1

E-book Series

Windows Server
on Azure
The ultimate guide
 Table of contents 2

You’re running a lot of your business on

Windows Server today—mission-critical
apps, Active Directory, Domain Name
Servers, not to mention virtual machines
and storage.

For more than 20 years, Windows Server

has been the operating system of choice
for enterprise workloads.

Contents

Introduction 3

01 / Cloud computing drives transformational change 4

02 / Why move Windows Server to Azure 7

03 / Manage costs while you save on Azure 9

04 / Azure and Windows Server: industry-leading security 11

05 / Bring cloud innovation to your datacenter 14

06 / What to do first: migrate or extend? 17

07 / Trust Azure for your mission-critical applications and data 22

08 / Getting started 24

Resources 26
 Introduction 3

Give your This guide shows you how you can use
your Windows Server expertise to give

organization
your organization a boost in the age of
cloud computing, addressing these topics

a boost in the
and others:

• Why move to the cloud?

age of cloud • What are some ways to use Azure

computing
for Windows Server workloads?

• What about security?

• Who else is doing this?

• How do I get started?

Gain cloud expertise

This guide helps you understand how to
find answers and build internal capability
around cloud security and governance,
new application models, and cloud
architecture.
 Cloud computing drives 4
transformational change

01 / Cloud adoption is on the rise as

businesses today face market and supply
chain disruptions unlike any they’ve faced
in the past and turn to the cloud for the

Cloud scale, flexibility, and security they need

to keep up. As a result, IT is emerging

computing drives as an important enabler of business

success. As an IT professional, you have

transformational
the opportunity to grow and leverage
your existing skill sets by architecting,

change
migrating, and managing software in
the cloud.

You can master this shift to the cloud by

tapping into a broad range of training,
technology, and tools from Microsoft.
This document will guide you to the
resources available from Microsoft and
its partners to understand Microsoft
Azure capabilities and the opportunities
now available for datacenters heavily
invested in Windows Server.
The rising demand for a trusted, 5

secure hybrid cloud

The public cloud is a Cloud providers need to Most trust Microsoft to understand
major IT investment. understand their customers’ their business and industry.
industry-specific needs.

60% 81% 90%

60% of enterprise IT 81% of IT decision makers believe it is 90% of IT decision makers who
infrastructure spending will be very important for their cloud provider hold the previous belief, also
allocated to public cloud.1 to have a deep understanding of their feel Microsoft understands the
industry-specific business needs.1 business needs of their industry.1

Start with a strategy • What is our short-term and long-term

roadmap for moving to the cloud?
The transformation to cloud computing is a
great opportunity for IT pros to evolve and • What is my personal roadmap for
meet the changes in the modern workforce, building the necessary cloud skills?
to protect workloads with unmatched
• Should we use a certified Azure
security, innovate anywhere with seamless
partner? If so, which one?
hybrid capabilities, and to migrate to cloud
infrastructures that can be trusted to run a • What servers, applications, and data
business. should stay in the datacenter and
what should be cloud-based?
But digital transformation is not something
to jump into blindly. There’s a broad range • How can we continue to derive the
of business, financial, and technology maximum benefit from existing
challenges to consider first. Some questions investments?
to ask include:
• How do we want to design future
• What benefits (e.g. agility, cost savings, solutions to best leverage the cloud?
scalability) are we expecting from the
cloud and how do we prioritize them? 1
International Data Corporation, Addressing Enterprise Cloud Priorities
with Microsoft Azure, June 2020.
 Cloud computing drives 6
transformational change

Bringing others along

Cloud strategy development is an evolutionary process in most enterprises. It requires
coordination among a variety of stakeholders including IT professionals, developers, compliance
experts, procurement, and security.

Part of moving to the cloud is understanding the technology, but you also have to consider
business and organizational impacts. Typical stages organizations go through include:

Stage Impact

Cloud aware IT staff is aware of broad cloud trends.

Cloud IT organization begins to learn about various categories of cloud computing services such as
experimentation Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service.

Opportunistic cloud IT organization begins to actively migrate workloads to the cloud to meet new business
requirements.

Cloud first Default assumption is that cloud services will fulfill the majority of the computing needs.

