With the push to the cloud accelerating, it’s critical to understand how to migrate on-premises servers to Microsoft Azure. As an IT professional, you are likely to encounter situations where you need to plan and execute such migrations.
This course provides an overview of the Azure Migrate offering and the various Azure Migrate integrations that are available, before moving on to assessing and migrating VMware virtual machines, Hyper-V machines, and physical machines.
After preparing for migration, this course will walk you through a guided demonstration of an actual assessment and migration of a VMware virtual machine to Microsoft Azure. By the time you finish this course, you should have a full understanding of the Azure Migrate Service and the different options that are available for using it to migrate servers to Microsoft Azure.
If you have any feedback, comments, or questions about this course, please write to us at support@cloudacademy.com.
Learning Objectives
- Assess and migrate VMware virtual machines, Hyper-V machines, and physical machines
- Set up and prepare Azure and VMware for Azure Migrate
- Learn about the Azure Migrate Server Migration tool, appliance VMs, and continuous discovery
- Understand all the steps necessary to carry out the migration of a VMware virtual machine to Microsoft Azure
Intended Audience
- IT professionals interested in becoming Azure cloud architects or preparing for Microsoft’s Azure certification exams
- IT professionals tasked with managing and supporting Azure virtual machines
Prerequisites
- General knowledge of IT infrastructure
- General knowledge of the Azure environment and VMware
Welcome back. On the screen is a table that shows the available tools and their use as they pertain to Azure Migrate. The Server Assessment Tool is used to discover and assess on prem servers, whether they are VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, or even physical servers. The assessment tool is used to determine Azure readiness, Azure sizing, Azure cost estimation and dependency visualization for machines that you plan to migrate to Microsoft Azure. Azure readiness refers to whether or not specific on prem machines are ready for migration to Azure, while Azure sizing refers to the size of each resulting Azure VM following migration to Azure.
The server assessment tool's cost estimation provides cost estimates for running your on prem servers in Azure, and the dependency visualization, that the server assessment tool provides, is a visual way to view cross-server dependencies that exist. It also provides recommendations for optimal ways to move dependent servers to Microsoft Azure.
The Azure Migrate Server Assessment Tool uses a lightweight appliance that's deployed on prem to discover on prem machines. What it does is connect to server assessment, so it can continually send metadata and performance data for on prem machines back to Azure Migrate.
Because the discovery process is agentless, there's no need to install anything on discovered machines in the on prem environment. Once discovery completes, you typically sort the discovered machines into groups. You do this because you'll usually want to group machines that you need to migrate together.
After grouping your machines, you can then create an assessment for each group that you can then analyze to determine your migration strategy.
The Azure Migrate Server Migration tool differs from the assessment tool because it's used to help migrate your on prem machines to Microsoft Azure. Those on prem machines can be VMware machines, Hyper-V machines, or even physical boxes. You can even migrate other virtualized machines, and even those in other public clouds.
While you can migrate machines without first assessing them, Microsoft recommends that you attempt assessment before migration.
Azure Migrate also integrates with the Microsoft Data Migration Assistant or DMA. This combination of tools is used to assess on prem SQL Server databases for migration to Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL managed instances and even to Azure VMs that are running SQL Server. The Database Migration Assistant provides information about issues that could potentially block a migration. It identifies unsupported features, new features that you may be able to benefit from after migration, and even helps identify the best path for database migration.
Because Azure Migrate integrates with the Azure Database Migration Service, or DMS, you can migrate on prem databases to Microsoft Azure. You can use the Database Migration Service to migrate on prem databases to various targets, including Azure VMs that are running SQL, the Azure SQL DB service and even to Azure SQL managed instances.
Movere is actually a software as a service platform. What it does is improve business intelligence by accurately presenting entire IT environments within a single day. This solution was actually acquired by Microsoft. However, Movere is no longer sold as a standalone offer. Instead, it's available through the Microsoft Solution Assessment and Cloud Economics Programs.
Azure Migrate also integrates with the Azure App Service Migration Assistant. Using the Azure Migrate Hub, organizations can assess and migrate on prem web apps to Microsoft Azure. You can use the Azure App Service Migration Assistant to assess on prem websites for migration to the Azure App Service. And you can use it to migrate .NET and PHP apps to Microsoft Azure.
Lastly, Azure Data Box products are used to move large amounts of data to Microsoft Azure.
Tom is a 25+ year veteran of the IT industry, having worked in environments as large as 40k seats and as small as 50 seats. Throughout the course of a long an interesting career, he has built an in-depth skillset that spans numerous IT disciplines. Tom has designed and architected small, large, and global IT solutions.
In addition to the Cloud Platform and Infrastructure MCSE certification, Tom also carries several other Microsoft certifications. His ability to see things from a strategic perspective allows Tom to architect solutions that closely align with business needs.
In his spare time, Tom enjoys camping, fishing, and playing poker.