Six Keys to Microsoft Azure Migration Success 2016 10th Magnitude
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 3 Why Microsoft Azure? Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 8 Page 10 Page 12 Page 14 The Six Keys for Azure Migration Success Key One: Strike a Balanced Approach Key Two: Ask the Right Questions Key Three: Estimate Value and Cost Up Front Key Four: Take Advantage of Hybrid Cloud Key Five: Embrace Application Modernization Key Six: Optimize Each Workload Page 16 Conclusion and Additional Resources
Why Microsoft Azure? Microsoft Azure adoption continues at a rapid pace. More than 120,000 new subscriptions are added each month. 85 percent of the Fortune 500 use Microsoft Cloud. And Microsoft has more data centers than Google and Amazon combined. AZURE MOMENTUM >120k NEW AZURE CUSTOMER SUBSCRIPTIONS / MONTH 5M ORGANIZATIONS USING AZURE ACTIVE DIRECTORY >1.4M SQL DATABASES IN AZURE >4M DEVELOPER REGISTERED WITH VISUAL STUDIO TEAM SERVICES 2 TRILLION MESSAGES PER WEEK PROCESSED BY AZURE IOT >40% REVENUE FROM START-UPS AND ISVS Companies are gravitating to Azure because of the completeness of its cloud capabilities and its integration with other Microsoft solutions. In fact, a recent Morgan Stanley survey of 100 CIOs found that Azure will edge out Amazon Web Services in both the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) categories by 2019. Whether they re choosing a full public cloud implementation or taking a hybrid approach, organizations migrating to Azure expect the cloud to make their businesses better, stronger and faster. They want to become more agile, more customer-focused and more operationally efficient. The keys to achieving these benefits? A cloud migration strategy that sets them up for success by incorporating Azure from the start. Sources: Microsoft Talks Azure Momentum At Build 2016 Morgan Stanley survey shows Azure will be leading Infrastructure as a Service vendor by 2019 3
The Six Keys to Azure Migration Success To maximize the benefits of cloud adoption, companies need to migrate to the cloud in a smart way. In this ebook, 10 th Magnitude shares the Azure migration success guidelines learned over the course of more than 100 Azure consulting engagements with customers of all sizes across multiple industries: 1 Strike a Balanced Approach 2 Ask the Right Questions Don t just lift-and-shift, but don t go overboard with optimization. Collecting relevant technical and business information up front is critical to deciding what to migrate and when. 3 Estimate Value and Cost Up Front 4 Take Advantage of Hybrid Cloud Don t assume anything about cloud cost and ROI without crunching the numbers. Identify smart scenarios where a move to Azure hybrid cloud makes the most sense. 5 Embrace Application Modernization 6 Optimize Each Workload Application modernization (also called refactoring ) opens the door to a significantly wider array of cloud benefits. Move every workload or application through the 10 th Magnitude Cloud Optimization Lifecycle to achieve full potential. 4
1 KEY ONE: Strike a Balanced Approach Today, organizations of all sizes are interested in a technology model that fully embraces the transformational promise of the cloud. But if they approach cloud migration the wrong way, they are destined for disillusionment. Simply migrating workloads to the cloud with great anticipation but with no strategic plan and then sitting back and waiting for magic doesn t work. These companies are left wondering why they aren t achieving the promised benefits: Where is the cost reduction? The dramatic improvement in scalability? The ease of maintenance? The fault is usually in the migration approach, not in the cloud itself. In 10 th Magnitude s broad experience working with customers on cloud transformation projects, disillusionment primarily results from taking one of two misguided paths: 1. 2. Customers take a simple lift and shift approach to migration without any effort to optimize for cloud, and stop there. While simple lift and shift can work for a small subset of applications where outages or downtime won t cause big problems, that approach doesn t take into account uptime, tuning, monitoring, automation and a whole host of other factors that affect most workloads. Companies go all out and try to cloud-optimize all of their workloads at once and then everything falls apart. An aggressive approach to optimization might seem like it would work, but it doesn t. Companies need to do some basic foundation work and prioritize their workload migration before they move on to advanced optimization, or else cloud adoption won t succeed. A successful Azure migration requires a planned approach, where workloads are assessed up front to determine cloud readiness and optimal priority and timing for migration. The rest of this ebook provides guidance for taking this strategic approach to Azure migration. 5