Think about your own organization

Where are you along this evolutionary journey? IT staff members may feel anxious about their
roles and positions as they realize that a different set of skills is needed for the support of cloud
solutions. But agile employees who explore and learn new cloud technologies need not fear.
Current skills are still important as you manage a hybrid cloud environment. By adding new skills
to manage compute, storage, and networking in the cloud, IT can lead the adoption of cloud
services and help the organization understand and embrace changes in the industry.
 Why move Windows Server to Azure 7

02 / You probably already have a significant

investment in Microsoft technology
within your datacenter: Windows Server,
as well as Exchange, SQL Server,

Why move SharePoint, or Dynamics. You might

use Active Directory for authentication,

Windows Server certificate management, file server, and

other pivotal IT functions as well as

to Azure
System Center to simplify configuration
and operations management.

These are all good reasons to consider

Azure, because you can use existing skills,
familiar tools, and established procedures
to move workloads to Microsoft’s cloud.

Maybe your datacenter is more

heterogeneous with virtualized software
workloads hosted on both Microsoft
Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines. Or
maybe Oracle and MySQL are operating
alongside Microsoft SQL Server and other
applications running on Linux.

Even so, you can integrate or migrate

these and other compute and database
environments to Azure using a consistent
set of tools and services. You’ll still have
one place to go to for support. Plus, you
can add “cloud administrator” to your list
of proficiencies.

To understand how Azure impacts and

integrates with current Windows Server
implementations, take a look at the
Windows Server on Azure section of the
Azure website.
 Why move Windows Server to Azure 8

Move workloads Here are some of the reasons Microsoft

customers move workloads to Azure:

to the cloud at Azure-only offers

Pay less than on other clouds, because

your own pace, you can bring your Windows Server and
SQL Server licenses to Azure using Azure

using existing Hybrid Benefit.

skills, familiar
The most trusted cloud
Take advantage of multi-layered security

tools, and
across physical datacenters, infrastructure,
and operations and Microsoft’s $1 billion

established
annual investment in security. Benefit
from 8,500 cybersecurity experts and
active monitoring that helps protect your

procedures business assets and data.

Cloud innovation
Take advantage of features only in
Azure that can help you accelerate the
modernization of your infrastructure.

Consistent hybrid services

Azure is also the only consistent hybrid
cloud. Connect your on-premises infra-
structure, data, and apps to the cloud
with Azure Arc—for maximum portability
and value from existing investments. You
also benefit from hybrid consistency in
application development, management
and security, identity management, and
across the data platform. This means
your organization is free to decide what
computing resources stay in-house and
what moves to the cloud.
 Manage costs while you save on Azure 9

03 / Moving to the cloud upends traditional

IT economics. When computers are
treated as a capital expense, enterprises
must spend capital to build and equip

Manage costs new datacenters. With cloud computing,

enterprises pay for what they use as

while you save part of a subscription-based operating

expense, or OpEx, model.

on Azure The OpEx model is more flexible and

more predictable over time. Services
essentially become metered by usage,
meaning the more you use the more
you’re charged.

To help manage costs, Microsoft

provides several calculators and capacity
planning tools.

Use assessment guidance to identify

the right size of Azure resources as
you move. Azure Virtual Machines, for
example, include a wide range of virtual
machine sizes with support for Linux,
Windows Server, SQL Server, Oracle,
IBM, SAP, and more. Most instances
include load-balancing and autoscaling
free of charge.

Azure Cost Management + Billing

enables you to track cloud usage and
expenditures for Azure and other clouds.
In this way, you can continually optimize
your cloud spend.
 Manage costs while you save on Azure 10

Save with your existing

Windows Server licenses Understand options for Windows
Server End of Support
Windows Server customers also benefit
from Azure-only savings. With the Azure As Microsoft continues to introduce
Hybrid Benefit, you can use existing innovations in Windows Server, support

Windows Server licenses with Software for older versions eventually ends.

Assurance to save on virtual machines As you may know, end of life is coming
(VMs) in Azure. For each Windows Server for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2.

license, Microsoft will cover the cost of Extended support for those versions
ends on October 10, 2023, which means
the operating system on up to two VMs in
no more security updates.
Azure, while you pay only base compute
costs. If you are running Datacenter Free security updates in Azure
Edition, you can continue to use the Customers can migrate apps to Azure

license on-premises while you add two Virtual Machines and get Extended
Security Updates free for three years
VMs in Azure at a discount. If you use
after end of support.
Standard Edition licenses, on the other
hand, you can use each license only in one Upgrade on-premises
place—either on-premises or in Azure. The If you cannot upgrade on-premises

exception is Dual Use Rights, on a onetime servers before end of support, get peace
of mind by buying Extended Security
basis, for up to 180 days, to allow you to
Updates for your servers running
migrate the same workloads to Azure.
Windows Server or SQL Server 2012

