On the enterprise front, Microsoft Azure is slowly emerging as the preferred cloud services platform, overtaking Amazon Web Services. There is a plethora of reasons for this, chief among which is the Microsoft software compendium, which is familiar to a lot of enterprises and individuals, as well as the functionality that Microsoft’s own platform provides to the enterprise user.
A 65 percent majority of IT decision-makers are considering Azure migration, according to a Rackspace survey. In addition to this, due to the constantly improving Microsoft and Azure service catalog, most organizations are starting with Azure as their foundational cloud service platform. However, for enterprises looking to migrate on to Azure, there are a number of potential challenges, present across three primary areas.
For the benefit of the aforementioned enterprises, in this article, we will take a look at the difficulties most commonly faced during migration to Azure, and how enterprises can overcome them.
Deployment-based Misunderstandings
Applications that are hosted on cloud servers and those that are deployed traditionally, are poles apart. Cloud-based deployments have a number of unique concepts associated with them, such as in the areas of resource management and capacity planning. Azure, as a cloud platform, is unique in itself, and the teams responsible for the migration need to first understand the integral concepts, before migration can commence.
Additionally, managers need to realize the platform is different from the ones they have been responsible for; in order to better guide their teams and manage deployments.
Assigning Sufficient Bandwidth
One very common issue with Azure migration is the provisioning of enough bandwidth for the platform to transfer assets to and from local systems. In case the enterprise is using a hybrid cloud solution, this issue is even more prominent. The reason for bandwidth-related issues is that teams and individuals within the enterprise are used to being part of traffic that runs over local area networks which feature high speed and low latency. With the added traffic courtesy of Azure migration, LAN-based networks will be at risk of getting choked out.
Database Migration Barriers
There are a number of modern enterprise applications which are dependent on external databases to function. Now, it is entirely possible to host the application database on-premises, while migrating the applications to Azure, the real benefit is in moving the entire database on to the Azure platform.
Before doing so, however, teams involved in the migration need to recognize and even predict some of the imminent compatibility problems which can occur at any time during the migration of the database. Since it is possible that the foundation database was created and operates with variable types and supported commands that are now obsolete. This poses a problem with converting the database, with minimal to no loss in function or fidelity, which in turn requires alterations to the applications before moving on to Azure.
Planning for Disaster Recovery
It is not likely that a serious application error or loss of data will occur, since Azure already has versatile functionality and accepts a number of application builds, it is always better to have a disaster recovery framework. This is bolstered by the fact that even today, some enterprises have antiquated databases in place, which leave little to no room for adjustability on the cloud infrastructure.
Cloud hosting platforms such as Azure have their own unique set of disaster recovery parameters and scenarios, which have to be taken into consideration, when constructing the disaster management strategy for the applications and databases during migration.
A Broad Analysis on Azure Migration Problems and the Solution
For enterprises taking part in the migration for the first time, which will the case for the majority, it is necessary to consider requirements and planning scope of migration, before transferring to the cloud. Here, training your team to manage and plan the application and database transfer, by virtue of Azure training, can not only help with making the migration easier and more streamlined.
Through Azure certification courses, managers can train their teams to mitigate issues commonly associated with shifts to the cloud, and teams can equip themselves with the tools and techniques required to then function seamlessly in the cloud.