Cloud Database

Migration Simplified
A new framework for migrating infrastructure,
databases, and applications
Contents
Introduction............................................................3 Align your migration team.......................................20

Build technical skills ...................................................20

Why migrate now?..........................................5
Cloud migration triggers..........................................7 Migrate.........................................................................21
Common migration projects...................................7 Tools for migration......................................................21

A database for all your needs.................................8 Azure Database Migration Service ......................22

Backup-and-restore ...................................................22
Migrate with the Microsoft Cloud
Replicate workloads to Azure..................................23
Adoption Framework..................................9
Test migration before final cutover.......................23
Define strategy....................................................10 Cutover to complete the migration......................24
Executive sponsorship................................................10
Decommissioning on-premises infrastructure.25
Stakeholder alignment...............................................11
Govern...........................................................................26
Engage your partner...................................................11
Tools to govern.............................................................27
Plan....................................................................................12
Manage.........................................................................28
Define migration approach......................................13
Tools to manage...........................................................29
Migration decision tree.............................................15

Define migration timelines.......................................15 Summary....................................................................30

Four steps to migration.............................................16 Additional resources...................................................31

Before you migrate.....................................................16 Modernize with Azure SQL......................................31

Readiness........................................................................16

Ready...............................................................................17
Discover and assess digital estate.........................17

Tools for assessment...................................................18

Discover on-premises infrastructure,

apps, and databases...................................................19

Plan costs........................................................................19

Tool for cost planning................................................20

Create your migration plan......................................20

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 2

 01

Introduction

In recent years, there’s been a Companies can rely on the advanced security
technologies found in the public cloud to protect
rapid acceleration in the adoption
themselves against an ever-changing threat
of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) landscape. While the benefits are worthy, the
and, consequently, a shift in the migration journey can be complex, with technical
type of on-premises activities considerations such as database performance and
compatibility. When you’re ready to move to the
being migrated to the cloud. This
cloud, it’s essential to have sound guidance—from
provides considerable value over strategy definition and planning to governance
traditional datacenters thanks to and management—and every step in between.
greater scalability, cost efficiency, To perform migration, you need to determine
and improved performance.1 how to:

Many organizations want to take advantage of • Define business justification and create the initial
cost efficiency, scalability, security, and other cloud migration plan.
benefits the cloud offers. Datacenters are
• Assess your on-premises environment to
expensive, with the costs of real estate, power,
determine which workloads and applications
servers, storage, and networks, plus operations
to migrate.
staff tugging on a company’s bottom line.
It’s no wonder organizations see the cloud as • Perform the migration with limited impact to
a way to reduce—or even eliminate—some or the business.
all of these expenses. Migrating to the cloud
• Govern and manage cloud resources after
also allows for more flexibility and scalability to
migration, making the most of your investment
command growing or diminishing resources to
and keeping it secure.
capably meet business demands.

1 By migrating to the cloud, you can save more than 80 percent

over the total cost of running a traditional solution on-premises.
See “Migrating VMware to Microsoft Azure: Total cost of
ownership guidance”

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 3

“One of our big objectives If you’re a database administrator (DBA), data
architect, or other professional responsible for your
was to eliminate $3 million organization’s data needs, this guide can help you

in capital costs over about start your migration to the cloud.

three years, and to reduce It will provide you with strategies and steps for
planning and executing your database migration.
our operating costs by It will also introduce concepts from the Microsoft

approximately the same Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure, a proven

methodology that’s helped many customers in
amount. At the same time, their cloud adoption journey. If you’re still in the

we wanted to improve our process of choosing a cloud vendor or have a

multi-cloud strategy, this framework provides
quality of service. With cloud-agnostic guidance for strategic decisions.

Azure, we’re confident that In this guide, you’ll discover:

we’ll meet those goals.” ᄖ Comprehensive guidance with best practices

and recommended tools and services.
Jim Slattery
Chief Financial Officer ᄖ Preliminary steps to consider for preparing
on-premises and cloud environments when
Capstone Mining
looking at migration.

 Read the customer story ᄖ Migration strategies, including rehosting,

refactoring, rearchitecting, and rebuilding
your workloads in the cloud.

ᄖ How to accelerate your migration to drive

desired outcomes.

ᄖ How to modernize existing cloud applications

with Azure SQL.

ᄖ Tips for governing and managing workloads

after migration.

Using the resources in this e-book, you can start

aligning stakeholders, business strategies, and
technology in your organization; driving desired
business outcomes; and delivering fast results with
control and stability.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 4

 02

Why migrate now?

