Migration to Azure - Server Migration Part 1

Hi and welcome to another post from me.

As for today we gonna be taking on Azure Migration or it we put it on lament term is moving your server,application or DB to Microsoft Azure .

All in all this is just a sample diagram that can be use to describe the whole thread because i am planning break part by part. Photo credit to one of the intern at my working place name Fathi.

Server Migration 

Easy way to say is migrate apple to apple from your Data Center and host it at Microsoft Azure via "  Re host " methodology.  rehost  or  "Lift and Shift"will be the easiest step to start the cloud journey for me other than rebuild.

Some tool as you can see from the picture above will be Azure Migrate, Azure Site Recovery and Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter V3(MVMCv3) . I would not explain much on  MVMC at this post as it rarely being use or can consider a last resort method on migration your server to azure.

Azure Migrate 

Azure Migrate is tool that use appliance based server to replicate or copy your server into Microsoft Azure. As the name suggest. it is recommended to use this tool currently on Version 2 and it is agent-less migration. Nothing will be install in your server prior to replicate or copy it over to Microsoft Azure.
Azure Migrate does will so do an assessment prior to Migration to check the readiness of that Virtual Machine before any replication being done. Some report like TCO report, it will also provide the rating of your readiness for migrating the server to azure.

Azure Migrate Version 2 support both Hyper V and VMware 5.5 and above.

Some prerequisite for Azure Migrate for VMware as below

Appliance connection and port details Connection source	Connection destination	Port details	Connection usage
Azure Migrate appliance	Azure Migrate Service	TCP 443 at destination	This connection is used to send discovered configuration and performance data
Azure Migrate appliance	vCenter Server	TCP 443 at destination	This connection is used to communicate with the vCenter server to 1. Collect configuration and performance data for assessments 2. Orchestrate replication- create snapshots, copy data, release snapshot. The appliance connects to vCenter on port 443 by default. If the vCenter server listens on a different port, you can configure the destination on the Discovery Set up UI
Azure Migrate appliance	vSphere / ESXi hosts	TCP 902 on the ESXi hosts (NBDSSL).	For migration, the appliance connects to vSphere/ESXi hosts on port 902 to replicate data from snapshots
Azure Migrate appliance	Azure service endpoints for storage, Azure Migrate, Azure Service Bus etc.	TCP 443	Use to upload replicated data to customer storage accounts and to communicate with the various Azure services involved in orchestrating the replication and migration process.
RDP client	Azure Migrate appliance	TCP 3389 at destination	This is useful to connect to the appliance via remote desktop. This is not mandatory since you can access the appliance management app remotely via a browser as well

This picture show how the azure migrate VMware appliance connection with Microsoft Azure

There are a bit changes on Hyper V site for appliance connection and requirement. 

Connection source	Connection destination	Port details	Connection usage
Azure Migrate appliance	Azure Migrate: Server Assessment Service	TCP 443 at destination	This connection is used to send discovered configuration and performance data
Azure Migrate appliance	Hyper-V host or cluster	Default WinRM ports at destination. Port 5985 for HTTP, and port 5986 for HTTPS	This connection is used to communicate with the Hyper-V host to pull configuration and performance data; a CIM session is used for this connection.
RDP client	Azure Migrate appliance	TCP 3389 at destination	This is useful to connect to the appliance via remote desktop if you wish to kick off the discovery from the appliance

This picture show how the azure migrate Hyper V  appliance connection with Microsoft Azure

Nothing much different from VMware and Hyper V except Microsoft provides OVF template for VMware azure migrate appliance and Exported version of hyper V for Hyper V azure migrate appliance. 

Specification for both appliance as table below. 

Appliance Type	Hyper V	VMware
Type Of Template	Exported VM from Hyper V	OVF Template
Size	12 GB	12 GB
CPU	8 vCPU	8 VCPU
RAM	8 GB	32 GB
Disk	40 GB	80 GB
Connection to Host	Hyper V Host or Failover Cluster	vCenter Server

stay tuned for the part 2