workloads to validate the strategy from previous phases before the full-scale migration takes place.
Pilot migration involves setting up a pilot environment, performing the tests, and verifying functionality and performance. Aside from validating the process, it also helps build confidence among all key stakeholders involved in it. Lessons learned based on pilot results can then be used to refine the process before full-scale execution takes place.
Step 6 – Production Migration Execution
Following the pilot migration and testing phase, it’s time to perform cloud migrations at scale. Procedures differ based on workload types, so it’s important that you take the lessons learned from the previous steps and pilot testing to carry out the migration with minimal or zero downtime. For instance, VMs and physical servers are best migrated using Azure Migrate, while databases should use the Data Migration Assistant. Web apps are best migrated via the Azure App Service Migration Assistant, which can assess any on-premise apps and migrate to the Azure App Service.
This step also consists of carefully monitoring the migration and correcting any issues as they arise. Azure Monitor can help facilitate this by collecting, analyzing and responding to data from cloud and on-premise environments. Diagnostic settings and alerts can also be arranged to monitor certain metrics, while alerts can also be created in Azure Monitor to trigger certain actions when specific tasks are either met or not met.
Key troubleshooting you’ll want to be sure to monitor throughout migration include:
- Prerequisites and permissions
- Connectivity issues and network problems
- Appliance health to overcome any deployment issues
- Disk-related errors
Step 7 – Post-Migration Optimization and Governance
Following the migration process, it’s crucial to test and validate that all data, applications and services are performing as expected. The job isn’t finished following migration — regular reviews and refinement are important to optimizing performance and ensuring you get the most out of the Azure resources. Monitoring can largely be carried out via the Azure Monitor and Azure Security Center, which can proactively identify and address issues as they arise.
Azure Cost Management provides cost management tools to help monitor and control spending, while the Azure Security Center helps users continuously monitor security settings and ensure they comply with various regulations.
Following Azure migration, the work doesn’t stop. All companies, regardless of size, must focus on optimizing their new cloud environment to ensure optimal performance, security and compliance. This involves a combination of performance tuning, security hardening and compliance validation.
Azure Migration Security and Compliance Considerations
When performing a successful Azure cloud migration, it’s important to ensure that all data and applications are protected throughout the process. Yet, it’s also important that any cloud migration adheres to industry and regulatory standards, such as GDPR, NCSC, and NIST. This can be easier said than done, and often consists of instituting robust security measures throughout the process, which may include:
- Data encryption
- Role-based access controls
- Multi-factor authentication
Be sure to leverage Azure’s built-in compliance tools for assistance with migration security and compliance. Additionally, tools such as Azure Policy, Microsoft Defender, and Azure Sentinel can also enhance security and compliance.
Azure Migration Project Planning and Best Practices
While this guide has covered the Azure migration process and many best practices, it’s worth reiterating that successful migrations often follow a method that involves assessing the environment, defining objectives and goals, selecting the right migration strategy and utilizing Azure’s tools to the fullest extent.
Following the best practices detailed throughout this guide can also help you avoid some of the common mistakes made in Azure migration. These include:
- Poor planning
- Underestimating costs
- Overlooking application dependencies
- Insufficient training
- Failure to optimize post-migration
Common Azure Migration Challenges and Solutions
Businesses may encounter several challenges during Azure migration, resulting from a number of factors. From technical to organizational issues, here’s a look at some of the common challenges involved in the process and how your company can overcome them:
- Network connectivity issues: Network issues often stem from misconfigured security rules, bad IP addresses or issues with DNS resolution. Make sure to check connectivity between VMs and utilize Azure Network Watcher’s Connection troubleshoot tool if you encounter problems.
- Data transfer limitations: Data transfer limitations may be caused by bandwidth issues, file size restrictions or other constraints. This is where proper migration planning can pay dividends and why it’s important to leverage the appropriate tools for larger data transfers.
- Application compatibility: Factors like infrastructure issues and bad configuration between on-premise systems and Azure can often result in application compatibility issues. A thorough compatibility assessment with Azure Migrate can help identify dependencies and proactively address any issues.
- Skills gaps: Azure migration requires a combination of technical expertise and change management prowess, something that many organizations lack and can thereby result in challenges in updating their infrastructure. The best way to avoid migration issues and ensure your migration is successful is to work with a qualified IT professional or consultant who knows what to do.
- Resistance to change: Migrating to the cloud is a major change, and not everyone within your organization may be on board with it. The best way to get buy-in is to clearly communicate the benefits of this change and offer comprehensive training and support so that everyone becomes familiar and comfortable with it. Additionally, make sure that you’re encouraging open dialogue with all employees and can listen to and address concerns accordingly.
- Budget issues: Cloud migration can help facilitate long-term savings, but many companies underestimate cloud expenses when making the migration. A proper planning assessment and utilizing Azure tools like its Pricing and Total Cost of Ownership Calculator can help effectively address cost and budget before it becomes a problem.
Azure Migration Documentation and Compliance
Azure migration documentation and compliance can largely be properly handled by tapping into the various tools and services that Azure offers. Rely on tools such as Azure Audit Logs, the SQL Data Audit Trail and the Regulatory Compliance dashboard in the Azure Security Center for an overview of your company’s overall compliance posture.
Users must adhere to compliance frameworks, including SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI DSS. Azure tools support all of these frameworks.
Partner with Nettology for Your Azure Migration Success
For more information on Azure migration services and to set your organization up for success when migrating from on-premise to the cloud, contact Nettology today. As experienced IT professionals who specialize in Azure migrations, Office 365 and managed services, we’ll ensure your migration to the cloud is not only successful but also secure and compliant.
Contact Nettology today to take the next step towards your cloud migration and to schedule a consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Azure Migration
How long does an Azure migration typically take?
The timeline is largely based on the project’s complexity and scale, meaning that it could range anywhere from a few weeks to several months. Less complex migrations can typically be completed within a few weeks, while large, intricate migrations take significantly longer.
What are the main costs associated with migrating to Azure?
Several costs are associated with migrating to Azure. The most significant are compute storage, networking, licensing, and third-party integrations. The Azure Pricing Calculator can help you determine the expected costs based on your company’s needs and its chosen services.
Can we migrate applications without downtime?
While some downtime may be inevitable, it is possible to complete the migration with little downtime. Various strategies, such as parallel deployment, rolling deployments, and other migration techniques, can often result in getting close to zero-downtime migrations.
What happens to our data during the migration process?
During the cloud migration process, data is extracted, transformed, and moved from its original source to the Azure environment. Data is often initially replicated and then synchronized to keep a copy updated as necessary. Azure Migrate is the service used to facilitate the migration process. Azure SQL Database is often the destination for structured data migrations, especially when high availability and scalability are required.
How do we handle licensing when moving to Azure?
Several Azure licensing options must be considered when moving to Azure. When you work with Nettology on your Azure migration, we’ll thoroughly explain everything you need to consider and how to manage user licenses through Microsoft Entra ID.
What ongoing support is needed after migration completion?
Post-Azure migration support is important for helping ensure the continued success and performance of the cloud environment. The key areas of ongoing support include monitoring and optimization, security and compliance, application management and support, maintenance and updates, and disaster recovery and backup, among others. It’s also important to conduct regular training so teams are always up-to-date on cloud management, security, and other best practices.