At first glance, migration might Azure SQL is a family of SQL cloud databases that
offers flexible options for application migration,
seem like a technical decision—
modernization, and development. It allows DBAs
but at its core, it’s just as much a to use their existing database skills and reduce
business decision. In considering operational overhead with advanced capabilities
the move, ask yourself two like Hyperscale storage, serverless compute, and
built-in high availability.
fundamental questions: What’s
driving your business to migrate Key benefits of the cloud include:

to the cloud, and why now? • Increased security. Streamline management

and improve overall security posture with
multi-layered security that spans datacenters,
infrastructure, and operations.

• Improved operational efficiencies and reduced

expenses. With reduced hardware support,
increased manageability, and more efficient
processes, you can save an average of 20 to 30
percent on virtual machine (VM) resource
configuration alone.2

• Decreased time to market. By reducing

management overhead and freeing up budget,
you can focus more time and effort on rapid
software and solution development. Faster
deployment of IaaS and platform as a service
(PaaS) allows your business to release faster and
more often.

2 VM sizing calculations are based on the Microsoft Azure TCO

Calculator, which is available at: https://www.tco.microsoft.com/

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 5

• Application innovation. Two common the operating system (OS) and virtualization
challenges for today’s businesses are over- are sufficiently covered. The cloud provides a
allocated IT resources and on-premises pay-as-you-go offering to reduce this cost. Plus,
platforms that limit the adoption of modern Azure Hybrid Benefit helps you maximize the
services. The cloud provides an integrated licensing investment you’ve made on-premises for
platform for modern development that can discounted rates in the cloud.
increase efficiency of developers and rate of
• Software end-of-support. When software
team efficiency by 50 percent.3
reaches its end-of-support date, you have an
Common triggers to move to the cloud include: opportunity to migrate your end-of-support
workloads to Microsoft Azure and get extended-
• Urgent capacity needs. When you plan for
support security updates for a maximum of
peak usage through on-premises systems, your
three years following the end-of-support date.
servers need more capacity to accommodate
Migrating can help you to strengthen your
spikes when they occur. The cloud enables
organizational security posture and ensure
flexible scale-when-you need-it approaches,
compliance across your hybrid environment.
such as serverless and Hyperscale.
Whatever the catalyst, by migrating your current
• Expiration of datacenter contract. If you’re
environment to the cloud, you’re putting yourself
currently extending your budget on renewing
in a better position to accelerate your business.
hardware or paying for datacenter locations,
By reducing costs and making management
it’s a good time to consider cloud migration.
more efficient, a cloud platform can immediately
A cloud vendor can host these services for you,
improve your IT group’s ability to invest back into
eliminating the need for costly leasing.
core strategic projects, increasing security and
• Renewal of licensing. Nearly all companies have reliability while advancing development.
an annual licensing agreement with their major IT
3 The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Azure Serverless
providers, which requires ample budget to ensure Platform, A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study
Commissioned by Microsoft, July 2019.

Why Azure?
Migrate efficiently on your own terms.

Optimize costs and migrate with confidence

Save money with the most cost-effective solutions for Windows Server and SQL Server. Confidently
migrate your workloads to Azure with best practices, expert guidance, and cost-optimization tools.

Stay secure and resilient across hybrid environments

Protect workloads across your hybrid environments with intelligent security services backed by
3,500 cybersecurity professionals. Use built-in resiliency to avoid costly business interruptions.

Scale your workloads and applications on demand

Increase agility with best-in-class Azure infrastructure that scales to your business needs. Reduce
operational burden with fully managed application and database services in Azure.
Cloud Database Migration Simplified 6
Cloud migration triggers

Figure 1. Common migration triggers

In addition to the factors that trigger your move to the cloud, you should consider the range of workloads
and applications that can be migrated. Below are just a few of the common workloads that customers
migrate to Azure.

Common migration projects

Figure 2. Common migration projects

When business drivers and timing align, it's time for cloud migration—and Azure can help save
money and improve efficiency. In the next section, we touch upon migrating with the Microsoft Cloud
Adoption Framework.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 7

A database for all your needs
Azure SQL is a collection of fully managed, secure, and intelligent SQL database services that support a
variety of application patterns and control requirements.

Benefits of Azure SQL:

ᄖ Fully managed and always up to date. Spend more time innovating and less time patching,
updating, and backing up your databases. Azure is the only cloud with evergreen SQL that
automatically applies the latest updates and patches so your databases are always up to
date—eliminating end-of-support hassles.

ᄖ Use your existing SQL experience in the cloud. Azure SQL is built on the same SQL Server
technology you’re already familiar with, so you don’t need to relearn your SQL skills when you make
the move. Develop your application once using your existing SQL skills and deploy it on any Azure
SQL cloud database on Azure. Azure is the only cloud with a consistent SQL code base that stretches
from edge to cloud.

ᄖ Save with the lowest total cost of ownership. Get industry-leading pricing and maximize your
existing on-premises investments when you migrate your SQL Server databases to Azure.

• Save up to 85 percent off pay-as-you-go pricing when you bring your existing SQL Server licenses
to Azure with Azure Hybrid Benefit.