To help you understand the extent ofthe and 2012 R2.

savings, use this online calculator. Whether Protect Windows Server 2008
you want to enable a hybrid cloud model workloads in Azure
or move completely tothe cloud, Azure- Extended Security Updates for Windows
only offers help youmaximize the value Server 2008 and 2008 R2 ends on

of existing licenses: January 10, 2023. If you need more time,

Microsoft is offering one more year of
• Save 40 percent or more on Azure security updates, only Azure.
VMs with Azure Hybrid Benefit.
Learn more here.

• Boost savings up to 80 percent

compared to pay-as-you-go prices
when you also reserve the Azure
Virtual Machine instances for one-
year or three-year terms.
 Azure and Windows Server— 11
industry-leading security

04 / Microsoft spends more than $1 billion

each year on cybersecurity to keep
workloads safe. Azure offers a secure
platform for your cloud workloads,

Azure and providing industry-leading security

intelligence, multi-layer threat discovery

Windows Server: and defense, encryption, multifactor

authentication, and a strong network

industry-leading
of integrated partner solutions. These
easy-to-deploy, built-in protections

security
maximize security, reduce complexity,
and free up operational resources for
more critical functions.

Protecting systems requires a holistic

approach that builds security from
the chip to the cloud across hardware,
firmware, and the operating system.
That’s why Windows Server includes
multiple layers of security built right
into the operating system to protect
workloads—whether you run them
on-premises or in a cloud environment.

And whether you keep Windows servers

on-premises or bring them to Azure, two
key cloud-based tools add critical layers
of security. Both tools integrate with
Azure and non-Azure workloads.

• Improve your security posture with

Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

• See and stop threats with Microsoft

Sentinel.
 Azure and Windows Server— 12
industry-leading security

Improve your security posture Microsoft Defender for Cloud helps you
Complementing the security built into assess, secure, and defend:
the operating system is Microsoft
• Assess the security of your machines
Defender for Cloud. Defender for Cloud
and networks continuously using
is an extended threat detection and
built-in security assessments. A
response (XDR) solution. It provides
secure score helps you benchmark
comprehensive coverage for workloads
your security posture.
running in Azure, other cloud platforms,
and your datacenter, and offers a unified • Improve your posture with
dashboard for visibility across your customized recommendations that
digital estate. prioritize hardening tasks to secure
and harden resources. For many
When you activate Defender for Cloud, a
recommendations, Defender for
monitoring agent deploys automatically
Cloud offers a “Fix” button that
into Azure Virtual Machines (VMs).
automates implementation.
Defender for Cloud begins assessing the
security state of your VMs, networks, • Defend against malicious attacks
applications, and data. For on-premises by detecting and resolving threats.
virtual machines, you need to manually Enable alerts for display in the Azure
deploy the agent. portal, for streaming to other IT
solutions, and for delivery by email.
Microsoft analytics engines analyze the
data and synthesize it with machine Defender for Cloud integrates with
learning. Then, Defender for Cloud Microsoft Sentinel and other security
provides recommendations and threat information and event management
alerts to help you address vulnerabilities (SIEM) solutions. It also integrates with
or anomalous activity. security orchestration, automation, and
response (SOAR) solutions.
 Azure and Windows Server— 13
industry-leading security

See and stop threats

With Microsoft Sentinel, you can avoid Protect data with confidential
time-consuming searches through logs in computing
different systems trying to decide what may
While data is traditionally encrypted at
be relevant. Sentinel helps you understand
rest and in transit, Azure confidential
the big picture across your environment
computing protects your data while it’s
and connect the dots that might be related
being processed. Integrated across disks,
to the same security incident. storage, and SQL, Azure confidential
computing includes these capabilities:
Microsoft Sentinel uses AI and Microsoft’s
threat intelligence stream to correlate alerts • Encrypts data while in use
from different systems into incidents. Use
• Enables new scenarios like secure
deep investigation tools to determine the
block-chain or multi-party machine
scope and root cause, and access powerful learning
hunting search and query tools.
• Safeguards keys and other secrets
• Collect data at cloud scale—across all using HSMs
users, devices, applications, and infra-
structure, both on-premises and in
multiple clouds.

