How to Migrate to Microsoft Azure Cloud

Sify has extensive experience with Azure Cloud migrations, leveraging its partnership with Microsoft since 2014. With over 400 major client installations, we’ve refined our in-house Cloud practice, building a robust knowledge base of skills and competencies.

With a comprehensive range of Microsoft Azure Infrastructure services and significant investment in our people, data workload migrations have become an area of expertise for Sify. Specifically, for Microsoft installations, over 85% of our migration projects have involved moving data from legacy systems to Azure.

Read on as we share the details of Azure migrations, leveraging our vast experience and expertise to guide your migration strategy.

Sify’s Cloud Migration Strategy

Sify utilises our proven ‘Go-To-Cloud’ framework to ensure a smooth and successful transition. it assists in developing and executing business and technology strategies aligned with the desired outcomes.

The key phases for the framework are:

1. Define – a workgroup to clarify the business justification and expected outcomes.
2. Plan – an actionable adoption plan detailing each migration phase.
3. Ready – create the necessary infrastructure.
4. Adopt – migrate each application then test, optimise, and release.
5. Manage – define and implement frameworks and tools to control cloud usage.

Azure Tools for Planning and Migration

1. Azure Migrate
   Microsoft’s flagship migration tool provides comprehensive solutions for assessing and migrating workloads. It is used for both Discovery and Assessment and Server Migration.
2. Azure Database Migration Service
   This service simplifies the migration of databases from on-premises or other cloud platforms to Azure’s database offerings, such as Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance and Azure Cosmos DB.
3. Azure Data Box
   Azure Data Box provides a hardware-based solution for transferring large volumes of data offline to Azure, especially when network-based transfer is impractical or costly. This is suitable for scenarios involving extensive data sets, such as archival or media files.
4. Azure Site Recovery (ASR)
   Primarily designed for disaster recovery; ASR can facilitate migration by replicating workloads to Azure. Features include replicating on-premises applications and data to Azure, supporting planned failover for migration with minimal downtime and offering a robust approach for legacy applications.

Pre-Migration Assessment

Sify assesses your applications using our standard methodology, incorporating best practices and industry standards. Each application in scope will undergo a detailed discovery process, and relevant changes will be recommended based on the mapped migration group application.

Data Synchronisation

Sify employs a tried and tested methodology to ensure data synchronisation with no or minimal data loss.

Testing Applications Pre-and Post-Migration

Sify conducts key testing procedures essential for validating the functionality, integration, performance, and security of migrated applications.

Key Phases:

• Functional Testing: Validate that the migrated application behaves as required.
• Integration Testing: Validate overall system integration.
• Performance Testing: Use relevant tools to ensure performance.
• Security Testing: Implement security procedures and strategies to protect cloud-stored data.

Kwesi Washington

Kwesi is an experienced software solutions expert with a solid technical and business background. He is adept at delivering innovative solutions and excels at solving complex problems during both pre- and post-sales stages. Kwesi collaborates closely with customers and works alongside product development and management teams to relay customer requirements and define strategic roadmap elements.