Compute Migration Transitioning to Azure
Create a Windows virtual machine in the Azure portal rapidly evolving digital landscape, the migration of compute workloads from traditional on-premises environments to cloud platforms like Azure has become imperative for organizations striving to optimize efficiency, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. This comprehensive guide aims to provide a detailed roadmap for organizations embarking on the journey of transitioning their compute workloads to Azure. From analyzing existing infrastructure to executing migration tasks, this guide covers essential considerations, practical approaches, and real-world scenarios to facilitate a seamless transition.
Understanding Compute Migration to Azure
When contemplating a migration to Azure, it’s crucial to grasp the nuances of design concepts and deployment strategies. Organizations often adopt a hybrid cloud approach initially, blending on-premises resources with Azure services to leverage the benefits of both environments. However, irrespective of the chosen approach, thorough understanding of existing infrastructure landscape and identification of equivalent components in Azure are prerequisites for a successful migration.
Key Phases of Compute Migration
Create a Windows virtual machine in the Azure portal compute workloads to Azure unfolds through several logical phases:
Analyze Phase: This phase involves a comprehensive assessment of the existing infrastructure layout, including architecture diagrams and documentation. Tools like the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) toolkit can be utilized to generate reports for undocumented environments, helping to delineate interdependencies among components.
Evaluate Phase: During this phase, infrastructure components earmarked for migration are evaluated and mapped to their equivalent services in Azure. Factors such as compute power, storage requirements, and network configurations are meticulously considered to ensure a seamless transition.
Migration Phase: The final phase encompasses the execution of migration tasks, which necessitates careful planning and selection of appropriate migration tools. Technical factors such as infrastructure type, virtualization technology, and operating system versions, as well as business considerations like consumption models and SLAs, must be factored into the decision-making process.
Azure Migration Options and Best Practices
Create a Windows virtual machine in the Azure portal offers multiple migration options, each catering to specific scenarios and requirements
Upload VHD: Converting physical servers to virtual hard disk (VHD) format and subsequently uploading them to Azure storage is a commonly used migration method. Tools like Sysinternal Disk2VHD facilitate the conversion process, while PowerShell, AzCopy, or Azure Storage blob APIs enable the upload of VHDs to Azure.
Azure Site Recovery (ASR): ASR serves as a disaster recovery solution for physical servers, allowing replication of on-premises environments to Azure. This approach can also be leveraged for migration, enabling seamless failover to Azure for continued operation.
Prerequisites for Physical Server to Azure Migration
Before initiating the migration process, several prerequisites must be fulfilled
Setup of Recovery Services Vault: Establishing a Recovery Services vault in the Azure portal is the first step in preparing for migration. This vault serves as a centralized repository for storing backup and recovery data.
Installation and Configuration of Configuration Server: The configuration server, a critical component of Azure Site Recovery, must be installed and configured on-premises using the unified setup process. This server facilitates communication with Azure and manages data replication.
Deployment Planning: Thorough deployment planning is essential to assess VM eligibility, define replication policies, and determine infrastructure requirements both in Azure and on-premises. Tools like the Azure Migrate feature can assist in this process, providing insights into VM eligibility and recommended migration strategies.
Steps for Replicating and Migrating Physical Servers to Azure
The process of replicating and migrating physical servers to Azure involves several sequential steps
Registry Key Setup: Configure registry key entries on the target physical machine to enable communication with Azure.
Firewall Configuration: Allow necessary features through the firewall, including File and Printer Sharing and Windows Management Instrumentation, to facilitate communication with Azure.
Account Setup: Add an account with admin privileges on the target physical machine, ensuring seamless integration with Azure.
Mobility Agent Installation: Install the mobility agent on the physical server to enable data replication to Azure. Specify the configuration server IP and passphrase during installation to establish connectivity.
Configuration Server Configuration: Configure the configuration server settings in the Azure portal, defining the target environment in terms of resource groups and storage configurations.
Replication Policy Configuration: Define replication policies to refine replication intervals, recovery point objectives (RPOs), and other parameters based on business requirements.
VMware Virtualization
The ASR can also be used to migrate virtualized environments using VMware. To migrate environments using the ASR, a configuration server must be configured in the VMware on-premises environment to manage replication.
Azure Migrate helps with the planning of migration to Azure. As of the time of writing, Azure Migrate supports the following VMware environments
Compute Migration
Azure Migrate performs an on-premise VM migration assessment and provides information on if there are any restrictions on migrating on-premise virtual machines. The assessment is performed using a virtual appliance known as Azure Migrate Collector that can be downloaded from the Azure portal. To use Azure Migrate, you will need to create a project in the Azure portal.
Hyper-V Virtualization
Hyper-V VHDs are saved to Azure Storage and converted to images to build VMs. You can also replicate and failover these VMs to Azure using Azure Storage Replication (ASR). Gen 2 VMs are currently not supported in Azure. Therefore, if you have a Gen 2 hyper-V machine, you should convert VHDX files to VHD before sending them to Azure Storage. When using ASR, VHDX files automatically convert to VHD.
Migration Using ASR
Migration with ASR offers a streamlined and efficient approach with minimal administrative burden. It supports migration from both independent Hyper-V hosts and hosts managed by SCVMM. The general process involves adding the Hyper-V Host/SCVMM to ASR and then replicating the VMs to Azure. In this discussion, we’ll focus on the steps for VMs in independent Hyper-V hosts, as this scenario is commonly encountered.
Windows virtual machine in the Azure portal Interview Questions
- What are the primary considerations when migrating from on-premises environments to Azure?
- How do you assess existing infrastructure during the analyze phase of migration?
- What factors influence the evaluation of infrastructure components for migration?
- Can you explain the process of converting physical servers to VHD format for Azure migration?
- How does Azure Site Recovery facilitate migration of physical servers to Azure?
- What prerequisites must be fulfilled before initiating physical server migration to Azure?
- What steps are involved in setting up replication for physical servers in Azure?
- How do you ensure compatibility when migrating legacy applications to Azure?
- What role does the configuration server play in Azure migration?
- What tools can be used to assist in Azure migration planning and execution?
Lab Scenario for Kloud Course Academy
In Kloud Course Academy’s Azure migration lab, students will analyze on-premises infrastructure, identify components for migration, and simulate migration scenarios using Azure Site Recovery. Through hands-on exercises, students will gain practical experience in planning and executing compute workload migrations to Azure.
Summary
It’s essential that you carefully plan and evaluate the components of your on-premises hosted workloads migration to Azure. It’s especially important that you choose the right tool for the task at hand. In this chapter, we looked at the migration considerations and tools that can be used to migrate on-premises workloads hosted in physical, virtualized, or hyper-vacuum environments to Azure.