• Detect previously uncovered threats

and minimize false positives.

• Respond to incidents rapidly with

built-in orchestration and automation
of common tasks.
 Bring cloud innovation to your datacenter 14

05 / Many organizations will choose to

remain hybrid, retaining their current
datacenter environment while shifting
some functions to the cloud. But

Bring cloud even on-premises workloads can

benefit by extending capabilities using

innovation to Azure services.

your datacenter
Beyond efficiency and reliability,
extending your datacenter to the cloud
provides an opportunity to enhance and
extend IT offerings. Most organizations
begin with small steps: quickly start up
some VMs on Azure for DevTest, migrate
simple workloads, or develop some
cloud-aware apps, for example.

But with Azure’s comprehensive set of

cloud services, much more is possible.
Use Azure services to modernize your
on-premises infrastructure. Find
everything from new storage and
security capabilities to support for the
Internet of Things, machine learning,
data analytics, and artificial intelligence.
Expand your Azure footprint as expertise
grows and business needs dictate.
 Bring cloud innovation to your datacenter 15

Administrators and developers can get Modernize apps from your datacenter
started by adopting innovative Azure Modernize Linux and Windows .NET apps
services that support hybrid operations. on-premises and deploy them anywhere,
with Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) on
• Bring Azure security and services to
Azure Stack HCI.
hybrid environments.
The solution simplifies on-premises
• Simplify IT management.
implementation of the popular AKS
• Modernize apps from your datacenter. orchestrator, which automates running
containerized applications at scale. Use
• Manage Windows Server in Azure familiar tools, gain consistency and
Virtual Machines. built-in security, and extend to Azure
Bring Azure security and services to with hybrid capabilities.
hybrid environments Integration with Azure Arc enables you
Azure Arc helps you convert Windows to automatically deploy applications
Servers into Azure resources, making it and connect on-premises applications
easy to organize, govern, and secure to Azure services, such as Azure Policy
Windows Server machines along with and Azure Monitor.
Linux servers, SQL Server, and Kubernetes
clusters across datacenters and the edge. Manage Windows Server in Azure VMs
After you use Arc to enroll your Windows One of the fastest ways to extend to the
Servers, you can easily integrate with cloud is with Windows Admin Center,
powerful Azure Services, including a free download available with your
Microsoft Defender for Cloud, discussed Windows Server license. Windows Admin
in the previous section of this book. Center enables you to easily connect to
Azure for monitoring, storage, backup,
Simplify IT management disaster recovery, and more. Windows
Simply point and click with Azure Admin Center is also available in the
Automanage to automate operations and Azure portal (preview) to help you
apply consistent best practices across the manage the Windows Server OS running
entire lifecycle of Windows Server and in Azure VMs seamlessly and at a
Linux virtual machines, on-premises or in granular level.
Azure. Benefit from additional capabilities
only with your Azure virtual machines,
such as Hotpatch, and deploy security
updates without having to reboot.
 Bring cloud innovation to your datacenter 16

Extend your on-premises environment to Azure

Shifting functions to the cloud can benefit on-premises workloads. Organizations are using
Azure services to extend capabilities of their in-house Windows Server environments. This
includes integrating services for robust high-availability and disaster recovery, high performance
cloud storage, and hybrid identity and management. Typically this can be done without touching
a line of code. Find more details on the Azure services pages.

Azure services

Category Services

Compute Virtual Machines, VM Scale Sets, Batch, Service Fabric, Containers, and more

Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Azure DNS, Content Delivery Network, Azure DDoS Protection,
Networking
and more

Storage Blob, Queue, File, Disk, Data Lake, StorSimple, Backup, Site Recovery

Mobile Apps, API Management, Media Services, Notification Hubs, Streaming, Content Protection,
Web and mobile
and more

Containers Container Registry and Instances, Azure Container Service, Container Instances, Batch, App Service

SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL and PostgresSQL, Data Warehouse, Stretch Database,
Databases
and more

Stream Analytics, Data Lake Analytics, Power BI Embedded, Log Analytics, Custom Speech Service,
Data and analytics
and more

AI and cognitive Machine Learning, Bot Service, Cognitive Services, Computer Vision API, Speech Services, and more
services

Internet of IoT Hub and Edge, Time Series Insights, Stream Analytics, Notification and Event Hubs, and more
Things (IoT)

