Author: Howard M. Cohen
All too often, those migrating to Azure concentrate on preparing and executing the migration procedurally. By beginning with the end in mind you shift the focus to the desired future state of your workloads, where they will reside, how they will be managed, and how you can best leverage Azure’s many advantages.
It’s all too easy to think of Azure as simply being another data center to use other than your own, with similar servers, storage, security, and other systems designed to do what your own network systems do without need for you to manage and maintain them.
But to do so would be to deny yourself access to an incredibly powerful and diverse environment filled with services, functionalities, capacities, and capabilities you may not yet have even thought about.
Most Popular Azure Services
Most experienced users will tell you that cloud services are typically all about virtual machines (VM) running Windows, Linux, or other operating systems. Azure offers an enormous variety of available VM configurations giving you huge selectivity over storage size and type, processor speed, databases, functions, and more.
The most-used and most-popular Azure services include Azure DevOps, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Active Directory, Azure Cosmos DB, Logic Apps, Azure Data Factory, Azure Content Delivery Network, Azure Backup, Azure Function, Azure Application Programming Interfaces (API) Management, Azure Front Door, Azure Databricks, Azure Boards, Azure Application Gateway, Azure Tenant, Azure Services Fabric, Azure Data Lake, Azure Arc, Azure Key Vault, Azure SSO, Azure HDInsight, Azure Sandbox, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Powershell, Azure Site Recovery, Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Policy, Azure Container Service, and Azure SQL.
But there are literally thousands of others.
Beginning With the End in Mind
If your goal is to simply stop using your own data center and replace it with a cloud service, it is likely you can find acceptable alternatives that are far less expensive. Azure users tend to value Azure for all the additional functionality they can gain by migrating, as represented by this impressive array of available services.
Your planning process should therefore begin with a closer examination of the possible. Preferably working with an expert, you want to survey the services available and identify those that would add the most value to your workloads. As author Simon Sinek tells us, it’s always best to “Start With Why.” Why do you want to migrate to Azure? Why do you feel there’s more value there than what you’re currently receiving from your infrastructure choices?
Once you’ve identified just a few Azure services that would significantly enhance what you can do with your data in the Azure environment you can then begin to plan accordingly in much closer context with what you wish to achieve. You can better map where your data entities will reside, and how they will be most efficiently leveled and categorized.
Analytics are often a huge addition to be derived from Azure migration. What do you not yet know about your data that you would benefit from knowing? What insights would help you track your KPIs more effectively? How can the many analytic tools available in Azure enable you to know more than you know today?
Measure Twice (or More), Cut Once
The classic Carpenter’s Rule applies very specifically when planning a migration to Azure. Measure everything more than once. As you add services and capabilities keep going back to your measurements and double-check them. There are definitely dependencies between various Azure services that must be considered when designing a new environment. Even as you add value through more functionality, it is altogether possible to break other things along the way unless you are exceedingly circumspect.
Mapping data entities to storage volumes and application loads to specific servers barely scratches the surface of the planning an excellent Azure migration requires.
Next Step: AI
The next frontier you will likely wish to conquer in the Azure ecosystem is artificial intelligence (AI).
Azure AI is establishing its pre-eminence in the nascent, emerging AI environment, offering tremendous flexibility in the selection of models, a highly efficient API, enterprise-level scalability in generative AI, Azure AI Search for truly state-of-the-art retrieval augmented generation (RAG), the level of built-in safety and security you’ve come to expect from Azure, and native integration with GitHub and Visual Studio to facilitate even the most complex solution development.
Getting it Right from the Get-Go
Idenxt lives and breathes Azure, and is your best guide to what’s possible. As you begin to plan your Azure migration, or even as you begin to consider such a move, consult with Idenxt to learn how to best approach not only the migration itself, but also the ensuing ongoing operation of your newly Azure-based workloads and how to best protect them and their continuing operation.
To learn more, contact us here.