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This article provides a quick overview of the Azure Migrate service.
Azure Migrate provides a simplified migration, modernization, and optimization service for Azure. All pre-migration steps such as discovery, assessments, and right-sizing of on-premises resources are included for infrastructure, data, and applications. Azure Migrate’s extensible framework allows for integration of third-party tools, thus expanding the scope of supported use-cases. It provides the following:
- Unified migration platform: A single portal to start, run, and track your migration to Azure.
- Range of tools: A range of tools for assessment and migration. Azure Migrate tools include Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment and Migration and modernization. Azure Migrate also integrates with other Azure services and tools, and with independent software vendor (ISV) offerings.
- Assessment, migration, and modernization: In the Azure Migrate hub, you can assess, migrate, and modernize:
- Servers, databases and web apps: Assess on-premises servers including web apps and SQL Server instances and migrate them to Azure.
- Databases: Assess on-premises SQL Server instances and databases to migrate them to an SQL Server on an Azure VM or an Azure SQL Managed Instance or to an Azure SQL Database.
- Web applications: Assess on-premises web applications and migrate them to Azure App Service and Azure Kubernetes Service.
- Virtual desktops: Assess your on-premises virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and migrate it to Azure Virtual Desktop.
- Data: Migrate large amounts of data to Azure quickly and cost-effectively using Azure Data Box products.
The Azure Migrate hub includes these tools:
| Tool | Assess and migrate | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment | Discover and assess servers including SQL and web apps | Discover and assess on-premises servers running on VMware, Hyper-V, and physical servers in preparation for migration to Azure. |
| Migration and modernization | Migrate servers | Migrate VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, physical servers, other virtualized servers, and public cloud VMs to Azure. |
| Data Migration Assistant | Assess SQL Server databases for migration to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, or Azure VMs running SQL Server. | Data Migration Assistant is a stand-alone tool to assess SQL Servers. It helps pinpoint potential problems blocking migration. It identifies unsupported features, new features that can benefit you after migration, and the right path for database migration. Learn more. |
| Azure Database Migration Service | Migrate on-premises databases to Azure VMs running SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, or SQL Managed Instances | Learn more about Database Migration Service. |
| Movere | Assess servers | Learn more about Movere. |
| Web app migration assistant | Assess on-premises web apps and migrate them to Azure. | Azure App Service Migration Assistant is a standalone tool to assess on-premises websites for migration to Azure App Service. Use Migration Assistant to migrate .NET and PHP web apps to Azure. Learn more about Azure App Service Migration Assistant. |
| Azure Data Box | Migrate offline data | Use Azure Data Box products to move large amounts of offline data to Azure. Learn more. |
Note
If you're in Azure Government, external integrated tools and ISV offerings can't send data to Azure Migrate. You can use tools independently.
ISV integration
Azure Migrate integrates with several ISV offerings.
| ISV | Feature |
|---|---|
| Carbonite | Migrate servers. |
| Cloudamize | Assess servers. |
| CloudSphere | Assess servers. |
| Corent Technology | Assess and migrate servers. |
| Device42 | Assess servers. |
| Lakeside | Assess VDI. |
| RackWare | Migrate servers. |
| Turbonomic | Assess servers. |
| UnifyCloud | Assess servers and databases. |
| Zerto | Migrate servers. |
The Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment tool discovers and assesses on-premises VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, and physical servers for migration to Azure.
Here's what the tool does:
- Azure readiness: Assesses whether on-premises servers, SQL Servers and web apps are ready for migration to Azure.
- Azure sizing: Estimates the size of Azure VMs/Azure SQL configuration/number of Azure VMware Solution nodes after migration.
- Azure cost estimation: Estimates costs for running on-premises servers in Azure.
- Dependency analysis: Identifies cross-server dependencies and optimization strategies for moving interdependent servers to Azure. Learn more about Discovery and assessment with dependency analysis.