• Get more cloud for less when you combine Azure Hybrid Benefit with reservation pricing.

• Qualify for discounted rates to support your ongoing development and testing on Azure.

ᄖ Protect your data with built-in intelligent security. Nothing is more important than trust,
particularly when you’re talking about the cloud. We spend $1 billion a year on cybersecurity with
3,500 cybersecurity engineers who are constantly monitoring your data for threats.

Get started today with Azure SQL

 Learn more about Azure SQL

 Get help choosing the right Azure SQL database service

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 8

 03

Migrate with the Microsoft Cloud

Adoption Framework

Every organization has its own The steps you take should allow you to get a
clear picture of your overall migration readiness
reasons for migration. Whatever
and your entire application and workload
your reasons, you can succeed in portfolio—and the best way to configure that
achieving your goals by following portfolio to achieve migration.
a well-structured approach that The Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework
addresses your various business, provides proven guidance, best practices,
technical, and organizational needs. tools, and templates to support your adoption
journey through the different phases. The
This requires a cloud provider (and core
guidance covers strategy and planning, as well
partners) that can deliver a comprehensive set
as the ongoing governance, optimization, and
of tools to help streamline migration and reduce
management of the migrated workloads. With
overall risk.
this proven approach, you can execute your
Most of all, you need a straightforward process migration project with confidence.
that’s easy to follow. You can simplify your cloud
In the following chapters, we’ll discuss migration
adoption journey by breaking it into phases.
phases that have helped others move to the cloud
and provide you with considerations for each phase.

Migration planning and execution

Cloud 3.Database
Figure CommonMigration Simplified
migration journey 9
 04

Define strategy

The cloud delivers fundamental To take advantage of this potential, you need
to document your strategy in a way that’s both
technology benefits that can
understandable to cloud architects and palatable
help your enterprise execute on to your stakeholders, illustrating the reasons your
multiple goals. organization should migrate to the cloud.

Defining your strategy starts with initial

exploration of the concept of cloud adoption and
culminates in a more specific business case and
commitment from leadership.

Executive sponsorship
To get commitment from leadership to pursue
migration, you need to spell out your migration
drivers. Start by establishing the root business case
for migration, along with the urgency and timelines
associated with it. Within this business case, it’s
important to distinguish between business drivers,
technical drivers, and timeline drivers, as your
approach to the migration can shift.

In getting buy-in from executive leadership, you

should set a strategy to ensure success, including:

• Guidance on why the organization is migrating.

• Assigning people and teams.

• Allocating budget (with expectation to refine later).

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 10

Stakeholder alignment We recommend working with Azure Expert
Managed Services Providers or other specialized
Since migration involves coordination between partners, as they have deep cloud technical know-
multiple functions, it’s important to achieve how, consistently deliver customer success, and are
alignment. Being able to speak in terms of business validated each year by an independent auditor.
outcomes supports transparency and cross-
functional partnerships. To succeed, you need to
count on the right level of support from IT, security,
and other areas of the business—most importantly,
the application owners who will be affected.

To maintain application owners' support

throughout the migration effort and to avoid any
surprises, include them in early planning exercises
and reinforce the benefits of their application
being hosted in Azure. IT infrastructure groups (for
example, networking, security, identity, etc.) should
also be part of design and planning discussions.

Engage your partner

Another part of your strategy is determining when
to enlist external support for your migration.

Your cloud adoption team performs the actual

migration of workloads to the cloud. To define
the digital estate or build the core cloud
infrastructure, the team executes a repetitive
series of collaborative and problem-solving tasks.

With the Microsoft partner system as a resource,

you are empowered to identify what tasks to
perform with your in-house IT teams, and what
tasks may require expert assistance. Find a
Microsoft partner, or work with your existing one,
to leverage their deep expertise in the planning
and execution of migration projects. They can help
your cloud adoption team overcome any execution
anomalies, so migration proceeds quickly and
without missteps.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 11

 05

Plan

Azure SQL offers several options Determining the best migration approach for
your unique scenario is a pivotal first step.
for migrating and modernizing
To simplify the process, Azure SQL offers a
on-premises databases, ranging variety of options for migration and modernizing
from rehosting IaaS approaches on-premises databases.
to various PaaS options, including Refactor, often referred to as “lift and shift,” is the
support for fully managed data most common strategy for moving your databases
platforms. Azure also provides a quickly to the cloud by rehosting them with SQL
Server on Azure VMs for an IaaS solution. You
variety of managed databases that
may also consider PaaS options, depending on
automate tasks like configuring your current database technology and appetite
and managing high availability, for reconfiguring your current databases. If you’re
disaster recovery, backups, and migrating an SQL database or building new apps
in the cloud, you should consider Azure SQL
data replication across regions,
Database with a single database or elastic pools.
saving you time and money. Another option is Azure SQL Managed Instance,
which enables you to modernize existing apps
and SQL Server databases to Azure with minimal
code changes, while providing full instance-level
compatibility with the productivity benefits of a
fully managed Azure service. Azure also offers
fully managed open-source cloud offerings for
MySQL and PostgreSQL, as well as Cosmos DB for
NoSQL options—for example, MongoDB, MariaDB,
Cassandra, and Gremlin.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 12

