Last update: 06.09.2022
Before this feature came out, I’d personally always used Azure Site Recovery (ASR) as migration method to the Microsoft Azure Cloud. ASR is officially built as Disaster Recovery solution to replicate on-premises servers, wherever it’s Hyper-V, VMware or physical servers, to Azure IaaS (Infrastructure-As-a-Service). Therefore, now instead of using it for Disaster outage / scenarios, you also could use it to perform an actual failover to Azure IaaS and then afterwards stay in Azure without performing a failback back to on-premises!
Take away the small complexities makes migrations to the Cloud just as easy as 1-2-3 without any downtime for the business (if you perform the right steps) … With Azure Site Recovery as migration method, you also have the possibility to test your workload first before going live in a test Virtual Network completely separate from production.
Furthermore, Microsoft also created a cost calculator and dependencies feature integrated in the Migration Service in the form of an assessment. Where you can see what the costs will be in Azure and which sequence is the best approach to follow, think about startup sequences for example. Although I’m not advise you to migrate your complete workload to IaaS for the long time. Azure has a lot more Cloud Services which can replace Windows Server features, to eventually save a lot of monthly costs, with services such as Azure AD Domain Servers, Azure Storage Spaces Direct and Azure SQL Databases instead of a “Do-it-Yourself” SQL in IaaS.
Did you know?
How does it work?
Dependencies
Within the Azure Migrate Console it is also possible to create dependencies to provide the best approach to Azure. Just when Virtual Machines are relaying on other systems in your workload, there is now a possibility to create a collection of machines to make sure the right sequence of migration will apply before migrating to Microsoft Azure IaaS.
Note: For the Dependencies feature, it is required to install a Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) on each machine. The agent is available for Windows and for Linux Operating Systems.
Add the Migrate Service from the Azure Marketplace
Open and login to the Azure Portal at http://portal.azure.com
Open Azure Migrate from the Marketplace
Click on Discover Machines to start the setup of the collector appliance.
Deploy the Collector Appliance in vCenter
The following Discover and Assess screen is showed to you.
To connect the on-premise VMware environment to Microsoft Azure we’ll need to deploy the .OVA VMware template in your on-premise vCenter environment.
After the deployment, we can discover all on-premise server to eventually activate the replication / migration process.
Upload the OVA VMware template to your VMware vSphere Web Console or vSphere Client.
I’d used the vSphere web client.
Note: The Appliance is a Windows Server 2012 Datacenter server. All the required tools for providing the Migrate Tool services are already integrated in the template.
Select the OVA file
Select the Storage Location
The OVA file is being uploaded and extracted, please wait…
Start the Appliance and open the Console
Accept the settings
Enter in the local Administrator password
Log on to the Virtual Machine
Open the Run Collector application on the Desktop
The local setup configuration wizard is started through Internet Explorer, you’ll recognise some steps from Azure Site Recovery.
Let’s start with the setup and accept the End User License Agreement
The setup will perform some pre-checks and automate the required PowerCLI installation.
Make sure all the checkmarks are green before you proceed to the next step!
Click Continue
Note: VMware PowerCLI is needed to perform the discovery and synchronization from vCenter through Microsoft Azure.
Enter in the vCenter Administrator credentials to perform the inventory in VMware vCenter
When the connection is performed correctly, you’d can see the Hosts and Clusters of you’re VMware environment.
Select the VMware Cluster we’re your Virtual Machines are in that you want to migrate to Azure. Click on Continue
Now we need to enter in the Project ID and Key from the steps we’d performed in the Azure Portal during the Migration Service setup
Make sure the green checkmarks return, click on Continue
The final Collection Process is now proceeding. After this the machines will be visible in the Azure Migrate Service
Wait to up to 1 hour to check if the resources are visible in Microsoft Azure.
Switch back to the Azure Migrate Service in Azure.
Open the Migration Project and click on Discover Machines
Click on Discovered Machines
Click on Create Assessment
Enter in a Group Name and Select the Machines that you need to migrate to Azure and click on Create assessment
Switch back to the Migrate Service Overview dashboards and click on the Assessments option
Open the Assessment
Azure IaaS Cost Calculation and migration advisory diagrams
All the machines are listed, including a cost calculation and a short migration readiness as advise to migrate to Azure.
Note: This is screen where you’ll find the estimated costs and advices for the Migration to Microsoft Azure IaaS. There is also an Excel export button to create an Excel sheet.
Click on Edit properties to change the requirements for Workload in Azure IaaS
Note: Please change the Azure HUB settings if you have an EA Agreement and SA on Windows Server!
Click on the Assesment
Click on the Azure readiness
Install the Deep discovery agent on all the VMware machines to get a Suggested (Migration) tool
Perform the installation of the MMA Client
Install the MMA Agent on all the on-premise Virtual Machines you want to migrate / or get the best advice from.
Note: It is not required to install the agent for getting a costs calculation.
Enter in the Workspace ID and Key and click on Ok
The agent is activated successfully….
Please switch back to the Migrate Assessments dashboard.
As you can see, the Suggested Tool for the Active Directory server, on which I installed he Agent on changed from – Required deep discovery – to Azure Site Recovery.