Enterprise Service Bus, StorSimple, SQL Server Stretch Database, Data Catalog, Data Factory, Event Grid,
integration and more

Security and Key Vault, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory
identity B2C and Domain Services, Multi-Factor Authentication

Developer tools Visual Studio Team Services, Azure DevTest Labs, Application Insights, API Management

Monitoring and Azure portal, Azure mobile app, Resource Manager, Automation, Scheduler, Service Health, and more
management
 What to do first: migrate or extend? 17

06 / Azure allows IT to quickly create and

configure new Windows Server virtual
machines. With the proper tools and
procedures, you can easily set up

What to do thousands of servers (VMs) in the cloud

in minutes, compared to the weeks it

first: migrate typically takes to set up on-premises

servers. Also, with datacenters in 60+

or extend?
regions around the world, Azure achieves
99.95 percent availability, along with 24/7
support and continual health monitoring.
 What to do first: migrate or extend? 18

Of course, just having a lot of VMs on

Azure isn’t worth much if you don’t migrate Azure Migration and
applications on them. To ensure the success Modernization Program
of your organization’s adoption of Azure,
Microsoft can help you save money and
consider the needs of your business and the
simplify your move to the cloud through
requirements of your applications. You’ll
the Azure Migration and Modernization
need to determine:
Program. Bring your workloads to Azure
with confidence, supported with best-
• Which apps can you “lift and shift”
practice guidance and direct access to
directly to the cloud?
Azure engineers, tools, and subsidized
• Which apps benefit from integrating partner services.

with Azure services? With the Azure Migration and

Modernization Program, you can:
• Which apps require a transformation
• Pay less with cost-effective offers.
or re-architecting?
• Gain new skills with technical courses.
Based on the analysis of your operating
• Get free Azure migration tools.
systems and applications, you have a
• Access self-guided digital support or
number of options:
get support for guided deployments.
• Migrate the applications and data to • Find specialized partners that fit
the Azure platform. your business needs.

• Extend existing on-premises Windows Get started by nominating yourself for

the program.
Server environments to the cloud with
new Azure services.

• Modernize legacy applications for

the cloud. Move applications into
containers, re-architect applications
using microservices architectures or
rewrite using Azure PaaS services.

If you’re building a cloud plan, begin by

getting an inventory of all on-premises
workloads and then decide on a strategy.
For guidance in defining your strategy,
reference the Cloud Adoption Framework
section of the Azure website.
 What to do first: migrate or extend? 19

Build your cloud plan

Commodity workloads SaaS: e.g. Office 365

I am ready to move Rewrite as cloud-native apps Azure PaaS Services

these apps to Azure
Lift and modernize Containers and microservices

Lift and shift Azure IaaS virtual machines

New cloud-native apps Azure Stack

I need to keep these
apps on-premises
Existing apps Upgrade to Windows Server 2022

Migrate and modernize try Azure for free. You can set up your own
“sandbox” to experiment with Azure free
To assure a successful migration, it’s for 12 months. Deployment guides and
important to fully evaluate your current technical whitepapers, based on hundreds of
datacenter environment using a discovery real-life migrations, will walk you through the
process. Some of the questions you’ll want process, so you can experience a successful
to ask include: first migration and build from that.
• Which applications can migrate to Azure
and which should remain on-premises?
Azure Storage Migration Service
• What about the services that the
The Azure Storage Migration Service makes
applications depend on? Can they be
it easier to migrate storage to Windows
split across on-premises and the cloud?
Server or to Azure. If you have a server (or
• What will the impact be on the network? multiple servers) that you want to migrate
to newer hardware or virtual machines,
• What databases do the applications Storage Migration Service can help you:
depend on and where should they be • Inventory multiple servers and their data.
located?
• Rapidly transfer files, file shares,and
• How will a migration to Azure impact security configuration from the source

budgeting and costs? servers.

• Optionally take over the identity of the

To minimize the risk of migration, Microsoft source servers so users and apps don’t
provides several comprehensive tools for need to change to access existing data.
doing the initial discovery and assessment • Manage one or multiple migrations
of your environment, and prioritizing what from the Windows Admin Center user
workloads should migrate first. To make interface.
things even easier, Microsoft allows you to
 What to do first: migrate or extend? 20

Customer story
When massive data volumes made datacenters too expensive for Sentara Healthcare, the
not-for-profit organization decided to move its data to Microsoft Azure. The organization,
which runs 12 hospitals in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, wanted a modern
platform it could use to connect doctors, patients, and data in a single portal.