Define migration approach Your migration could require you to run parallel
and iterative migration processes as you
Your cloud migration strategy depends on progressively move your apps and workloads to
many factors: the cloud. Whether your migration is simple or
complex, it’s helpful to think of the basic elements
• What are your most pressing needs?
of the process.
• What are the skills on your team?
Migration strategies can be boiled down to
• Where are your apps in the development life cycle? four main categories: Rehosting, refactoring,
rearchitecting, and rebuilding. In addition, some
Once you’ve decided on your migration goals
organizations find it helpful to replace some
and gathered all the requirements and constraints
applications with software as a service (SaaS)
from your assessment, you’re able to define your
rather than migrate to older ones.
migration strategy. Choose the best method
of migration that meets your business and IT
requirements, such as: workloads that don’t require
code and app changes; workloads that require
minimal changes before shifting to the cloud; or
workloads that require modified and extended
code and app functionality to take advantage of
cloud technologies.

Figure 4. Migration strategies

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 13

Rehost
Move on-premises workloads to the cloud
The rehost strategy entails migrating your physical servers and VMs to the cloud just as they are, without
any changes to the code. By simply shifting your current server environment straight to IaaS, you reap the
benefits of cost savings, security, and increased reliability. You can also leverage SQL Server on Azure Virtual
Machines, Microsoft’s IaaS. The advantages of this strategy include: moving quickly with no code changes,
having the ability to have a cloud provider manage hardware, and realizing lower total cost of ownership.

Refactor
Modernize applications for the cloud
Also known as “repackage,” the refactor strategy involves using additional cloud provider services to
optimize the cost, reliability, and performance by refactoring your applications. Your application can
take advantage of IaaS and PaaS products such as Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL
Managed Instance, and containers. The advantages of employing modernized services in this scenario
include: lowering your cost and management, using your current application as-is or with some minor
code or configuration changes, and connecting to new infrastructure services.

Rearchitect
Build new cloud-native SQL database apps
The rearchitect strategy is also known as “redesigning” an application to modernize it. Rearchitecting
modifies or extends an existing application’s code base to optimize it for a cloud platform and for better
scalability. You can also take advantage of Azure SQL Database, Microsoft’s PaaS offering to accelerate the
process, scale applications with confidence, and manage your apps with ease.

The advantages include: improving agility by applying innovative DevOps practices, bringing new Azure
capabilities to existing apps, and cost-effectively meeting scalability requirements.

Rebuild
Take advantage of innovative cloud capabilities
The rebuild strategy revises the existing application by aggressively adopting PaaS or even SaaS architecture.
The advantages of this strategy include: building new applications using cloud-native technologies, achieving
faster development, and gaining access to advancements in technology such as artificial intelligence,
blockchain, and Internet of Things.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 14

Migration decision tree For more flexibility, your team can employ agile
and other iterative methodologies built on the
Adopting a simple migration decision tree can concepts of iterations and releases. With an
help drive decisions based on your company's iterative approach, you can align efforts to the
priorities and requirements. For example, if you’re timeline and adjust the scope as the project
not planning on future development of your requires. Iteration duration commonly depends
business application, you can select the rehost on the type of technical effort, the administrative
strategy and move the application quickly to IaaS. overhead, and the team’s preference.
Or, if you want to realize the full benefits of the
cloud over time and include future development
with PaaS offerings, you should consider the
refactor, rearchitect, and rebuild strategies.

Define migration timelines

Any cloud migration project should have a
well-defined timeline for migration execution.
Establishing timelines for estimating migration
efforts requires project management capabilities,
such as a work breakdown structure (WBS),
commonly used as a sequential project
management tool. The WBS represents how
dependent tasks will be completed over time.

