What is Microsoft Azure?
According to Microsoft, Azure is a comprehensive, trusted cloud platform designed to help you efficiently manage all your infrastructure, data, analytics, and AI solutions in one unified place. Businesses can rely on Azure to run websites or apps, store large amounts of data, run complex applications, and even analyze data. More and more businesses are migrating their applications to the cloud and choosing platforms like Azure to cut costs, increase scalability, achieve better security, and take advantage of Azure’s flexibility.
What To Consider When Migrating Platforms
1. A Thorough Platform Assessment is Necessary
When considering a migration, you’ll need to take inventory of your assets—from applications, to databases, and networking configurations. Identify all intersystem dependencies and assess the current performance of your platform to help guide decision making on future resource allocation and capacity planning.
2. Find Your Ideal Migration Strategy
Choose the right migration strategy for your circumstances. Lift-and-Shift or rehost is a quick strategy that consists of moving the platform as-is without major changes. In a re-platform strategy, the process entails replacing select parts of the platform to work better in the cloud. A re-architect strategy redesigns the platform to be cloud-native, adopting microservices, containers, serverless, or other Azure services that improve scalability, cost-efficiency, and flexibility. Lastly, a hybrid strategy consists of only migrating parts of the platform to Azure while keeping some on-premises or in other clouds.
3. Define a Budget With Azure’s Help
Azure has a pricing calculator and cost-savings features like Reserved Instances, Spot VMs, and Azure Hybrid Benefit to make cost estimating and saving easier. Make sure to review and adjust licenses for operating systems, applications, and databases to ensure they are compatible and cost-efficient in Azure.
4. Stay Secure And Compliant
Azure has many tools and features to help keep your migration secure and compliant. Azure Active Directory (AAD) helps with identity and access management, Azure Compliance Manager helps you to assess and maintain compliance with industry regulations, and Azure Security Center and Azure Sentinel monitor for ongoing threats and security concerns as well as help with incident response.
5. Choose the Right Tools For The Migration & Execute A Test Run
Choose the best tool for your migration—whether through Azure Database Migration Service, Azure Blob Storage, or other tools. Evaluate whether to migrate to Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, or Azure Database for MySQL/PostgreSQL, depending on your platform’s requirements. Finally, test the data migration process on a smaller scale to identify any issues.
6. Continue Monitoring and Optimizing Post-Migration
You may need to adjust resource allocation, optimize configurations, and make sure the platform is performing as needed. As they become available, consider implementing new Azure technologies to improve the platform’s efficiency, reliability, and scalability.
Do you need help with your migration? Our team of experts can help. Contact us today to begin planning your Microsoft Azure migration.