Sentara subsequently migrated its mixed Windows Server and Linux environment. The
organization achieved substantial savings by minimizing licensing costs with Azure Hybrid
Benefit, right-sizing applications, and reducing infrastructure overhead. So far, Sentara has
updated and moved 200 out of 400 business applications, and it will continue to run a hybrid
cloud environment as it migrates the remaining 200 applications.

The table on this page lists some of the ways Sentara and other organizations have used
the Azure services to migrate workloads, applications, virtual machines, and data to Azure.
For more information about migration to Azure, see https://azure.microsoft.com/migration/.

Use cases

Discover: Catalog existing To understand what, when, and how applications should be moved, it’s important to
applications and identify create a complete catalog of applications managed by IT. Use Azure Migrate or other
migration candidates. tools to assess current computing environment, identify what can be moved, and
understand costs.

Discover: Catalog current data Use Data Migration Assistant to catalog the existing data environment, identify
environment prior to migration. compatibility issues, and suggest performance and reliability improvements.

Migrate: Shift VMs and Azure Site Recovery offers one-click failover and replication of applications and
workloads to Azure. workloads from Windows Server, Linux and VMware machines. Automation reduces
time and complexity of migration tasks.

Migrate: Shift data and Database Migration Service migrates existing on-premises SQL Server, Oracle, and
databases to Azure. MySQL databases to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance or
SQL Server on Azure virtual machines.

Modernize: Lift and shift Improve your DevOps operations for your dev/test/production environment. Make
existing .NET applications your application cloud DevOps-ready. Containers remove friction caused by application
by optimizing deployments dependencies when you deploy in multiple stages.
with Windows containers.

Optimize: Manage your cloud Azure Cost Management + Billing provides granular, real-time visibility into cloud
spend with transparency and consumption, cost, and performance.
accuracy.
 What to do first: migrate or extend? 21

Use cases How Microsoft Azure helps How organizations benefit

Assure business Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery increase Reduce disaster recovery infrastructure by
continuity and data compliance, reduce complexity, and lower costs. paying for only the compute, storage, and
protection. They replicate on-premises virtual machines to network needed in Azure with software as
Azure and orchestrate failover and failback. a service–no need to purchase hardware.
Onboard faster, because the capability is
built into Azure.

Manage a diverse System Center simplifies deployment, Gain visibility into the health, performance,
hybrid cloud configuration, management, and monitoring and utilization of your applications,
environment. of your infrastructure and virtualized workloads, and infrastructure. Proactively
datacenter. Use Azure monitoring and analytics find and fix issues before they impact
to collect, correlate, and search your systems your users.
and application data across Azure and
on-premises servers.

Quickly establish Use Azure Virtual Machines to simplify and Give your developers freedom and speed
dev and test speed the process of running a dev-test to develop in Azure, then deploy where
environments. environment. Spin up as many virtual machines needed. Choose Linux or Unix. Use your
as you need, network them, and allocate to own virtual machine image or download a
your developers. certified pre-configured image. Use your
preferred coding language natively.

Extend on-premises With Azure File Sync, you can deliver Leverage Azure as centralized storage for
file servers to the consistent file share performance for users less frequently used file server data while
cloud. whether they work locally or remotely. turning your local Windows server into
a high-performance cache for frequently
used file data.

Unite identity and Use Microsoft Entra ID to manage users and Enable single sign-on to simplify access
access management secure access to on-premises and cloud to thousands of cloud applications across
across on-premises information. Extend Active Directory and any multiple devices. Protect sensitive data
directory and Azure. other on-premises directory to Microsoft Entra ID. and apps with multi-factor authentication.

Archive on-premises Azure Blob storage stores from hundreds to Cloud snapshots provide off-site data
data to Azure. billions of objects in hot, cool, or archive tiers, protection. With cloud storage, no
depending on how often data access is needed. secondary datacenter is needed. Reduce
Use StorSimple to automatically archive inactive capacity purchases and infrastructure
primary data from on-premises to the cloud for maintenance.
effortless capacity expansion.
 Trust Azure for your mission-critical 22
applications and data

07 / Your ideal cloud infrastructure should earn

your trust with resilience, scalability, and
cost efficiency.

