Streamline Your Migration with Azure Migrate

Ensure your Azure migration goes off without a hitch thanks to a new tool called Azure Migrate.

While the tool has been in beta for several months, Azure Migrate has recently become available for all Azure users. Migration is one of the more complicated aspects of moving to the cloud, and tools like Azure Migrate help to make this process as seamless and worry-free as possible.

What is Azure Migrate?

With Azure Migrate, you’ll be able to more easily discover and migrate your on-premises virtual machines over to Azure. This tool helps analyze your current virtual machines as well as assess resource needs including CPU and memory, storage needs, and networks.

How the migration process works

Below is a brief explanation of how Azure Migrate can work to ensure your migration to the cloud is well orchestrated.

Discovery process

The first step in the process is discovering the virtual machines that are currently being used in your on-premises environment.

• Download the Azure Migrate Collector Appliance – Once downloaded you’ll run the tool that will discover your on-premises machines. The appliance will collect a wide array of VM information and utilization data to determine how your instances will best be utilized in the cloud.
• Discover your virtual resources in the cloud – After the appliance tool has finished, an Azure Migrate project will be created that will show all the discovered VMs, which should be ready for further analysis.

Identify any dependencies

Azure Migrate will identify any dependencies that exist with discovered machines.

• Group machines properly – Azure Migrate offers a mapping function that will ensure any machines that are dependent on one another can be migrated as a logical unit.
• Visualize dependencies – Machine dependencies can quickly become complex. This is why Azure Migrate offers a visual representation of an application’s dependencies, which can help to detect future dependencies that could cause issues during migration.

Determine readiness

Once the discovery process has completed and any dependencies have been discovered, you’ll be able to complete your migration with a plan in place.

• Readiness analysis – Azure will designate a readiness status for each on-premises machine. This status will identify any issues and will also offer an ideal Azure VM configuration based on the needs of the on-premises machine.
• Cost estimate – You’ll also receive a detailed cost breakdown that can help show the cost of each virtual machine. This data can easily be exported to show stakeholders in an easy to understand graphical format.

Why move to Azure?

If you’re still on the fence as to whether moving to Azure may make sense for your workloads, below are a few key benefits to keep in mind.

• Leverage a secure and scalable infrastructure – Azure offers global scale with 50 regions worldwide. In addition, you’ll have access to disaster recovery, industry-leading availability and service level agreements that ensure limited downtime.
• Lower monthly costs – Without having to invest in infrastructure and being able to scale up or scale down as necessary can translate into significant cost savings.
• Receive help along the way – With tools like Azure Migrate, as well as resources and expertise from partners like MessageOps, you will have access to help at any point during your Azure migration.

Want to learn more about Azure Migrate?

While this article was meant to be a basic primer to introduce you to the power of Azure Migrate, we’ll be happy to discuss your cloud migration needs in detail at any point. Feel free to reach out to our team with any questions you may have about migrating to the cloud with Azure.