Moving applications and data to the cloud may seem risky, but the idea behind migration is quickly becoming paramount.
In fact, 70% of organizations already use or are planning to launch Microsoft Azure for cloud services; however, more than 60% of cloud migration initiatives lag behind schedule or have gone over budget, mainly due to lack of planning or technical visibility.
But that is one way in which cloud migration can be made painless with adequate preparations and with the support of trusted Azure managing service providers.
We will discuss the nine considerations before migrating to Microsoft Azure in this article, all to help you seamlessly and confidently navigate the move while avoiding some common misconceptions in the process.
Let’s deep dive!!
9 Things to Consider While Migrating to Microsoft Azure
- Understanding Azure’s Unique Attributes: Transitioning to Microsoft Azure requires a shift in mindset from traditional on-premises deployments. Capacity planning and resource management on Microsoft Azure operate differently due to its elastic nature. Unlike fixed infrastructure, Azure services allow for dynamic scaling based on demand. Understanding these nuances is crucial to optimizing costs and performance in the cloud environment.
- Bandwidth Consideration: Bandwidth plays a vital role in ensuring seamless connectivity, especially in hybrid cloud scenarios where data transfer between on-premises and cloud environments is frequent. An architecture specialist like Azure managed services can assess your bandwidth requirements based on factors like data volume, application workload, and user demand. This assessment helps in provisioning the accurate amount of bandwidth to prevent latency issues and bottlenecks.
- Managing Downtime: Downtime is inevitable during cloud migration, but careful planning can help minimize its impact on business operations. By strategically scheduling downtime during off-peak hours and staggering migrations for various components or services, businesses can maintain continuity and reduce disruptions to users.
- Database Migration: Moving databases to Azure offers multiple benefits, including scalability, availability, and disaster recovery capabilities. However, compatibility issues with legacy databases can arise, particularly if they were developed using obsolete application versions. Thoroughly assessing database compatibility and addressing any migration challenges upfront is essential for a seamless transition to Microsoft Azure.
- Virtual Machine Compatibility: Before migrating virtual machines to Azure, it is essential to verify their compatibility with the Azure environment. While Azure supports a wide range of operating systems and configurations, certain legacy systems may require updates or adjustments to ensure seamless migration.
- Security Considerations: Security is a top concern when migrating to the cloud. Azure service providers offer a shared responsibility model, where Microsoft manages the security of the cloud infrastructure, while customers are responsible for securing their data and applications. Understanding this division of responsibilities and implementing appropriate security controls is vital for safeguarding sensitive information in Azure.
- Application Management and Monitoring: Proper management and monitoring of applications are critical for maintaining performance and reliability in Azure. Before deploying applications to a production environment, businesses should define service level objectives and implement robust monitoring solutions to detect and address any issues proactively.
- Application Compatibility Testing: Testing application compatibility in an Azure test environment helps identify any potential issues or dependencies before migrating to production. This allows businesses to mitigate risks and ensure a smooth transition without impacting critical operations.
- Disaster Recovery: Implementing robust disaster recovery solutions in Azure is essential for protecting data and ensuring business continuity. Azure offers a range of backup and recovery options, including Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery, which can be tailored to meet the specific needs of each workload and application. By proactively planning for disaster recovery, businesses can minimize downtime and mitigate the impact of potential disruptions.
Choosing the Right Azure Migration Strategy
With the advent of digital transformation, company-specific Azure migration strategies need to be appraised to achieve the targets of operational agility, cost efficiency, and long-term scalability.
Microsoft Azure opens multiple paths to the cloud; understanding which strategy applies to your organization’s needs is the first step towards success.
The Three Pillar Azure Migration Strategies
Cloud migration is typically classified into basic three strategies-three strategies that Microsoft himself classifies. Each possesses its own merits depending on your existing infrastructure, business goals, and technical capabilities:
- Rehost (Lift and Shift)
This is the fastest migration strategy for on-prem workloads to Azure, whereby the applications are moved almost untouched to a virtual machine in the cloud.
Best for: For legacy applications with minimal dependencies or when time is truly critical.
Example: Moving internal HR systems to Azure VMs during a data center shutdown.
- Refactor (Repackage)
This strategy involves making minor changes to better suit Azure without fully being rebuilt. Using containers, Microsoft Azure App Services instead of full VMS are perfect examples.