2 KEY TWO: Ask the Right Questions Information gathering is one of the first steps in any cloud migration project. Deciding what applications to move to the cloud and when to move them requires answering some weighty questions, including: What are the priorities for the business? How does the current application set support those priorities? Which applications are most critical? How compatible are existing applications with the cloud? How ready are they to be moved to the cloud? What is the cost to move and operate each application in the cloud? What are the opportunities and risks involved with moving each application to the cloud? To get answers to these questions, companies need to conduct a series of detailed interviews with both technical and business stakeholders. These interviews should be used to collect and document comprehensive application information that will enable intelligent decisions about migration approach and timing. Information Needed from Application Owners & Stakeholders Application server information (OS, CPU, memory, virtual or physical, etc.) Technical stack details Application dependencies and integrations Service level agreements (SLAs) Current reliability and performance Software licensing model Hardware lifespan Current monitoring processes Information Needed from Business Subject Matter Experts Business objectives and priorities Application use cases and usage patterns who uses application? How often? Criticality of application Data retention requirements Security requirements Regulatory requirements Current challenges from an end user perspective 6
2 KEY TWO CONTINUED: Ask the Right Questions Once all this information has been collected, the team needs to assess each application as a candidate for moving to the cloud. Creating a dashboard that looks at all of the relevant factors for each application aids this process. As depicted in the sample dashboard below, these factors might include: Overview of the application purpose and business value Summary of technical environment and current state Assessment of potential risks when moving to Azure Assessment of potential opportunities/benefits from moving to Azure Recommended actions should the application be migrated to Azure? If so, what approach is required? The dashboard can also include cost estimates for ongoing operation in the cloud was well as cloud migration/implementation cost estimates. This topic is covered in Key Three. Sample Application Dashboard Application Owner: John Smith System Purpose / Business Value: Rental Inventory Management systel, Business critial system, responsible for revenue generation. Current Technical State: Microsoft stack (Windows,.NET, SQL Server, SSRS) Future Changes: Changes to RIM backedn (managed accounts and functions) -.Net services and Stored Procedure Moving to a new HA cluster. 6 physical DV servers (3 in New York and 3 in Los Angeles) Moving to Window 2012 R2 and SQL 2014 Recommendations: Azure Azure Candidacy Rating: Azure Cost Estimate Azure Components Estimated Size (Software Version Upgrade) Estimated Monthly Cost Web Service 1 Web Server A2 Tier $133.92 SQL Database 1 SQL Servers DB:D2 SQL Tier $552.05 Blob Storage DB Backups 1000GB Geo-Redundant $24.00 Total Monthly Servers, TB of GRS $709.97 Current Risks Cloud Benefits Recommended Actions Azure Implementation Estimate PCI-DSS compliance efforts Version upgrade costs Scalability Redunancy Cost Control Stability Cloud Education Upgrade Microsoft product versions Network Architecture & Configuation $7,800 Application Migration and Setup $6,600 Active Directory Configuration $5,950 Additional Supporting Elements $1,650 Total Implementation Cost $22,000 7
3 KEY THREE: Estimate Value and Cost Up Front Cloud s IT model requires a new approach to determining costs and ROI. And, while cost and value estimation is a critical step when planning a cloud migration, companies should keep in mind that cost is NOT what cloud is all about. Cloud adoption often leads to cost savings, but it should not be assumed that cloud will be cheaper in the short run. Accurate cost and value estimation allows allows companies to make to make intelligent intelligent decisions decisions about migration priorities. These These up-front up-front budgeting budgeting exercises exercises can be can helpful be helpful in in determining both specific workload migration timing timing and and overall overall cloud cloud strategy. strategy. It s important to measure ALL cloud-related costs. That includes both: Cloud consumption costs the amount paid every month for cloud usage Cloud migration costs the expense associated with migrating workloads to the cloud Cloud Consumption Costs Microsoft provides a helpful pricing calculator to determine consumption costs at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/. The calculator can be used to configure any scenario based on the Azure services needed, the number of instances, instance size and duration of usage. 8