Trust Azure
With Azure, you can simplify app and data
protection with cost-effective (built-in or

for your
third party) backup and disaster recovery
solutions, supported by highly available

mission-critical
infrastructure. You can scale applications
automatically and consistently, without

applications
compromising on performance. You can
efficiently run core applications with a
choice of consumption models, and you

and data can extend your existing on-premises

VMware environments natively to Azure,
ensuring operational continuity.
 Trust Azure for your mission-critical 23
applications and data

Increase business resiliency Run core applications

cost effectively
Azure operates a robust foundation and
provides additional capabilities for high Free up IT staff time, minimize data center
availability, disaster recovery, and backup infrastructure, and reduce IT labor costs.
purposes. Build and run highly available Scale your IT footprint automatically to
applications on Azure, and implement optimize your costs based on demand.
disaster recovery plans with data residency
Efficiently run core applications on Azure
and minimal RPO/RTO impact. Deploy
with a choice of consumption models,
end-to-end backup and disaster recovery
unique offers available only on Azure,
solutions that are simple, secure, scalable,
and a comprehensive set of tools.
and can be integrated with your on-premises
environment and third-party tools.

Azure supports your existing data

protection solutions no matter where they
reside, with added remote management
capabilities and minimal maintenance. If
there’s a service disruption or accidental
deletion or corruption of data, you’ll be
able to recover your business services in
a timely and orchestrated manner.

Evolve freely with right-sized,

scalable infrastructure
Azure delivers VM series engineered to
run any workload: compute, memory, disk,
or CPU intensive. Choose from over 700
VM sizes and underlying CPU and CPU
technologies, and take advantage of a
unique range of network capabilities and
robust storage solutions to meet your
needs. Scale your applications automatically
and manage your core applications globally
with 60+ Azure regions and 190+ network
points of presence.
 Getting started 24

08 / How you get started with Azure

depends on where your organization
is in your cloud evolution. Are you just
beginning to investigate what’s out

Getting there? Or, are you already moving

datacenter workloads to the cloud or

started developing cloud-native applications?

There’s no single cloud adoption path

that works for every organization,
but the main implementation stages
are similar for all organizations and
industries. For more help in defining
your organization’s strategy for
success in the cloud, reference the
Cloud Adoption Framework section
of the Azure website.
 Getting started 25

Find all core Azure information—training, Jump right in

documentation, pricing, partners, code Start by launching your first virtual
samples, and more—at azure.com. Free machine on Azure. Or go a little slower
documentation and training is available and do some reading or view videos
for everyone from cloud beginners to to get more acquainted with cloud
Azure experts. You can also speed up the architectures and the Azure environment.
entire process by engaging with Microsoft The Get started page of the Azure website
partners who have tools and expertise will help you start your exploration in the
that help guarantee success. right place.

Get up to speed on Azure services with If you get lost, don’t worry
Microsoft Learn and Pluralsight, two  emember, azure.com serves as the central
R
complementary learning platforms to point for all of Microsoft’s core Azure
help you get recognized and take the information, including documentation,
next step in your career courses. Check training, and code samples.
out Microsoft Learn for instructor-led or
self-paced interactive training and for Azure sales specialists are here to help
hands-on learning, and go to Pluralsight Whether you’re evaluating the cloud,
for videos, skills assessments, and more. deploying your first service, or migrating
applications and infrastructure to the
New to the cloud? Azure fundamentals cloud, our Azure sales specialists are here
is a six-part series in Microsoft Learn to answer your questions and help you
that teaches you basic cloud concepts, get started. Get in touch with one here.
provides a streamlined overview of many
Azure services, and guides you with
hands-on exercises to deploy your very
first services for free.

And for Windows Server admins,

we’ve created a special page of
resources just for you! Bookmark
www.azure.com/windowsserver and
check back often for resources specific
to Window Server on Azure.
 Resources 26

Resources IT Architect role

Azure virtual datacenter guidance
Azure Architecture Center
Azure reference architectures
Azure Solutions Architect training

IT Admin role
Windows Server on Azure
Azure Learning Paths for all types of IT Pros
Azure Administrator training
Get started with Azure
Cloud migration and modernization resources

Dev-Test role
Get started guide for Azure developers
Azure languages and frameworks
Azure .NET training
Azure Node.js training
Azure code samples

All roles
All core Azure information
Azure pricing calculator
Azure TCO calculator
Azure pricing
Azure services
Azure training
Azure documentation
Azure partners
Free Azure account

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