What are the Most Common Strategies for Azure Cloud Migration?

Nisarg Rami
3 min readAug 14, 2024

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Introduction

Navigating the migration journey requires careful planning and the right strategy, especially for Azure cloud migration. One must understand unique needs and ensure a seamless transition. Minimizing downtime and maximizing efficiency should be top priorities.

For Azure cloud migration requires accuracy and expertise. Without expert strategies, unfavorable circumstances may arise. Rest assured, we are here to help! This guide by our experts provides proven strategies, additional insights, and best practices we used/use more often for helping our clients with Azure cloud migration.

So let’s get started!

Sure Shot Strategies for Azure Cloud Migration

1. Lift and Shift

What We Do: We migrate your existing applications and data to Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) with minimal changes, maintaining compatibility and speeding up the migration process.

Why Choose This: By choosing lift and shift, we ensure a quick and straightforward migration, ideal for businesses looking to move to the cloud rapidly without extensive modifications.

2. Replatforming

What We Do: We make minor adjustments to your applications during migration to optimize performance and efficiency on Azure. This may include moving databases to Azure SQL Database or refactoring applications for Azure App Service.

Why Choose This: Replatforming allows us to enhance scalability and cost-effectiveness while leveraging Azure’s managed services, optimizing your applications for the cloud.

3. Repurchasing

What We Do: We replace existing applications with Azure-native alternatives available on Azure Marketplace, reducing maintenance overhead and improving efficiency with Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions.

Why Choose This: By repurchasing, we provide access to the latest features and updates from Azure Marketplace vendors, enhancing innovation and operational efficiency within your organization.

4. Refactoring

What We Do: We redesign your applications to fully leverage Azure’s cloud-native capabilities, such as microservices architecture or serverless computing with Azure Functions, optimizing scalability and agility.

Why Choose This: Refactoring ensures your applications are optimized for Azure, driving innovation and competitiveness by utilizing cloud-native features effectively.

5. Retiring

What We Do: We identify and decommission unneeded legacy apps and consolidate your business-critical workloads to Azure to streamline your IT environment, save money, and address compliance requirements.

Why Choose This: Retiring helps reduce IT overcomplications by directing your attention to other critical areas while handling the risks associated with outdated technologies.

Interesting, right? Apart from these important strategies, we are sharing some additional insights and best practices for Azure cloud migration. Read on!

Additional Insights and Best Practices

Planning and Assessment

At C-metric, we believe successful Azure migration begins with thorough planning and assessment of your current IT environment. We consult with stakeholders within your organization to identify migration objectives, evaluate application requirements, and establish priorities for migration.

Data Migration Strategies

To enhance data transfer to Azure, proper migration strategies should be followed to guarantee that data migration to azure is safe and effective. For big data transfers, we use Azure Data Factory, and for database migration, we use Azure Database Migration Service, keeping data consistent and maximizing data availability.

Security and Compliance Considerations

Data confidentiality and regulatory compliance remain vital considerations as we transition to a new platform. We leverage Azure’s integrated security solutions, such as Azure Security Center and Azure Policy, to protect sensitive data and meet industry standards.

Performance Optimization

After migration, we optimize application through the use of monitoring and Azure analyzing tools. Azure Monitor gives near real-time insights into application performance, and Azure Advisor gives suggestions on how to use Azure resources.

Continuous Improvement and DevOps Integration

As C-metric, we support the implementation of DevOps to enable CI/CD in Azure to enhance software delivery. Using automated deployment pipelines with Azure DevOps and implementing monitoring mechanisms with feedback helps to enhance and evolve operations.

Conclusion

Hope this blogpost helped you understand the top strategies one can use for Azure cloud migration. At C-metric, we’re committed to guiding you through every phase of your Azure cloud migration journey. Whether you’re lifting and shifting, re-platforming, repurchasing, refactoring, or retiring applications, each strategy is designed to meet your unique business needs and accelerate your transformation in the cloud. Contact us today to discover how we can empower your organization with scalable, secure, and innovative cloud application development services.

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Nisarg Rami

Nisarg Rami is a Principal Tech Lead and cloud evangelist. Majorly working in enterprise and mobile solutions for the clients from the US, Europe.