3 KEY THREE CONTINUED: Estimate Value and Cost Up Front Mapping existing IT workloads to Azure scenarios requires some time and effort. Start with a current state inventory of all VMs/servers with information on: Operating System Some operating systems may need to be upgraded before moving to Azure, an indicator of migration complexity. vcpu/core The number of vcpu or CPU cores is a large factor in determining Azure sizing and pricing. Memory Memory requirements (in GB) are also large factors in determining Azure sizing and pricing. Internal Drive In some cases, the internal operating system drives may impact sizing and pricing. External Drive External drive storage triggers additional Azure costs outside of VM sizing. As a next step, it s important to map each inventory VM to the workload it supports (e.g., website, LOB application, identity/access, etc.). This enables a rollup to a workload-level view and allows for easier visibility into costs and more manageable workload prioritization. Cloud Migration Costs Many companies forget to include the full scope of cloud migration costs in their analysis, leading to inaccurate ROI expectations. It s fairly obvious that migrating assets will consume time and/or budget. However, it s common for companies to overlook the time, effort and budget required to prepare the environment for migration. As part of planning, companies need to identify any obstacles that would prevent a workload from being migrated to Azure. These might include factors like operating system version or SLA compliance. For each workload, any required remediation time must be factored into the migration cost estimate. 9
4 KEY FOUR: Take Advantage of Hybrid Cloud Cloud adoption is gradual process, so a hybrid cloud approach makes sense for many companies. And hybrid cloud topologies have made it possible for traditional enterprises (law firms, banks, manufacturing, etc.) with legacy systems that can t migrate their full complement of workloads for business or technical reasons, to adopt cloud. Azure encompasses a full range of cloud capabilities infrastructure, platform and software as a service which makes it a good choice as a hybrid cloud provider. For companies who are already using some on-premises Microsoft applications, Azure s advantages are even more compelling because it s practically seamless to extend those applications out into Microsoft s cloud. Several paths have emerged as smart hybrid cloud scenarios, enabling companies to achieve the benefits of cloud quickly by focusing on one targeted deployment area. Organizations planning a migration to Azure should determine if any of these starting points make sense based on their goals and current environment. 1. SharePoint Deployment Scenario For the many enterprises that already have traditional on-premises SharePoint deployments, SharePoint makes an ideal cloud entry point. Companies can extend their SharePoint deployments out into Azure and expand their cloud capabilities from there to include Azure Active Directory, disaster recovery and web application delivery. On-Premise Datacenter Microsoft Azure Replication Location Single-tenant SharePoint Deployment Windows Server with Hyper-V Microsoft Azure Active Directory for Business Team Sites App Gateway 10
4 KEY FOUR CONTINUED: Take Advantage of Hybrid Cloud 2. DevOps and Automation Scenario Development and testing environments can be spun up on demand and destroyed on demand in the cloud, making them a common entry point into Azure. However, they need to be configured correctly, which doesn t happen automatically. Azure dev/test environments are a great starting point for companies who want to move away from time-consuming manual configuration processes and instead adopt infrastructure automation and DevOps practices. Azure Hybrid Cloud On-Premise Datacenter Deploy Develop & Test on Virtual Machines Develop & Test Team Secure Channel (VPN or Express Route) Windows Azure Pack Microsoft SQL Server Windows Server Active Directory Hyper-V Private Cloud Bare Metal Servers 3. Disaster Recovery Scenario Azure Site Recovery is a hybrid solution for disaster recovery or high availability, allowing companies to take advantage of the scalability and elasticity of the cloud. Site-to-site recovery is a great option for organizations that aren t yet ready to actually move assets to the cloud. Orchestration Metadata Azure Site Recovery Orchestration Metadata Primary Site Secondary Site Dedicated On-Premises Active Directory Active Directory Compute Storage Network Compute Storage Network 11