Figure 5. Migration decision tree

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 15

Four steps to migration However, if you’re new to the cloud or only have
a basic setup, you’ll need to perform a few steps
No matter which strategy you choose, you need a before migration.
solution that makes cloud adoption as smooth and
easy as possible—one that lets you migrate at your Before you migrate
own pace.
Your system administrator will need to build
This requires a cloud provider (and core partners) a virtual datacenter in the cloud, including
that can deliver a comprehensive set of tools and connectivity, networking, storage, and identity—
methods to help ease migration and reduce overall elements comparable to your on-premises
risk. Most of all, this solution should offer a simple environment. By establishing this virtual datacenter,
process that’s easy to follow. With these goals in they can ensure that your databases will continue to
mind, Microsoft recommends a four-step migration support your business after migration.
process for moving databases to the cloud.
Building your virtual datacenter is a streamlined
• Ready. Discover and assess your on-premises process because system administrators can use
resources, such as applications and workloads, components available in the cloud for quick
to plan where your Azure migration should start. assembly and configuration. They can take
advantage of many excellent tools and guidance
• Migrate. Move resources using powerful free
to help accelerate this step, which can be found in
tools while minimizing downtime.
the Cloud Migration Strategy e-book.
• Govern. Ensure industry standards and regulatory
requirements are addressed. Readiness
• Manage. Fine-tune management of your When it comes to preparing your move to the
cloud environment. cloud, the good news is that many of your
With this straightforward framework, you get core database management skills are directly
a proven approach to migration. The process transferable. You’ll just need to continue building
provides a clear picture of your entire database on that existing skill set in order to fully leverage
portfolio, the best way to configure that portfolio all that the cloud has to offer. One easy way to
to achieve migration, convenient tools to ensure do that is with Microsoft Learn—an interactive
low-impact transfer, and ongoing performance and training platform that provides unique learning
cost optimization. paths focused on job roles. This readiness tool
offers simple online training in bite-sized pieces,
But how do you ensure that your virtual datacenter practical labs, and assessments to test knowledge.
in the cloud is ready to receive your databases? It’s a fast way for your team to grow their skills,
Since you plan to run your most critical databases and, best of all, it’s free. You can start with our
there, you want to be confident that your cloud learning path about Azure SQL Fundamentals—
foundation is solid. If you already have workloads you’ll learn how to translate your existing SQL
or DevTest running in the cloud, you might have Server expertise to Azure SQL, including Azure SQL
an environment and connectivity ready to go. Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 16

 06

Ready

In order to start building and Discover and assess

deploying cloud solutions using digital estate
Azure services, you need to prepare
Before migrating your workload to the cloud,
your environment for the cloud it’s important to assess the workload and each
adoption plan. related asset. In an ideal migration, every asset
(infrastructure, app, or database) would be
compatible with a cloud platform and ready
for migration. In reality, not everything should
be migrated to the cloud, and not every asset
is compatible with cloud platforms. Ultimately,
the goal of assessment is to collect information
about servers, VMs, applications, and databases,
including type, configuration, usage, and
applications that might be running. With cloud
migration tools, you can not only assess your on-
premises infrastructure, apps, and data readiness,
but you can also analyze assessment data to map
on-premises capacity to Azure VM instances and
estimate cloud cost. Azure Migrate provides a
hub of tools and services to discover, assess, and
migrate servers, databases, and virtual desktop
infrastructure. It also seamlessly integrates with
partner independent software vendor offerings to
provide additional capabilities.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 17

Tools for assessment
To assess servers and VMs, Azure Migrate: Server
Assessment helps you discover and assess on-
premises VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, and physical
servers to determine whether they’re ready for
migration to Azure. Azure Migrate also allows you
to export or download reports with discovery data
for further decision-making. For SQL database
assessment, Data Migration Assistant can help you
detect compatibility issues that affect database
functionality in your new version of SQL Server
or Azure SQL, the family of SQL cloud databases
inclusive of SQL Server on an Azure VM, Azure
SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
It also recommends performance and reliability
improvements for your target environment.

Azure Migrate. Take advantage of discovery, assessment, guidance, insight, and mechanisms
for cloud migration through this free integrated Azure service.

 Learn more about Azure Migrate

Strategic Migration Assessment & Readiness Tool (SMART). Understand your level of readiness
across all dimensions of migration, from initial strategy to ongoing management.

 Learn more about SMART

Azure migration support. Accelerate your migration with experienced assessment partners,
who provide many options for your unique environments.

 Learn more about Azure migration support

Pay less with Azure. Achieve the lowest cost of ownership when you combine the Azure Hybrid
Benefit, reservation pricing, and extended security updates. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is five
times more expensive than Azure for Windows Server and SQL Server.

 Learn more about cost reduction

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 18

Discover on-premises infrastructure,
apps, and databases
The next step in the assessment phase is to understand your database footprint, discover on-premises
database servers, and identify app and server dependencies. Then, you need to plan and analyze whether
the targeted migration scenario is compatible with the database requirements of your application. It’s
important to understand your database performance needs and to determine how you would deliver
that performance on Azure after migration. In the case of Azure SQL Managed Instance and Azure SQL
Database, this might require determining the amount of compute resources needed for each database.
If you have specific security or regulatory requirements, you also need to consider them during the
assessment process.

