4 Steps to a Successful Azure Migration

Migrating your business applications to the cloud is a major business decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. To ensure that your business experiences no discontinuity, there are certain steps to follow to make the migration process as smooth and fast as possible. Generally, there are four phases to your Azure migration process. 

Assess Your Business Readiness 

There are tools to help you determine if your business is ready for the transition or not. The platform, which includes the operating system, codebase, and application ecosystem, together with your current database structure and network connectivity will determine if your migration to Azure will be a seamless one or more efforts are needed. 

Make a Plan 

After your readiness assessment, you should be able to devise a thorough plan for the migration. Depending on your current infrastructure, you may need to adopt a certain strategy. For example, the “Lift and Shift” strategy allows you to replicate the local work environment to the cloud. If you are lucky enough, only linear updates may be required for certain applications.  

Prepare for the Transformation 

To convince the shareholders of the company, you normally need to prepare a Proof of Concept and a Pilot Test to prove that migration to Azure will yield positive results to the company’s bottom line. A solid Proof of Concept should clear any doubts your shareholders may have regarding the migration. A Pilot Test enables users to test the future system, on a smaller scale, without implementing the actual migration. 

Carry Out the Migration 

Depending on your team’s plan, you may be able to speed up the process by automating certain steps using tools such as Azure’s Resource Template Technology. Consulting with an experienced Azure migration service can help you save on wasted efforts and make sure the process has the least effect on your business operations. Here are four benefits of Azure Managed Services: 

Get the Most Out of Azure Cloud Services 

With the help of a managed services provider, your business can smartly utilize the resources available through Azure infrastructure to your best advantage. Based on their experience, they will recommend whether it’s worth tweaking your applications to better take advantage of Azure’s scalability or how to avoid mistakes when migrating your network to the cloud. 

Maintain Azure Compliance Standards 

As a Microsoft Azure partner, the managed services provider knows what set of tools and configurations are necessary to maintain compliance. This is extremely important if your business operates in a highly-regulated industry such as healthcare, security, or ecommerce. 

Have Your Patches, Fixes, and Backups Taken Care Of 

One of the reasons why businesses move to Azure is they think the service will take care of all the backups, patches and system updates for them. Even though some services can be configured to perform patches and backups automatically, the main responsibility still lies in your hands. Don’t underestimate the cost and effort of maintaining the cloud. By working with a managed services provider, all the above worries will be truly taken care of. 

Have Access to Support 24/7 

Running critical apps on the cloud means that you can’t afford to have technical failures for an extended period of time. Your managed services provider will act as an extension of your in-house IT team, meaning they will be there to fix any issues in the most timely manner, ensuring business continuity no matter what. 

If you are interested in learning more about Azure managed services and how they can benefit you, download this eBook for Tips on How to Migrate your On-premise Applications to Microsoft Azure with Confidence. 

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