Best for: Apps with minor adjustments that can improve their cloud-native capabilities without a full redesign.
Example: A web app was migrated to the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for better scaling.
- Rebuild/Replace (Rearchitect)
This strategy entails entirely re-architecting or replacing applications by using Azure’s native services, such as Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, or Azure Logic Apps.
Best for: Organizations seeking innovation, scalability, and long-term cost optimization.
Example: Redeveloping a monolithic ERP system to a microservice-based solution with Azure Services.
Aligning Strategy with Business Objectives
Your migration strategy should be aligned with broader business priorities:
| Business Priority | Recommended Strategy | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Quick migration, minimal disruption | Rehost | Fastest route with minimal code changes |
| Moderate agility, some optimization | Refactor | Balances speed with performance improvement |
| Innovation and modernization | Rebuild/Replace | Leverages full power of cloud-native design |
| Regulatory compliance & risk mitigation | Rehost + Refactor (Hybrid) | Maintain existing controls while improving agility |
In highly regulated industries, you may first go for a Rehost method to migrate quickly, then Refactor or Rebuild in due course to fit the compliance evolving demands.
A Look at Azure's Unique Draws
Why Azure? While AWS and GCP offer equally strong cloud services, Azure really stands out with its enterprise orientation, security paradigms, and hybrid-first layout. Some key characteristics include:
Worldwide Availability: Azure spans over 60 regions, giving them globally the scale with localized data residency.
Enterprise-Grade Security: Azure is compliant with 90+ compliance offerings-out of which understand GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO.
Native Integration with Microsoft Ecosystem: Seamless connectivity with Active Directory, Microsoft Office 365, and Dynamics.
Hybrid capabilities: Azure Arc, Stack, and Site Recovery present seamless realization of hybrid-cloud and edge scenarios.
With respect to hybrid environments, Azure is fastly turning in favor of enterprise tooling and licensing models that are good for adoption by organizations already on a Microsoft technology stack.
How Azure Migrate Helps Your Cloud Journey
Azure Migrate is a one-stop shop for all aspects of migration planning and execution at Microsoft. This way, it reduces the hassle of assessing, tracking, and moving workloads to Azure with a bunch of very useful features.
Key features:
- Readiness Assessment: Evaluating your current infrastructure for Azure compatibility.
- Dependency mapping: Identify interlinked services to avoid breaking app functionality during migration.
- Sizing and Estimation of costs: Suggesting the most appropriately sized VMs based on performance data
- Workload Prioritization: Workload ranking depending on migration complexity and business impact.
- Integrated Tools: Party tool support for Carbonite, Cloudamize, Corent, and more for deeper insights.
From migrating databases and web apps to virtual desktops and even full environments, Azure Migrate is the one that gives you a clear and data-driven roadmap.
Migration Pitfalls: Avoiding the Most Common Mistakes
Migration to Azure is a strategic step, but it can run the risk of incurring downtime, overruns in cost, or even worse, underperformance, if done incorrectly. Here are some pitfalls common in Azure cloud migrations to be avoided.
- Ignoring Interdependencies of Legacy Systems
Many legacy applications are tightly coupled and interdependent. Migrating one does not usually mean the successful migration of all others that utilize or cater to that application. Hence, dependencies need to be mapped well before workloads are moved.
- Underestimating the Bandwidth Required
Data migration on large scales is bound to require heavy data movement. If this is not taken into effect for the network or bandwidth planning, there are serious risks in bottlenecks, delays, and incomplete migrations. Plan also around network performance requirements, latency, and Azure ExpressRoute, if needed.
- Testing and Validation Is Not Enough
Less resource testing for performance and compatibility will fail the end-user application. Make it a point to conduct proof of concept (PoC) runs, along with testing applications and failover drills before going to the go-live.
- Poor Cost Planning and Control
A majority of organizations find it easier to consider workload migration without thinking that some savings will come automatically. However, this might also cause them an over provision while spending much without using tools like the Azure Pricing Calculator or by building a cost model with preciseness.
- Security and Compliance Validation Postponement
Non-reconfiguration moving security settings to the cloud doesn’t form any conditions, and the not updating compliance controls create some holes within the system. Azure offers some native security tools; however, one will need to do validations about configuration, encryption, and access policies as part of the overall migration process.