5 KEY FIVE: Embrace Application Modernization Before any organization signs up for a Microsoft Azure account or spins up a single VM in Azure, their team needs to have a conversation about not only what workloads will move to Azure but also how they will get there. A lift and shift approach is one answer, but application modernization whether full or partial can open the door to a wider spectrum of cloud benefits. Lifting and shifting an application means moving it to Azure 90 percent as-is. It involves using Azure Infrastructure as a Service for the same application layers needed in an on-premise scenario: storage layer, compute layer and networking layer. But lift and shift is not the only way to go. Cloud is more than just IaaS; it s also Platform as a Service. To use PaaS, organizations need to change the way their applications are written, the way they execute and the way they store data in other words, refactor them. Refactoring applications to become more cloudy allows companies to reap advantages in availability, scalability, speed of custom code delivery and even application quality. The good news is that the decision to refactor is not binary. It s possible to partially refactor by peeling off parts of applications and making just those elements more cloudy. Azure Capabilities YOU MANAGE VENDOR MANAGES On Premises Infrastructure (as a Service) Platform (as a Service) Software (as a Service) Applications Applications Applications Applications Data Data Data Data Runtime Runtime Runtime Runtime Middleware Middleware Middleware Middleware O/S O/S O/S O/S Virtualization Virtualization Virtualization Virtualization Servers Servers Servers Servers Storage Storage Storage Storage Networking Networking Networking Networking 12
5 KEY FIVE CONTINUED: Embrace Application Modernization When does refactoring make sense? Let s look at four scenarios where application refactoring can help companies achieve cloud benefits that go beyond what a mere lift-and-shift approach can deliver: 1. Drive better development and testing practices Microservices have come to forefront as an IT trend, enabling organizations to break applications down into component pieces that can be put into the right performance model and on the right platform. Application refactoring offers an opportunity to move to a microservices-based approach that will allow developers to have the freedom to deploy only the application pieces they need and respond rapidly to changing functional requirements. This enables a more fluid developer experience and a rapid response to evolving user requirements. 2. Deploy, patch and manage traditional applications An existing ASP.NET application can be deployed, patched and managed in Azure PaaS with the same standard tooling as in an on-premise scenario. Without having to worry about VMs or virtual networking, organizations will still have the same level of control over these applications in Azure as they would on premise. 3. Achieve scalability and global reach In a traditional model, geographic scalability requires an entire application to be deployed to additional data centers with the supporting infrastructure replicated at every location. With refactoring, only certain application components need to run in each location instead of deploying the entire application, enabling a much leaner and more cost-effective approach to scaling globally. 4. Increase velocity and innovation Application refactoring lets organizations increase delivery velocity by shuffling and recombining components, putting them in the right performance model and scaling where necessary. They can go from a monolithic environment with full-stack architecture to a model that increases the velocity of software delivery. 13
6 KEY SIX: Optimize Each Workload To have a successful and operationally meaningful migration, the best approach is to envision cloud optimization as a lifecycle with five stages. Every workload or application needs to move through each stage in order to be fully cloud optimized and deliver benefits to the business. 1 ONE: 5 CLOUD OPTIMIZE LIFT & SHIFT 2 OPERATIONS 4 TUNE ASSUMPTIONS 3 Lift & Shift This is the foundation for the lifecycle. It s about making sure an application runs in the cloud at the most basic level. Cloud migration starts here, but shouldn t end here for most applications (see Key Five to understand the benefits of moving beyond a lift and shift approach). 14
