Migrating Your Storage to Azure

This article is based on my video https://youtu.be/P6xFQexqHjM and passing its transcript through the GPT-4o model with some human love applied after.

Today, more than ever, organizations of every size are exploring ways to migrate their storage from on-premises environments to Azure. Whether the goal is to improve performance by aligning storage closer to applications for lower latency, to unleash powerful cloud-native analytics and machine learning capabilities, to support AI-driven initiatives, or simply to modernize aging infrastructure, moving data to Azure offers unparalleled opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and future-proofing your IT strategy.

In this detailed guide, we'll thoroughly explore:

• What you need to know related to your requirements
• How to select the right Azure service based on your requirements
• The multiple ways you can perform your migration

Let's get started.

Step One: Comprehensive Assessment

Every successful migration project begins with a clear and precise assessment. Before you move a single byte, you must understand what you have today. Key areas to examine include:

• Storage Type: Are you using block storage like SAN-attached volumes? File storage like SMB or NFS shares? Or object storage such as S3-compatible platforms?
• Access Patterns: How exactly do your applications and users interact with the data?
• Permission Models: What security and access controls are currently in place?
• Resiliency Design: Are you replicating within a data center, across multiple data centers, or even to remote disaster recovery sites? What are your resiliency requirements in the cloud?
• Capacity and Storage Tiers: How much data are you managing? Could you benefit from tiered storage options, such as hot, cool, or archive tiers?
• Performance Metrics: What's the required throughput, IOPS, and latency for your workloads?
• Special Requirements: Do you need high-throughput parallel read/write access, critical for high-performance computing (HPC) or AI model training?
• Churn Rate: How much or your data changes and over what amount of time?
• Workload Mix: Is the workload predominantly read-heavy, write-heavy, or a balanced mix of the two?

There are several robust assessment tools available to automate parts of this discovery, but human analysis remains crucial to interpret results and prioritize requirements. A clear and detailed understanding of your current environment is essential for an optimized migration strategy.

Step Two: Mapping to the Right Azure Storage Target

Choosing the optimal Azure service to host your data isn't just about "lifting and shifting." You want to align your workloads with the Azure storage service that best fits both your current needs and your future aspirations.

Common Azure storage services for migrations:

• Azure Blob Storage: Best suited for cloud-first, API-driven applications. If analytics and AI are on your roadmap, enabling hierarchical namespace transforms Blob Storage into a highly scalable Data Lake.
• Azure Files: Provides SMB or NFS protocol access for legacy apps that expect traditional file shares.
• Azure NetApp Files (ANF): An enterprise-grade option offering dual-protocol access, higher performance, and specialized features.
• Azure Managed Disks: A natural fit for migrating VM-attached block storage from SANs.
• Azure Managed Lustre: Tailored for HPC scenarios where simultaneous parallel access to files is critical.

Quick Mapping Matrix:

• Cloud-native development: Azure Blob Storage
• Data analytics focus: Azure Data Lake
• File share-dependent apps: Azure Files or Azure NetApp Files
• High-performance computing (HPC): Azure Managed Lustre

The right choice ensures optimal performance, cost-efficiency, and easy integration with Azure’s broader ecosystem of services. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-migration-overview has some good information on storage migration approach and a nice flow chart to help pick the target service.

Step Three: Designing Your Migration Approach

With your source environment assessed and your target chosen, you can now design the "how" of your migration.

Migration pathways:

• Online Migration: Direct transfer over Internet or ExpressRoute. Ideal for manageable data sizes and sufficient bandwidth.
• Offline Migration: Use Azure Data Box family devices to physically ship large data volumes when network transfer is impractical.
• Hybrid Migration: Seed large datasets offline using Data Box, then replicate ongoing changes online.

Key factors to evaluate:

• Bandwidth capacity, both externally to Azure and internally within your data center
• Total data volume and object/file count
• Daily change (churn) rate
• Risk tolerance and acceptable downtime windows

For environments with very high churn rates or limited network bandwidth, creative strategies such as dual-write architectures (writing to both source and target simultaneously) may be required.

Step Four: Selecting the Right Migration Tools

Azure offers a rich suite of tools to streamline your migration:

• Azure Storage Mover: A managed appliance that simplifies moving SMB file shares and NFS data to Azure Files or Blob Storage.
• Azure File Sync: Ideal for ongoing synchronization between on-premises Windows Servers and Azure Files.
• AzCopy: A powerful CLI tool for custom, script-driven migrations but hits limitations if you experience problems.

If your data estate is well-understood and relatively simple, these tools often get the job done efficiently.

However, complex migration scenarios often call for more advanced tooling. That's where Microsoft's Storage Migration Program steps in, offering free access to enterprise-grade ISV migration tools like Komprise, Atempo, and others — provided the data moved is net new to Azure.

Benefits of partner tools:

• Advanced data analysis
• Intelligent tiering to optimize costs
• Seamless orchestration of cutovers
• Ongoing synchronization during staged migrations

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/solution-integration/validated-partners/data-management/migration-tools-comparison has details on how to pick the right tool based on requirements.

For even more nuanced needs, commercial migration tools outside the Microsoft-sponsored program are available, offering extreme flexibility — though at a licensing cost.

Strategy Insight: Migrate First, Modernize Later

One of the smartest moves you can make during a migration project is to separate migration from modernization.

Rather than rearchitecting your applications and storage structures before moving to Azure, migrate "as-is" first.

Why this approach works:

• It accelerates hardware decommissioning and infrastructure consolidation
• Reduces project risk by simplifying initial migration efforts
• Unlocks Azure-native tools and services that make modernization easier post-migration
• Eliminates technical and organizational bottlenecks by moving to the cloud first

In short, migrate first, modernize once you're already enjoying the cloud's benefits.

Final Thoughts: A Blueprint for Success

Migrating storage to Azure isn't just about moving bits and bytes. It's a strategic opportunity to set up your data architecture for the future.

Recap of essential actions:

• Perform a rigorous assessment of your current environment
• Carefully map to the right Azure storage service
• Select the right migration pathway based on size, churn, and bandwidth
• Leverage Microsoft and partner tools intelligently
• Whenever possible, migrate first, modernize later

Azure offers an incredibly rich ecosystem, from AI and analytics integrations to cost-optimized tiering, that unlocks powerful new possibilities for your data.

With careful planning and the right strategies, your migration project won't just be a lift-and-shift — it'll be a transformational leap into a smarter, faster, and more agile future.

Until next time, take care, and happy migrating! 🤙