Plan costs
The final stage of the assessment involves collecting resource usage reporting—this is important because
on-premises VMs are often overprovisioned, but underutilized. The goal in any cloud model is to drive
your VMs’ efficient levels of utilization, while making sure you meet performance and reliability goals.
Through historic resource analysis, intelligent cost analysis tools can determine the actual usage of your
workload and suggest the best cloud Azure VM series to use.

Azure Database Migration Guide

This one-stop guide for database migration provides step-by-step guidance from source to target.
It also showcases recommended partners and customer case studies. View the Database Migration Guide.

Data Migration Assistant

You can use Data Migration Assistant to spot potential compatibility issues that can affect
database functionality. Data Migration Assistant assesses the readiness of your database for migration
to Azure SQL Database or Azure SQL Managed Instance and enables performance and reliability
improvements for your target environment and estimates the monthly cost of migrating your on-premises
environment to Azure.

Azure Database Migration Service

Azure Database Migration Service is a tool that helps you simplify, guide, and automate your database
migration to Azure. Easily migrate your data, schema, and objects from multiple sources to the cloud
at scale.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 19

Tool for cost planning • Who will be responsible for implementing
protective governance mechanisms, and
The Azure TCO calculator helps you build a who will be accountable for defining those
customized cloud assessment business case to governance controls?
support an Azure migration. Be sure to include all
• Are there other people who will have
your hardware, software, facilities, and the cost of
accountability or responsibility within the cloud
the team that currently supports your on-premises
migration plan?
environment. You have the option to modify any
assumptions so that the model accurately reflects It’s also essential to put a well-designed landing
your business. The result is a detailed report zone in place at the onset of a migration project,
that shows how much money you can save by consisting of setting up networking, identity,
moving to Azure. For more planning resources and management, security, and governance. As with
calculators, try these Azure cost planning tools. the earlier phases of the framework, you can tackle
readiness by:
Create your migration plan • Developing skills for your cloud migration teams.
Using your application inventory, prioritize
• Creating a landing zone to host the workloads
your applications into a migration plan based
that you plan to build in the cloud or migrate
on dimensions such as business priority and
to the cloud.
complexity. Then define the core team who will
execute migration and define the right approach
for your business case.
Build technical skills
Prepare your teams with the cloud skills necessary
Align your migration team to migrate workloads and operate them effectively
in Azure. Microsoft Learn offers free, self-paced
An important aspect of any cloud migration plan
learning with specific modules designed to
is aligning the people who will make your plan
provide your teams with the necessary skills for
a reality. To create a balance between speed and
executing migrations. For those new to Azure, we
control during cloud migration, it’s helpful to
recommend starting with Azure Fundamentals and
designate team members to be accountable for
Azure SQL Fundamentals. Microsoft offers a range
cloud adoption and cloud governance. You’ll need
of Azure training courses, certifications, and exams
to map specific people to the necessary capabilities.
across different levels and specializations. Aligning
To do so, answer the following questions:
with the roles that will make up your migration
• Who will be responsible for completing technical team, these programs can help you build skills in
tasks in the cloud migration plan, and who will your team as well as identify suitable candidates
be accountable for the team’s ability to deliver when hiring.
technical changes?

Microsoft Learn further helps with skills readiness challenges by providing unique learning paths focused
on job roles. This tool offers simple online training in bite-sized pieces, practical labs, and assessments to
test
Cloudknowledge. It’s a fastSimplified
Database Migration way for your team to grow their skills. Best of all, it’s free. 20
 07

Migrate

After you assess your databases, Tools for migration

you need to complete the To migrate servers and VMs, use the server
schema, data, and object migration tool in Azure Migrate. It helps you migrate
migration process. Azure offers on-premises VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, physical
servers, other VMs, and public cloud VMs to Azure.
migration tools and services that
analyze data platform solutions, Migrate your existing application databases with
the Azure Database Migration Service, whether they
recommend the best options, and
are running on SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, MySQL, or
then enable seamless execution. PostgreSQL. It allows you to migrate databases to
Azure as a VM, to Azure SQL Managed Instance, or
directly to Azure SQL Database.

Migrate

Figure 6. Migration waves

21
Cloud Database Migration Simplified 21
“To expand globally, Azure Database
we can simply clone the Migration Service
infrastructure that we A comprehensive, fully managed offering,
Azure Database Migration Service simplifies cloud
have running in our US migration by facilitating the movement of data,
Microsoft Azure datacenter schema, and other objects from heterogeneous
sources to Azure database platforms—all with
to Azure datacenters in minimal downtime. To start, Azure Database
Asia and elsewhere.” Migration Service provides assessment reports that
highlight the changes required before performing
Tom Grounds a migration. An Azure SQL Database instance
Chief Information Officer can be created based on different regions, with
Dillon Gage a variety of vCore options available. By allocating
more vCores, you can accelerate migration to meet
a desired timeline, but with an additional cost.

