Microsoft Azure offers exciting options in terms of on-demand IT resources & scalability, backup & disaster recovery, and security. This cloud platform solves the challenges in your existing on-premises systems. But you should also be aware of the common issues that any company may face while migrating to Azure. Here is a list of the top 10 scenarios you may see while planning to move your organization to Azure. 

• Understanding the paradigm shift 

At the heart of Azure migration, it is important to understand the roadmap of the journey. You should know the differences between applications hosted on cloud and the conventional local deployments. Features such as resource management and capacity planning are different when it comes to cloud. At the bottom line, you should learn these unique qualities of Azure thoroughly and understand the involved mental shift. 

• Allocating the necessary local bandwidth 

Choosing an IaaS platform like Azure places a big responsibility on the bandwidth requirements. With a hybrid cloud solution in place, the traffic between the local and cloud systems is expected to surge. Running your systems over a high-speed, low-latency LAN would become history. And, you need to drive the traffic through a WAN. In this case, the local bandwidth becomes a limitation. So, choose the best Azure migration services to calculate all your cost-benefit tradeoffs due to the bandwidth challenges. 

• System downtime planning 

Any major migration would result in an unavoidable downtime. A zero percent downtime is near-impossible, and it is wise to plan for the downtime well ahead. You need to estimate the amount of downtime cause by each migration step. And, you need to spread out that downtime and schedule the migration, so there is minimum impact. 

• Handling your existing dependencies 

Modern applications often don’t function as standalone applications. Most of the applications are dependent on each other in some way. In the process of migration, this kind of dependencies should be taken care. Migrating to Azure could result in validation errors due to misconfigurations in the connections between applications. So, before moving to Azure this kind of scenarios should be analyzed. You should plan well in advance to avoid critical service interruptions. 

• Common issues in database migration 

Most of the enterprise applications function based on external databases. Migrating these databases to Azure is a good option, but you should be aware of the compatibility issues. Incompatibilities may occur in the supported variable types, when the source database was constructed with obsolete software version. Upgrading the database software without any fidelity loss requires updates at the application level also. And, these steps need the attention of a database specialist before migrating to Azure. 

• Virtual Machine Conversion and Transfer 

VMs help enterprises a lot by saving resources and computational power. With any type of IaaS migration, an additional number of existing VMs would also be included in the migration. With Azure on board, you have an excellent VM hosting provider with wide compatibility of VMs. The range includes Windows Server 2008 R2 and even some Linux VMs. So, before proceeding with the migration, it is a good idea to validate the compatibility of each VM involved in the migration. 

• Security issues 

Security is a major concern for CIOs when they consider moving their IT infrastructure to a cloud platform. The security protocols at the application level caters only to the basic security requirements. It is better to create a VPN with end-to-end encryption while proceeding with Azure migration. 

• Managing and monitoring applications 

Irrespective of the location where your applications are hosted, you have the responsibility of managing those applications. Before deploying to a production environment on the cloud, you should know the SLAs and strategize your capacity planning. 

The Azure platform comes with an Azure SDK that provides a diagnostic API to identify issues. And, you can get the corresponding crash dumps, event logs, and trace failures. Use this API to set monitoring rules and plan your IT functions on the Azure cloud. 

• Application compatibility 

Databases remain on one side of Azure migration but taking care of the application compatibility is also important. Azure app testing is the key to ensure that your applications are working perfectly fine post migration. Load your application in an Azure test environment to initiate the testing. The testing should be a thorough process because serious compatibility issues after production can lead to major service disruptions. 

• Disaster recovery planning 

Data loss due to Azure processing is highly unlikely. However, it is a smart move to keep a disaster recovery plan. The Azure platform itself can be used as a backup of your local storage. This helps you to restore the data loss. Also, ensure that you research on different disaster scenarios specific to Azure and design your recovery plan. 

Get ready for Azure! Plan ahead 

Failing to estimate the scope of Azure and planning the migration requirements are frequently observed mistakes in Azure journey. With a proven Azure migration solution, you can achieve zero data loss, near-zero downtime, and lower your IT costs. Move your business to Azure and increase your business revenue with Deevita, your trusted Azure partner. Drop a mail at sales@deevita.com or contact us at +1-425-502-5094 to know more about our Azure services, from cloud assessment and planning to cloud testing.