A hands-on guide to migrating the Linux estate to Azure cloud

Business leaders are sold on cloud to fuel innovation, drive agility, and retool infrastructure to be AI-ready. Yet migration and modernization efforts are often stymied by rising costs, security and compliance challenges, and the lack of talent to guide an effective transition.

Microsoft and Presidio are helping organizations make the leap with the Azure Discovery Workshop, a deep dive into the Azure ecosystem. The 3-hour workshop delves into the benefits of Azure cloud, provides hands-on tutorials for critical migration services and tools, and lays out a roadmap for successful migration and modernization of on-premises RHEL-based workloads to the Azure cloud.

Why migrate and modernize on Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure offers stand-out benefits for cloud migration and modernization, including:

• Maximized cloud ROI through Azure Hybrid Benefit for Linux, unique license mobility and flexibility options;
• Elevated business performance and resiliency capabilities as workloads are deployed on the largest cloud network;
• Comprehensive code to native cloud security and compliance for a 219% ROI on security consolidation over three years;
• A secure and AI-ready foundation for scaling advanced AI solutions.

The migration process

Using the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure, a full lifecycle framework comprising best practices, documentation, and tools, Microsoft and Presidio help customers navigate four migration strategies:

• Rehost/Lift and Shift: Moving applications from the on-premises environment to the cloud with no changes to the underlying application.

• Refactor/Repackage: Moving an application to Azure with some code changes, but not a major overhaul of the application.

• Rearchitect: Revamping the codebase of the application and moving it to a cloud-native architecture to take advantage of maximum agility, scalability, and flexibility.

• Rebuild: Scrapping the old system and building the same functionality from scratch using the Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities.

There are three important phases in when migrating to Microsoft Azure:

1. Pre-move: Discover on-premises resources and assess which workloads are ready to be migrated using the Azure Migrate assessment tool. A dependency analysis makes sure dependent servers are grouped together so all components stay in the same location during and after the move. Azure Migrate’s business case feature provides TCO and ROI details with discounts such as Azure Hybrid Benefits, Reserved Instances, and Azure Savings Plan.
2. During move: The planning phase involves setting up the landing zone, and once formalized, agentless VMware capabilities enable workloads to be moved in iterative “waves.” Once in Azure, deployments are tested in a sandbox, and cutover to production happens at pace.
3. Post move: Here the focus is on managing the environment, including optimization, governance, security, and compliance using tools and services in the Azure ecosystem. For example, Azure Hybrid Benefit for Linux is a licensing solution for bringing Red Hat Linux subscriptions directly to Azure. Azure Arc-enabled servers manage Windows and Linux physical servers, and virtual machines hosted outside of Azure with consistent Azure policies and compliance across environments.  Microsoft Defender for Cloud delivers cloud-native application protection across clouds and on-premises environments. The Red Hat Insights predictive analytics tool predicts risks, recommends actions, and tracks costs, simplifying the management of hybrid cloud environments.

Migrating and modernizing the Linux estate on Microsoft Azure is a clear path to innovation, and Presidio can help lead the way. To sign up for a Discovery Workshop, go to https://www.presidio.com/partners/microsoft/