6 KEY SIX CONTINUED: Optimize Each Workload Operations At this stage, operational monitoring and application monitoring is implemented. Now the application runs smoothly in the cloud and is constantly checked for status, scaling requirements and problems. Assumptions This stage involves examining how the application operates in a cloud model, challenging assumptions about the environment and implementing core SLA requirements. The goal of this stage is to reshape the architecture that supports the application, without changing the application itself (which happens in a later stage). In Microsoft Azure, an example would be the implementation of a SQL cluster as opposed to a single SQL server. Tune Tuning is essential to allocating cloud resources efficiently and cost-effectively for example, ensuring the application has enough compute power without overspending. This stage also includes tuning for automation, which is an important driver for cloud benefits. Cloud Optimization The final stage involves application refactoring to create fully cloud-optimized applications (as covered in Key Five ). The goal is to transition from the Infrastructure as a Service part of the cloud stack, to Platform as a Service where cloud provides an ongoing, flexible application development platform. How Long Does It Take to Fully Optimize? In terms of time to complete the cloud optimization lifecycle, one application can take a few weeks to complete, and an entire data center with multiple applications can take months to fully cloud optimize. The good news is that the process will get faster over time since automation and tuning practices implemented in initial rounds can be reused for subsequent workloads. It s tempting to transition multiple applications at once, but tackling individual applications and workloads is the best way to ensure the optimization process is completed successfully. Organizations that take their time and follow this staged strategy will be well positioned to gain the full complement of Azure benefits. 15
Conclusion and Additional Resources Organizations who follow the six keys described in this ebook will set themselves up for maximum Azure migration success. The investment in upfront planning and optimization will result in greater cloud benefits: increased operational efficiency, agility, customer responsiveness, cost streamlining, scalability and security. For additional advice on successfully migrating to Azure, check out these resources: Three Smart Ways to Move to Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure A webinar expanding on the hybrid cloud scenarios described in Key Four Lifting and Shifting v. Refactoring Enterprise Applications for Microsoft Azure A webinar that expands on the application refactoring scenarios described in Key Five Cloud Services Due Diligence Checklist Microsoft created this checklist based on international standard ISO/IEC 19086-1 to help organizations identify their own performance, service, data management and governance objectives and requirements as they consider a move to the cloud. Enterprise Cloud Strategy A practical guide to Azure migration that includes migration principles and stages, cloud architecture blueprints, enterprise cloud computing technology scenarios, and cloud migration priority examples. How 10 th Magnitude Can Help 10 th Magnitude is the top Microsoft Azure consulting firm in the U.S., offering a full suite of Azure-based services. We help companies move the right areas of their existing IT infrastructure into Microsoft Azure creating either a public- or hybrid-cloud footprint based on their goals and requirements. 10 th Magnitude has created proprietary tools and methodologies to help guide customers through successful Azure migrations, including: Cloud Readiness Assessment Deciding how and when to transition workloads to the cloud is essential to optimizing cost and business agility. 10 th Magnitude s Cloud Readiness Assessment (CRA) determines optimal priority, timing and architecture for migrating applications and their supporting environments to the cloud. Azure Utilization Value Analysis 10 th Magnitude has developed a proprietary dashboard tool that incorporates a customer s workload data with data from hundreds of other Azure implementations to model Azure investment and savings. Our Azure Utilization Value Analysis (UVA) helps customers determine which workloads to move and at what time to maximize value. 16
About 10 th Magnitude 10 th Magnitude helps businesses transform with innovative, cloud-based solutions that harness the power of Microsoft Azure, including: Azure Migration and Data Center Transformation DevOps, Automation and Continuous Delivery Internet of Things and Azure Analytics Application Modernization and Cloud Development 10 th Magnitude combines elements from multiple deep cloud competencies, as well as the most efficient and innovative technology tools and platforms to help clients become more agile, more customer-focused and more operationally efficient. A Microsoft Gold Cloud Platform Partner and a Chef Certified Partner, 10 th Magnitude is headquartered in Chicago with offices around the U.S. and clients worldwide. www.10thmagnitude.com