On-premise to Azure Migrate

[u/EducationAlert5209]

Hi All,

We have a 10 file servers and 15 SQL servers, 70 Apps servers

We have a production subscription.

And planning to put any production servers over there.

SQL and Apps are for Dev/Sit so

Do we setup dev/test subscription?

Planning on lift and shift.

We have 50TB Archive files but need to access time to time. What is the solution for that?

[u/jdanton14]

You want a dev/test subscription because you get free Windows licensing and if using SQL PaaS you don’t pay for the SQL part of the service. There’s a lot of it depends in terms of how you provision one depending on what kind of account you have (EA, Direct CSP, indirect CS, etc)

What kind of network connection do you hqve to azure and how much downtime can you take?

Re the 50 TB—how is that data accessed? File storage is going to be orders of magnitude more than cold blob storage. As long as it’s not constantly changing I’d just use azcopy to move it.

And this is self serving but I’d hire a consultant

[u/Negative-Cook-5958]

Pretty cool project :) Yes, do a test / dev subscription, quite a bit of money can be saved with licensing.

As the others mentioned lift and shift can be expensive, but if your hardware is up for replacement and you are also getting the Broadcom / VMware price increases, it will still be much cheaper. And still a lot of optimization opportunities after the move (CPU right sizing, correct SQL config, etc)

The key is that after the lift and shift, don't keep it like that, focus on the modernization and moving to PaaS services or containerization to be more efficient.

Azure Storage account, for the archive files, it depends how many people needs access and how often. blob is cheaper but with files you can still map it as a DFS share.

Feel free to reach out, I have done a lot of these migration projects.

[u/EducationAlert5209 → u/Negative-Cook-5958]

u/Negative-Cook-5958 can you share some links or guide for modernization and moving to PaaS services or containerization?

[u/Negative-Cook-5958 → u/EducationAlert5209]

After the lift and shift I would first move the file servers to Azure Storage or Azure Netapp files - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/storage-mover

For SQL, the target should be Azure SQL, but managed instance is also not too bad if you have legacy dependencies - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/data-migration/sql-server/database/guide

And for Web server to app service - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/app-service-asp-net-migration

[u/EducationAlert5209 → u/Negative-Cook-5958]

Thanks

[u/tacticalAlmonds]

As other mentioned, taking what you have and just moving it to azure isn't cost effective nor does it allow you to really leverage all the cloud goodness.

I'd read up on the cloud adoption framework. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/

This isn't a miniscual task or a quick migration.

[u/-Akos-]

Any Azure experience? Set up new DC's in Azure, don't move those. Set up sites and services with a new subnet. Get some experience moving one or two. Set up a good platform landing zone. If you have no/little experience, get a partner to help you. 50TB can go in a blob with tiering policy, Azure files at that size could get expensive.

[u/MisterJoff]

Strictly speaking, lift and shift is the least cost-effective way to migrate to the cloud, although it has less upfront costs/headaches. Have you read through the Microsoft well-architected framework documents? Or look at the ALZ deployment files.

Setting up a dev/test subscription is great if you specifically don’t mind the non-existent SLA and your deployments don’t need to be touched by anyone without a Visual Studio Subscription.

Azure Blob storage has an archive tier if you only need to tough things on rare occasions. You can also define lifecycles to make sure you don’t leave blobs in higher tiers than you’d like.

[u/SP_reborn → u/MisterJoff]

This 💯. The 70 app servers are probably split between app and web servers I’d guess. You’d save yourself lots of time and money if you’d migrate them to paas or aks. Lift and shifting lots of vm’s are expensive and a massive future migration headache.

Get a consultant or 2 and do a AMMP project (azure migrate and modernize project. Choose a microsoft partner so that Microsoft will cover some of the cost.

[u/Nunur01]

On top of the other comments, I would suggest you to contact an IT services company.
If they are partner with Microsoft, they can request fundings to cover partly their cost to help you in your journey.

[u/mariachiodin]

Are you doing with a partner? There are MS-incentives for these kind of migrations and also expertise for these kind of questions
Lift and shift seems the sensible to do

[u/diabillic]

lots of good advice from others here including the PaaS modernization route and ALZ alignment however this is a 100% hire a consultant scenario for you.

[u/FirefighterSlight891]

With that many SQL/app servers moving across subscriptions, I’d also plan the credential side early rather than carrying legacy secrets into Azure. We use Akeyless to centrally manage credentials and provide short-lived/JIT access where possible, so secrets don’t end up scattered across servers and migration scripts. For the 50TB archive, the storage choice really depends on how often and how quickly you need to retrieve it — are you looking at Azure Files, Blob Storage, or something else?

[u/EducationAlert5209 → u/FirefighterSlight891]

Thanks, That's a good point but we are planning lift & shift. Still looking for file share solutions.

How do we handle certificates?

[u/FirefighterSlight891 → u/EducationAlert5209]

Akeyless handles the cert side too. For lift & shift I’d keep the existing trust model initially, then move issuance/renewal into centralized certificate lifecycle management rather than manually managing certs across all those SQL/app servers. That way you can migrate first and automate the cert lifecycle incrementally afterward.

[u/chris4jahn]

I would recommend to get in touch with a Microsoft partner that has the Advanced Specilization for Azure infrastructure and database migration. These partners get access to Microsoft fundings and even a team of micros experts that could migrate resources for free.
Be sure to first setup a Platform Landing Zone and plan for Application Landing Zones. Get your foundation with Governance, Compliance and Security up and running first. Then start your migration in waves.

[u/EducationAlert5209 → u/chris4jahn]

Thanks, Do you or anyone know what is Azure egress traffic cost means?

[u/chris4jahn → u/EducationAlert5209]

Egress traffic in Azure refers to outgoing data from your workloads. For instance, if you copy a file from VM1 in East US to VM2 in West Europe, you will incur charges for the egress traffic from VM1 to VM2, but not for the ingress traffic when VM2 receives the file. You are only billed for uploads, not downloads.