Backup-and-restore
Azure SQL Managed Instance delivers a robust
backup-and-restore functionality for migration.
You can take a native SQL backup of on-premises
SQL Server databases, put it on Azure Blob
storage, and restore it.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 22

Replicate workloads to Azure
Replication is the first step of the Adopt phase, where you migrate on-premises VMs by copying them
across to Azure. Asynchronous or synchronous replication ensures that live systems can be copied to
Azure with no downtime. Most of all, systems must be kept in lockstep with on-premises counterparts.
This means that while you’re building and executing your migration plans, any data or server updates are
synced between the copies.

Figure 7. Replication with Azure Migrate

This model is also useful for connecting groups of VMs, such as a multi-tiered application or workload,
during migration. This is important for testing and the final migration cutover. Once you review the details,
you’re ready to start replicating the servers. The replication will keep the servers fully synchronized with
the on-premises versions until you’re ready to migrate and retire the on-premises versions.

Pulling in data and insights from the assessment, Azure Migrate can configure each VM to replicate to the
correct VM instance in Azure. This is also when you should define the storage and network connections
that you set up when initially creating the environment.

Application-aware replication helps you easily migrate business applications with Azure Migrate,
understanding the actual context of an application. You can automatically use this feature for commonly
used Microsoft enterprise applications such as SharePoint, Dynamics, SQL Server, and Active Directory,
plus apps from other vendors like Oracle, SAP, IBM, and Red Hat.

Test migration before final cutover

The next step of the Adopt phase is testing, which ensures system health before final cutover and that
migration will work as expected. Test migration simulates the migration by creating an Azure VM using
replicated data. Testing doesn’t affect the on-premises machines, which remain operational and continue
replicating. You can use the replicated test Azure VM to validate the migration, perform app testing, and
address any issues before full migration. To establish that workloads function as expected, you might want

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 23

to test migrated resources in isolated partitions in Azure. With Azure Migrate, you can fully test a set of VMs
in an isolated environment without affecting the on-premises or cloud production versions. After you’ve
completed VM replication, and as you perform delta replication for the real-time replication, you can run a
test migration for the VMs before running a full migration to Azure. We highly recommend that you do this
at least once for each machine before you migrate it.

Figure 8. Test failover

Cutover to complete the migration

After you’ve verified that the migration works as expected through testing, it’s time to perform the final
cutover to migrate the on-premises machines. Azure Migrate can also perform the final launch in your
cloud and turn off the on-premises application. In some cases, you’ll have to update domain name system
records for the new cloud-based workloads. However, if you migrated using domain name system in the
cloud as part of your initial environment setup, this might happen automatically.

Figure 9. Final cutover

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 24

Decommissioning on-premises infrastructure
Once you’ve promoted a workload to production, the assets that previously hosted the production
workload are no longer required to support business operations. At that point, the older assets
are considered retired. Retired assets can then be decommissioned, reducing operational costs.
Decommissioning a resource can be as simple as turning off the power to the asset and disposing
of the asset responsibly.

Decommissioning is an important step when cost savings are your primary motivation for a migration.
Until an asset is decommissioned, it continues to consume power, environmental support, and other
resources. After retired assets are decommissioned, migration is complete.

Figure 10. Decommissioning

For more information about migration tools, explore these resources:

Azure Site Recovery. Migrate physical servers Azure Database Migration Service. Migrate your existing
or VMs from on-premises to Azure. Azure Site application database running on SQL Server, Oracle, DB2,
Recovery supports custom replication timing, MySQL or PostgreSQL to Azure as a VM, Azure Managed
isolated testing, and final migration cutover. Instance, or directly to Azure SQL Database.

You can replicate and migrate VMs to Azure  Learn more about Azure Database Migration Service
using right-sizing recommendations based on
the Assess step, and take advantage of Azure
Hybrid Benefit when the initial replication occurs
(as a configuration option). This tool saves Azure migration support. Accelerate your migration to
time because you don’t need to go back and Azure by working with partners that offer technology
complete this effort for each VM. solutions and expertise.

 Learn more about Azure Site Recovery  Learn more about Azure migration support
Cloud Database Migration Simplified 25
 08

Govern

Governance and compliance are Governance provides mechanisms and processes

to maintain control over your applications and
required throughout a migration
resources in the cloud. It involves planning your
effort. But those efforts don’t initiatives and setting strategic priorities.
end with migration. Once you’ve
Start by identifying key areas of importance
migrated, you’ll want to keep your during and after migration. These areas should
VMs continuously secure, protect relate to the different types of risks your company
your data, and monitor your must address as it adopts the cloud service—and
actions your cloud governance team should take.
cloud health.
Consider these principles of the governance model:

• Corporate policies drive cloud governance.

Governance focuses on specific aspects of
corporate policy, including identifying business
risks, converting risks into policy statements,
and ensuring adherence to the stated policies.

