The 4 Phases of a Successful Microsoft Azure Migration

data migration azureIT professionals around the world know what it means to have simplicity when migrating enterprise-level applications to Microsoft Azure. Just as the benefits of a smooth Azure migration are clear – cost, agility, assurance, etc – so are the downfalls of a mismanaged transfer – loss of data, business interruptions, etc.

Microsoft’s Azure is a cloud computing platform meant for building, deploying and managing services and applications through the global network of Microsoft data centers. These centers include the ever-growing collection of databases, integrated services related to analytics, storage management, and identity.

To ensure a smooth transfer, the Azure Migration process must be approached as a four-phase process that takes into account data handling requirements, compliance variables, and security. The four phases should be in the following way.

Assess > Plan > Prepare > Migrate

Phase 1 – Assess for Cloud Readiness

Unfortunately, there are very few tools available that can help asses an application’s cloud readiness. Therefore, it is up to the users to do it themselves by measuring for key attributes of the application to see if it is compatible with Azure. Our data experts can provide this troublesome process under our Azure Migration Services too.

  • Data. The clash between modern systems like NoSQL and traditional application data storage options can create a lot of mismatches in IT landscapes. Thus it must be harmonized before any digital assets are moved to Azure.
  • Platform. The hardware, application subsystems, operating systems, and the build-code will influence how an application can migrate to Azure.
  • Security. Major cloud infrastructures like Azure are resources that outfit data centers with optimal security. However, the application must be built with effective identity management and with managed security offerings to ensure the protection of users on Azure.
  • Connectivity. Before moving to Azure, you need to make sure that sufficient network bandwidth is available for you for the best performance. Talk to your bandwidth partner before you opt for Azure Migration. The experts at Henson Group provide analysis of how much data bandwidth is ideally required to move to Azure, so be sure to get in touch with us.

Phase 2 – Planning the Azure Migration

  • If you want your overall Azure migration planning strategy to be flawless, you need to make sure that you have run a thorough application cloud readiness assessment. Our experts advise making a plan around three important options – application evaluation, lift and shift, and application rearchitecting.

Phase 3 – Preparing for the Cloud Transformation

  • If your an enterprise, you will require a solid Proof of Concept (POC) and Pilot Test to convince your shareholders of the merits of Azure Migration. This is something that can only be provided using the above-mentioned methods. If you feel you do not have the right expertise to provide these, then our experts are ready to help.
  • The objective of the Proof of Concept and Pilot Test is to expose how Azure will change the nature and operation of the business. A valuable POC can easily bring consensus to your stakeholders and it will effectively eliminate any ambiguity in regards to how to launch the transformation of the cloud.
  • For example, if your resources are to be shared across network connectivity, a POC will prove the connectivity between the Azure regions and the home office as valuable.

Moreover, a Pilot Test will let the users interact and observe the new system at a reduced scale to locate any potential hazards or complexities.

Phase 4 – Azure Migration

  • The fourth phase is where the Azure Migration finally takes place. Depending on how your team analyzed the applications, there will be a lot of automation capabilities such as processes, templates, and tools to minimize the effort.

You can further reduce the effort by getting expert Azure Migration services from our expert team.

If you still decide to move ahead with your internal team, Azure Resource Template Technology can be used to migrate the infrastructures and services to a reusable format. This will increase the speed at which the migration is executed. Such tools can also be tweaked depending on the situation and specifications.

How can Henson Group Help

  • The Henson Group is an award-winning Gold Certified Partner focused on the deployment of Microsoft technologies for U.S. and international companies. For over 15 years, Microsoft and its partners have recommended the Henson Group for licensing, consulting, and managed services to corporations large and small.

If your company is looking to migrate to Azure our migration practice helps customers migrate from on-premise VMware/Hyper-V, Colo such as Rackspace, or other clouds like AWS to Microsoft Azure Datacenter or Azure Stack Infrastructures.

This team also helps clients migrate existing workloads in Azure IaaS to Azure PaaS including SQL Server to Azure SQL Database, SQL SSIS to Data Factory, SQL SSRS/Tableau to PowerBI, Data Warehouses to Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database Tables to Data Lake, and many others.