The Discovery and assessment tool uses a lightweight Azure Migrate appliance that you deploy on-premises.
- The appliance runs on a VM or physical server. You can install it easily using a downloaded template.
- The appliance discovers on-premises servers. It also continually sends server metadata and performance data to Azure Migrate.
- Appliance discovery is agentless. Nothing is installed on discovered servers.
- After appliance discovery, you can gather discovered servers into groups and run assessments for each group.
Migration and modernization tool
The Migration and modernization tool helps in migrating servers to Azure:
| Migrate | Details |
|---|---|
| On-premises VMware VMs | Migrate VMs to Azure using agentless or agent-based migration. For agentless migration, the Migration and modernization tool uses the same appliance that is used by Discovery and assessment tool for discovery and assessment of servers. For agent-based migration, the Migration and modernization tool uses a replication appliance. |
| On-premises Hyper-V VMs | Migrate VMs to Azure. The Migration and modernization tool uses provider agents installed on Hyper-V host for the migration. |
| On-premises physical servers or servers hosted on other clouds | You can migrate physical servers to Azure. You can also migrate other virtualized servers, and VMs from other public clouds, by treating them as physical servers for the purpose of migration. The Migration and modernization tool uses a replication appliance for the migration. |
| Web apps hosted on Windows OS in a VMware environment | You can perform agentless migration of ASP.NET web apps at-scale to Azure App Service using Azure Migrate. |
In the Azure Migrate hub, you select the tool you want to use for assessment or migration and add it to a project. If you add an ISV tool or Movere:
- To get started, obtain a license or sign up for a free trial by following the tool instructions. Each ISV or tool specifies tool licensing.
- Each tool has an option to connect to Azure Migrate. Follow the tool instructions to connect.
- Track your migration across all tools from within the project.
Movere
Movere is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. It increases business intelligence by accurately presenting entire IT environments within a single day. Organizations and enterprises grow, change, and digitally optimize. As they do so, Movere provides them with the needed confidence to see and control their environments, whatever the platform, application, or geography.
Microsoft acquired Movere, and it's no longer sold as a standalone offer. Movere is available through Microsoft Solution Assessment and Microsoft Cloud Economics Program. Learn more about Movere.
We encourage you to also look at Azure Migrate, our built-in migration service. Azure Migrate provides a central hub to simplify your cloud migration. The hub comprehensively supports workloads like physical and virtual servers, databases, and applications. End-to-end visibility lets you easily track progress throughout discovery, assessment, and migration.
With both Azure and partner ISV tools built in, Azure Migrate has an extensive range of features, including:
- Discovery of virtual and physical servers.
- Performance-based rightsizing.
- Cost planning.
- Import-based assessments.
- Dependency analysis of agentless applications.
If you're looking for expert help to get started, Microsoft has skilled Azure Expert Managed Service Providers to guide you. Check out the Azure Migrate website.
Azure Migrate versions
There are two versions of the Azure Migrate service.
Current version: Use this version to create projects, discover on-premises servers, and orchestrate assessments and migrations. Learn more about what's new in this version.
Previous version: The previous version of Azure Migrate, also known as classic Azure Migrate, supports only assessment of on-premises servers running on VMware. Classic Azure Migrate is retiring in Feb 2024. After Feb 2024, classic version of Azure Migrate will no longer be supported and the inventory metadata in classic projects will be deleted. You can't upgrade projects or components in the previous version to the new version. You need to create a new project, and add assessment and migration tools to it. Use the tutorials to understand how to use the assessment and migration tools available. If you had a Log Analytics workspace attached to a classic project, you can attach it to a project of current version after you delete the classic project.
To access existing projects in the Azure portal, search for and select Azure Migrate. The Azure Migrate dashboard has a notification and a link to access old projects.
Next steps
- Try our tutorials to assess VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, or physical servers.
- Review frequently asked questions about Azure Migrate.