• Five disciplines of cloud governance.

The disciplines are cost management, security
baseline, resource consistency, identity baseline,
and deployment acceleration. Each discipline
supports corporate policies and protects your
company from potential pitfalls.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 26

Tools to govern
The Governance Benchmark Tool provides a first step to identify your organization’s governance needs
and get recommendations. This is a questionnaire-based tool designed to help you identify gaps in your
organization. It provides a personalized report that outlines the difference between your current state and
business priorities, and tailored resources to help you get started.

Govern

Figure 11. Corporate policy and disciplines of cloud governance

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 27

 09

Manage

Establishing consistent operational The business and technical approaches you

develop are key to cloud management. These
practices for your migrated
approaches include establishing and expanding
workloads helps to avoid costly the management baseline by defining the
business disruptions and ensures criticality classifications, cloud management tools,
your applications run optimally. and processes required to deliver your minimum
commitment to operations management.
As with governance, management is an ongoing
Define business commitments by documenting
process. Well-defined guidance can help your
supported workloads and cloud management
organization in expanding your IT management
investments for each workload. Also take into
and operations so that you’re using secure, cost-
account the advanced operations for platforms
effective processes and modern, cloud-first tools
or workloads that have a higher level of business
for your cloud-based solutions.
commitment. These workloads might require a
deeper architecture review to deliver on resiliency
and reliability commitments.

For simplified and optimal cloud management and

operations, you should consider:

• Business alignment efforts. Aid in capturing the

business impact and negotiating management
costs. Alignment assures everyone that you’re
using the most appropriate operational
management processes and tools.

• Cloud operations disciplines. Establish levels

of operations management. These disciplines
support workloads and business commitments
such as inventory and visibility, operational
compliance, and protect and recover.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 28

Tools to manage
Simplify your strategy for data protection with Azure Backup, which provides secure and cost-effective
solutions to back up your data and recover it from the Azure cloud platform.

Use Azure Monitor to gain full visibility into your applications, infrastructure, and network. Azure Monitor
provides a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry from your cloud and
on-premises environments.

Azure Well-Architected Review allows you to assess your workloads with respect to best practices, and
offers actionable next steps.

Manage

Figure 12. Business alignment and the cloud operations disciplines

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 29

 10

Summary

Regardless of the reasons for • Define strategy: Define business justification

and create the initial cloud migration plan.
migration or the complexity of your
current environment, a successful • Plan: Create a clear plan that takes into careful
consideration your servers, VMs, and workloads
cloud migration requires separating
you want to migrate—and what’s required
the process into phases: for these to function in the cloud. Along with
this assessment, determine your true usage
of resources and analyze any configuration
dependencies for your workloads.

• Ready: Prepare your on-premises and cloud

environment for migration.

• Migrate: Before you actually migrate a workload

(or several) to the cloud, make sure that your
workloads are in sync with your on-premises
system. Along with this, test the health of your
system so that your final cutover is smooth.

• Govern: Govern the environment and migrated

workloads to ensure industry standards and
regulatory requirements are addressed.

• Manage: Define management baselines and

business commitments to achieve tangible
business outcomes.

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 30

Using the information outlined in this guide,
Additional resources
start with a few applications, then expand to
more of your environment. Continue your • Accelerate and automate your migration—visit
cloud journey by pursuing even greater cost the Azure Migration Center for helpful tools.
efficiency through optimization and keeping
• Find curated, step-by-step guidance from
your workloads operating securely at peak
Microsoft experts and specialized migration
performance. The benefits of migration can be
partners based on the Microsoft Cloud Adoption
immediate in terms of time and budget. The
Framework for Azure.
cloud can help you be more agile and, in many
cases, help you respond to business needs faster. • Get trained for your migration with foundational
Reducing your total cost of ownership allows and role-specific courses to develop new Azure
you to invest all of the savings back into your skills and long-term organizational readiness
business to drive faster modernization. Plus, you
can explore PaaS, decreasing your total cost of
ownership even further while expanding your IT
capability. Whether you’re in the early stages of
assessment or planning your approach, the Cloud
Adoption Framework offers an easier approach for
migration. With free integrated services, programs,
a strong partner ecosystem, and proven guidance
from Microsoft, you can tread a well-forged path
to minimize risk to your business.

Modernize with Azure SQL

Get the most from your cloud investment by refactoring and modernizing your apps to use
cloud-native features.

Azure SQL provides a fully managed, consistent, and secure SQL programming surface area, so
you can modernize or develop new apps in the cloud using your existing skills, and migrate your
SQL workloads to Azure with ease. Automated tools help streamline and accelerate application
modernization efforts.

 Try SQL Server in the cloud with an Azure free account

 Contact an Azure Specialist

Cloud Database Migration Simplified 31

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Cloud Database Migration Simplified 32