VM Migration to Azure

Migrating on-premises servers and virtual machines (VMs) to Azure provides benefits such as pay-as-you-go billing, improved availability, better scalability, improved security, and disaster recovery.

Ensuring Business-critical Applications are Always up and Running

The ever-increasing data volumes and number of cyberattacks, constant changes in customer behavior, and unexpected demand spikes are some of the main reasons why enterprises across the globe experience challenges with their on-premises infrastructure. It is crucial for large-scale organizations to ensure their business-critical applications are always up and running in a highly secure and scalable environment.

Why Migrate to the Azure Cloud?

Migrating VMs to Azure can provide your organization with a more scalable, secure, and cost-effective infrastructure, as well as access to a range of advanced features and services that can help drive business growth and innovation.

Cost Savings

By migrating VMs to Azure, businesses can reduce the costs associated with maintaining their own on-premises infrastructure, such as hardware maintenance and upgrades, power and cooling, and data centre space.

Scalability

Azure provides a scalable cloud-based infrastructure, allowing businesses to easily increase or decrease resources as needed to meet fluctuating demand.

Enhanced Security

Azure provides built-in security features that can help protect VMs and applications from cyber threats, such as firewalls, intrusion detection, and encryption.

Disaster Recovery

Azure provides a range of disaster recovery options, including backup and replication services, to ensure that critical VMs and applications can be quickly restored in the event of an outage or disaster.

Geographic Redundancy 

Azure offers multiple data centers located in different geographic regions, providing businesses with a redundant infrastructure that can help minimize downtime and data loss.

Innovation Potential

By migrating VMs to Azure, businesses can take advantage of new features and services, such as advanced analytics, AI, and IoT capabilities, that can help drive innovation and improve business outcomes.

Infrastructure Modernization on Azure

01

Cloud Assessment

First, we do a free cloud migration assessment for you to see timelines and costs of migration as well as monthly expenses. After successful completion of the free assessment where the workloads are discovered and dependencies are determined, you are given an option to choose the landing zone configuration (and related costs) that is most suitable for your organization’s workloads before the actual migration.

02

Strategy Alignment and Roadmap

Identify your data strategy, cloud maturity and environment. Based on the findings, we not only design your VMs migration solution as per your requirements, but also create a roadmap for future migration activities to the entire organization.

03

Implementation

Leverage our experienced team of seasoned professionals to create the landing zone, network configuration, Active Directory (AD) and make sure all security mechanisms are in place. You can rely on Adastra’s expertise and benefit from frameworks based on best practices and implemented in numerous other successful deliveries.

04

Handover and Training

We make sure your team is fully capable of managing the implemented VMs and is comfortable working with it. Optionally, you can benefit from Adastra’s Managed Services.

Approach to VM Migration to Azure

  • Assess your existing servers/virtual machines, discover workloads with dependencies and determine wave groups. 
  • Prepare the migration plan, timeline, and cloud expenses. 

  • Choose a suitable landing zone option and cost, based on workloads’ volume, size and complexity.
  • Plan the cloud migration in detail.

  • Build the architecture, ensure high availability, and perform disaster recovery. 
  • Migrate your servers and storage to the Azure cloud. 
  • Install default applications followed by custom business applications then migrate your Active Directory users, groups, and other workloads. 

  • Perform validation of the server/VM workloads after the migration 
  • Perform end-to end testing of the new Azure cloud environment 
  • Go-live 

You Have the Flexibility to Migrate

Single-user PCs regardless the operating system

All your servers including workloads, applications, databases, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions

You have the flexibility to migrate: 

  • Single user PCs regardless of the operating system 
  • All your servers including workloads, applications, databases, and more 

Azure virtual machines are one of several types of on-demand, scalable computing resources offered in the Azure cloud. Typically, you choose a VM when you need more control over the computing environment compared to the other on-premises options.  

Azure virtual machines can be used in various ways. Some examples are: 

  • Development and testing – Azure VMs offer a quick and easy way to create a computer with the specific configurations required to code and test an application. 
  • Applications in the cloud – Because demand for your application can fluctuate, it might make economic sense to run it on a VM in Azure. You can pay for extra VMs when you need them and shut them down when you don’t. 
  • Extended data center – Virtual machines in an Azure virtual network can easily be connected to your organization’s network. 

The number of VMs that your application uses can scale up and out to whatever is required to meet your needs.  

Virtual machines use virtual hard disks (VHDs) to store their operating system (OS) and data. VHDs are also used for the images you can choose from to install an OS.

Azure provides many marketplace images to use with various versions and types of Windows Server operating systems.

You can add a new hard disk drives (HDD) to your virtual machine with a few clicks –you don’t need to worry about the headache that comes with hardware installation. 

  • Avoid inconvenient UX due to slow/no internet connection 
  • Take full advantage of scalability, availability, and Azure Disaster Recovery 
  • No need to have a full team administrating and supporting the hardware and software in place 
  • Tune and deploy your database without needing expertise  
  • No need to worry about lack of room in the data center 
  • Benefit from pay-as-you-go pricing model to optimize cloud costs 

  • Choose SQL Server in Azure VMs if:
    • You want to “lift and shift” your database and applications with minimal to no changes.
    • You prefer having full control over your database server and the VM it runs on.
    • You already have SQL Server and Windows Server licenses that you intend to use.
  • Choose Azure SQL Database if:
    • You want to modernize your applications and use other PaaS services in Azure.
    • You do not wish to manage your database server and the running VMs.
    • You do not have SQL Server or Windows Server licenses, or you do intend to renew the existing licenses.

If you choose the first option, then you are in the right place. Please reach out to us. We can help. If you choose the second option, please refer to Database Migration to Azure.

Let’s migrate your VMs to Azure