Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview

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Migration to
Microsoft Azure:
A Technical Overview
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Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview
 Not long ago, server virtualization changed the face of corporate IT. The
Introduction technology unleashed efficiencies and capabilities not possible when applications
and data were constrained by physical hardware. Now, many companies are now
moving their virtualized computing environment to the public cloud, reducing
the burden, expense, and risk of maintaining an on-premises-only environment.

Running services in the cloud can lower maintenance costs and provide the
ability to scale on demand as well as robust disaster recovery services. But
how to get started? Without a strong plan, risks can include a complex and
time-consuming migration process compounded by lack of relevant skills, loss
of control from moving computer resources off- premises, bandwidth issues,
and unexpected costs.

To assist customers to fast track their migration to Azure, NGenious Solutions

have developed an extensive set of tools and services to reduce risk and
speed migration of virtual machines, applications and databases. These tools
and services support a broad selection of operating systems, programming
languages, frameworks and databases: Linux, VMware, Java, Oracle, and
Microsoft offerings such as .NET, Hyper-V, and SQL Server. This paper will
discuss migrating virtual machines along with workloads, applications and
databases running on those virtual machines.

Most migration projects can be divided into three phases: discovery,

migration, and optimization and modernization.

1. In the discovery phase, you take inventory of resources as a way of

determining where migration should start. This process, much of
which can be automated using software tools, includes identifying
workloads and applications, scoring each workload’s readiness for
migration, mapping the current physical hardware to optimal Azure
virtual machines, and forecasting the return on investment and total
cost of ownership for the migration.

2. During the migration process, software tools replicate virtual

machines, applications, and data on Azure. At this time, you might
also decide to containerize existing applications to make them
migration ready. Once targeted virtual machines, applications, and
data are migrated, optimization can begin.

3. Rather than a single step, optimization is often a continuous fine-

tuning, and requires tools and services to strengthen security and
consolidate management and performance tuning.

This document provides some best practices on each of the three phases of
the migration process: discovery, migration, and optimization.

Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview

 The discovery phase of the migration process, at its highest level, can help an
Discovery organization answer three questions:

• What does my environment look like across applications, workloads and

How Azure Migrate helps data?

A free service from Microsoft, • Will the virtual machine, workload, or application run on Azure?
Azure Migrate enables
guidance, insights, and • How much will it cost to run on Azure?
mechanisms for cloud
migration. Here are a few of In a complex environment with hundreds or thousands of virtual machines,
the capabilities: applications, and data sources, a manual assessment effort would be nearly
impossible. With Microsoft Azure and NGenious Solutions can use tools and
• Discovery and consulting services to simplify discovery. As an example, the Azure Migrate
assessment for on- service provides guidance, insights and mechanisms for cloud migration.
premises virtual
machines and servers. With the information provided by Azure Migrate or third-party tools, it
becomes much easier to select the applications and virtual machines that are
• Built-in best candidates for an initial proof-of-concept migration.
dependency
mapping, ensuring Typical characteristics include:
successful
migration of • Few or no dependencies on other processes, authorization
multi-tier mechanisms, or external databases.
applications.
• Virtual machines with high CPU or memory utilization but few
• Intelligent right- dependencies.
sizing for Azure
virtual machines. • Virtual machines approaching their storage limit.

• Compatibility By filtering and defining the first workloads, you achieve a higher probability
reporting with that the first migrations are successful. The result: lower risk and a
guidelines for demonstrable return on investment.
remediating
potential issues. The discovery phase typically maps the existing environment to Azure Virtual
Machine series instances and sizes. This, in turn, identifies expected costs. In
• Seamless many cases, customers that have purchased Software Assurance on Windows
workload Server can use offers like Azure Hybrid Use Benefit in the Azure environment
replication to to reduce their total cost of ownership.
Azure, to simplify
migration. To pave the way for data migration, Microsoft offers a tool called the Data
Migration Assistant (DMA) for discovery and assessment. It scans databases
running on-premises and detects migration-blocking issues as well as
• Integration with Azure
providing remediation advice for problems, such as partially- supported or
Data Migration
unsupported features currently in use. DMA partners with Azure Database
Assistant, which
Migration Service (DMS) to create a migration workflow that helps the
partners with Azure
moving of database schemas, data and users, server roles, and SQL and
Database Migration
Windows logins.
Service for database
discovery and
migration.

Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview

 Before any migration, you will want to ensure primary systems are safe and
Migration will continue to run without issues. Any downtime disrupts users or
customers, and costs time and money. Migration is not as simple as turning
off the virtual machines on-premises and copying it across to Azure. Migration
Taking advantage of Azure tools must take into account asynchronous or synchronous replication to
ensure live systems can be copied to Azure with no downtime. Most of all,
While you can migrate SQL systems must be kept in lock-step with on-premises counterparts. You might
Server virtual machines to want to test migrated resources in isolated partitions in Azure, to ensure
Azure, you might want to applications work as expected.
consider the exponential gains
that can be achieved by To move virtual machines, workloads, and applications from on- premises
migrating a database to new into Azure requires tools such as Azure Site Recovery (ASR), or third-party
Azure offerings. The gains can tools such as CloudEndure, and Velostrata. Any tool usage will be based on
affect budget, management, project goals and environment specifics. For example, you could use any of
and capability. For example, the following:
Azure SQL Database Managed
Instance and Azure SQL • Azure Site Recovery, when you have Azure-compatible Windows
Database reduce overall costs Server and Linux machines migrating from any platform. Because
by providing PaaS-like Azure Site Recovery uses replication technology, your initial upload
experiences, reducing the need will be large with smaller differential uploads. This
for extensive management. will need to be considered in moving numerous virtual machines,
Microsoft provides two because the limitation for virtual machines per day will be dependent
services that work in on bandwidth availability.
partnership to enable seamless
migration to any Azure • CloudEndure, when you have the need for a wider range of supported
destination for SQL Server and virtual machines to migrate to Azure. Like ASR, CloudEndure uses
other database sources. replication to migrate virtual machines with no impact to the original
source machine. CloudEndure is also a solid choice if you want to use
• Data Migration an independent tool.
Assistant enables
discovery and • Velostrata, when you require a fast-paced migration of virtual
assessment of current machines to Azure. Velostrata takes a different approach to migration,
data environment, replicating the virtual machine’s compute run-time to Azure, which is
identifies compatibility incredibly fast, and then over time replicating the virtual machine’s
issues, and storage. In this model, you can migrate many virtual machines daily to
recommends Azure, but it requires fast and reliable network connections, since the
performance and storage for those virtual machines will need to be accessed on-
reliability premises for a time.
improvements.
As with any migration, there are multiple steps, including architecture review,
• Database Migration capacity and network planning, preparation of Azure resources and the virtual
Service helps migrate machines being migrated, establishing replication sources and targets, testing
existing on-premises the failover mechanism, and initiating the actual replication.
SQL Server, Oracle,
and MySQL databases
to Azure SQL
Database, Azure SQL
Database Managed
Instance or SQL Server
on Azure virtual
machines.

Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview

By following these steps organizations can minimize production downtime during migration with zero application-data loss.

NGenious Solutions offer afull suite of tools for shifting workloads and data to Azure, from discovery to migration, to
optimization.

Any migration project does not end after the migration itself. Once the virtual
Optimize and machines and workloads are migrated, you want to ensure peak
performance, availability, and cost optimization. By exposing the virtual
modernize machines and workloads to Azure, you can start to move closer to immediate
and longer-term goals, which might include reducing cost, optimizing
• Protect precious availability and performance, and improving management and security.
data from
corruption with Cloudyn, a recent addition to Microsoft’s portfolio, provides granular, real-
built-in backup. time visibility into cloud consumption, cost, and performance.
Through its reporting interface, organizations can monitor costs split across
• Monitor and pro- websites, virtual machines, storage, applications, databases, and networks.
activity react to Cloudyn will ensure migrated virtual machines continue to deliver targeted
any issue with resource utilization and best cost by recommending changes in series types,
advanced insights as needed, to ensure this ratio remains advantageous to the organization.
and analytics.
You will want to ensure a secured and well-managed virtual machine
environment. Through built-in Azure security and management services, all
• Ensure your migrated virtual machines can be maintained and monitored through a vast
security variety of solutions.
foundation is
strong and
environment
protected with
Azure Security
Center.

Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview

 This paper recommends starting with simple applications and databases.
Next steps Once you understand the tools and processes and build migration skills,
you can apply the skills to more complex parts of the computing
environment. By understanding the costs, performance trade-offs, and
management requirements for running workloads on-premises versus in
the cloud, an organization can make better decisions about how to
proceed—when hardware is being pushed to its limit or demand for
computer resources contracts or expands.

Learn more about our services that support migration to Azure at

https://ngenioussolutions.com/services/cloud/microsoft-azure.html

Migration to Microsoft Azure: A Technical Overview