Azure Cloud Migration Best Practices Checklist

Shifting to the cloud is a major decision for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs). Such a decision can be triggered by various factors, including reducing operating costs posed by on-premise infrastructure and increasing agility and quality of service. Transitioning to the cloud is becoming increasingly popular among businesses worldwide. 

Statistics show that the global cloud applications market is expected to cross $160 billion by 2025. Many businesses struggle to migrate to the cloud without adequate knowledge. Contact our consultants to gain expert advice on Azure Cloud Migration. 

Technological advances now dictate migrating to the cloud as a necessity, and organisations considering the shift can use Azure Migrate for a seamless experience. Have a look at the Azure cloud migration best practices checklist to understand how you can migrate to the cloud.

Understanding Azure Cloud Migration

Cloud migration is the relocation of an organisation’s digital assets from an on-premise server to a cloud server. Azure Migrate is a migration service that provides an easily applicable approach to cloud migration and modernisation. Using Azure allows organisations to plan an efficient and seamless transition to the cloud. 

In addition, it also allows the assessment of an organisation’s on-premise workload and estimates the cost of hosting it in the Azure public cloud. Businesses opting for the Azure cloud migration can harness its extensive framework allowing the integration of various tools, including Azure Active Directory (AD) and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). 

Business-Driven VS Technology-Driven Scope Expansion

Migrating to the cloud entails the scope expansion of organisational operations. Therefore, CISOs must determine whether the expansion will be driven by business or technological objectives. Prior to making such decisions, factors for each driver must be analysed as it helps ensure compliance with the best practices.

For a business-driven expansion organisation must consider: 

• Complexities regarding asset distribution, compliance requirements and user access. 
• Regional data sovereignty requirements dictate the compliance framework. 
• Assessment of change in the process required for global assets. 
• Changes in the migration process required for multi-region deployment. 
• Optimisation and implementation of process changes triggered by global complexity. 

For a technology-driven expansion organisation must consider:  

• Using virtual machines (VM) to accelerate the migration process and transfer multiple loads. 
• Implementation of SQL migration to transfer multiple databases to the cloud. 
• Complexities triggered by multiple data centre migrations. 
• Surge in the migration process caused by lack of optimal network capacity. 
• Alignment of compliance protocols and cloud adoption and IT teams. 

Azure Cloud Migration Best Practices Checklist 

Implementing Azure cloud migration is a significant decision, and various factors, such as the return on investment (ROI), usage of VMs and SQL servers and more, must be considered before making the move. Developing a thorough understanding of Azure cloud migration and adhering to the best practices checklist can help organisations ensure a seamless migration experience. 

Identifying Stakeholders 

Prior to initiating the process, it’s critical that businesses reach out to all the relevant stakeholders. Reaching out to IT teams and key decision-makers and making them aware of the expected procedural changes ahead of time can help streamline and accelerate the migration process. 

Developing A Strategic Plan 

To ensure compliance with this best practices checklist, organisations must develop a strategic plan of action. Expediting migrating to the cloud business must sequence the migration of applications with regard to their dependencies. 

Calculating Cost of Ownership 

The exact cost of ownership varies among businesses and is dictated by their requirements. Estimating the costs prior to the migration will allow businesses to streamline the shift. In addition, it will allow them to account for the expected monetary expense ahead of time. 

Assessing Applications 

The assessment of all on-premise servers and dependencies associated with these servers is critical prior to migration. Azure Migrate allows businesses to thoroughly understand all the migration-triggered dependencies associated with VMs and applications. 

Understanding Migration Options 

Organisations considering cloud migration can choose from three options: rehosting, refactoring, and re-architecting. 

1. Re-hosting – uses a “lift and shift” approach that entails a simplified deployment of data and application.
2. Re-factoring – requires application codes to be rewritten to ensure compatibility with the cloud. 
3. Re-architecting – requires organisations to change the structure of applications from traditional to cloud native. 

Training IT Teams 

CISOs must ensure sufficient learning and development initiatives are implemented to train IT teams. Training IT teams before migrating to the cloud will help these personnel build familiarity with the cloud environment, allowing them to perform with greater competence.

Piloting Migration 

This best practices checklist entails that organisations conduct pilot tests of migrating to the cloud. To do this, IT teams must assess and identify low-complexity workloads. Encompassing physical servers and databases is critical for conducting pilot tests.

Initiating Migration 

Upon completion of the pilot test, Organisations can begin to initiate the migration at scale. However, prior to initiating migration, they must consider and implement all insights gained during the pilot test. This will help avoid hurdles and will streamline the migration experience. 

Decommissioning Existing Infrastructure

Upon successful migration and verification, organisations must decommission their on-premises infrastructure. Adherence to this step will allow businesses to reduce management time and capabilities and IT overhead costs for the on-premises infrastructure. 

Conclusion

Migrating to the cloud is a decision triggered by either business or technological expansion. Businesses can harness the potential Azure cloud migration’s extensive framework by integrating various tools. However, they must adhere to the best practices checklist to ensure a successful migration. Organisations can contact us now and get expert assistance for migrating to the cloud.

Clint Shiels

With over 20 years in the technology space and a background focused on Microsoft and Security, my methodology is to understand business requirements and outcomes first and foremost then set out a roadmap and delivery plan to achieve these through advisory and modern workplace delivery services.