Best Practices for Seamless Azure Cloud Migration
Seamless migration doesn’t just mean the smooth loading of workloads into the cloud; it’s also doing so quickly, securely, and minimally disruptively.
- Start small and gradually scale
Start with low-risk, non-mission-critical workloads, validating your methods and tooling as you go. The early wins build momentum and help you learn faster.
- Documentation of Dependencies and of PoCs
Map application dependencies with Azure Migrate, small proof of concept runs to see where integration or performance problems might cause confusion.
- Automate Everything You Can
Automation tools like Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, Azure DevOps, and Terraform remove repetitive steps and decrease human error in infrastructure, scaling, and deployment set-up.
- Change Management and Training Never Skip
The cloud strategy changes the culture as well. Ensure that both respective regions of the business have the appropriate skills of development and engage users to adapt to the new tools the company has adopted.
Cost Optimization Strategy
Cloud management of costs begins before the first workload is migrated. Azure provides powerful tools for almost every stage to manage and optimize expenses.
Use the Azure Pricing Calculator
Estimate costs. You can then migrate without surprises associated with compute, storage, networking, and other licensing costs later.
Rightsizing with Reserved Instances
Post-integration, evaluate workload performance to determine which resources were overly provisioned; resulting in rightsizing virtual machines gives the company huge cost reductions by purchasing reserved instances for predictable workloads.
Control Actual Costs with Azure Cost Management
Azure Cost Management and Billing is used for monitoring spending by creating budgets and alerts. This creates a proactive approach that aligns actual cloud spending with business goals.
How HexaCorp help you with Smooth Azure Migration?
HexaCorp has extensive experience and expertise in Azure migration strategies and best practices. We can assess your existing infrastructure, applications, and business requirements to develop a customized migration plan tailored to your needs. Our deep understanding of Azure services and capabilities ensures that your migration is efficient and successful.
We help identify and mitigate potential risks associated with Azure migration, such as data loss, application downtime, or security vulnerabilities. By conducting thorough risk assessments and implementing appropriate risk management strategies, they ensure a smooth and secure migration process.
Conclusion
There are numerous factors to consider when planning your Azure migration and assessing them carefully is essential for a seamless transition. Each company’s migration journey is unique, so there is no one-size-fits-all roadmap. Microsoft Azure highlights two primary assessment options that can aid in the transition process. While there is much more to plan for during a cloud migration, these points serve as a starting point. It is crucial to focus on the goal throughout the process.
Happy Learning!!
Ready to migrate with confidence?
Let HexaCorp help you plan, execute, and optimize your Azure cloud migration.
FAQs
What are the main strategies for migrating to Microsoft Azure?
Azure’s key migration strategies for actualizing the potential of cloud computing are Rehost, Refactor, and Rebuild or Replace. The approach that one chooses depends much on determining the actual architecture of the application in question, business prioritization, timeline, and available resources.
How does Azure Migrate help in the migration process?
Azure Migrate is a single stop that analyzes, plans, and tracks your migration into the cloud. It offers utility for dependency mapping, presents performance-based sizing requirements, estimates costs, and integrates with third-party solutions to make your migration process seamless.
What are some common challenges during Azure migration?
Challenges include interdependency between legacy systems, bouncing bandwidth limitations; lack of proper testing; underestimation of costs; and security misconfiguration. If precautions are not taken beforehand, all of these threats can pose impacts on performance, timelines, and stability post-migration.
How can I minimize downtime during Azure migration?
Use incremental replication, plan for off-peak migration windows, and conduct extensive testing in the staging environments. Tools such as Azure Site Recovery and Database Migration Services help in achieving near-zero downtime for critical workloads.
What should I consider when migrating databases to Azure?
Assess compatibility, performance demands, and security of data. Then pick the ideal service for your application in Azure (e.g., SQL Managed Instance, Azure Database for PostgreSQL) and come up with plans regarding data replication, testing, and cutover.
How can I optimize costs after moving to Azure?
Right-size workloads, buy Reserved Instances, and track consumption through Azure Cost Management. Perform regular audits of unoccupied resource consumption and apply auto scaling and budgeting tools for better control of expenditure.
Is security a concern during cloud migration?
Clearly, security is important, encrypt data on migration, set up role-based access controls, and afterwards use Azure Security Center and Microsoft Defender for Cloud to validate security settings during and after migration for compliance and protection.