Migrate SQL Server to Azure SQL Database using Database Migration Services (DMS)

The Data Migration Assistant (DMA) helps you upgrade to a modern data platform by detecting compatibility issues that can impact database functionality in your new version of SQL Server or Azure SQL Database. The Data Migration Service (DMA) lets you migrate on-premises SQL Server or SQL Database hosted in AWS or GCP migrate to Azure SQL Database. There are three simple steps require to migrate Database to Azure SQL. There are two migration approach you can take, Offline and Online migration.

1. Assess on-premises SQL Server instance(s) migrating to Azure SQL database(s).
2. Discover issues that can affect an upgrade to an on-premises SQL Server.
3. Migrate an on-premises SQL Server instance to Azure SQL Server

Azure SQL Database Migration Steps

Prerequisites:

• SQL Server sysadmin role
• distributor role for source SQL Server
• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
• Co-Administrator or Contributor role in Azure cloud
• Source Database is SQL Server 2005 or later version
• Target database is Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
• Azure Virtual Network (VNET) for the Azure Database Migration Service by using the Azure Resource Manager deployment model.
• Ensure that your VNET Network Security Group rules don’t block the following communication ports 443, 53, 9354, 445, 12000.
• Download and install the Data Migration Assistant v3.3 or later.

Prepare Target Database:

A single database has a defined set of compute, memory, IO, and storage resources using one of two purchasing models.

1. Log on to Azure Portal
2. Select Create a resource in the upper left-hand corner of the Azure portal.
3. Select Databases and then select SQL Database.
4. In the Create SQL Database form, type or select Database name, Subscription, Resource group, Select source>select OK.
5. Under Server, select Create new.
6. In the New server form, create Server name, location, admin Name and password
7. Choose Select.
8. On the SQL Database form, select Pricing tier. Explore the amount of DTUs and storage available for each service tier.
9. For this quickstart, select the Standard service tier, and then use the slider to select DTUs (S0) and GB of storage.
10. Select Apply.
11. On the SQL Database form, select Create to deploy and provision the resource group, server, and database.
12. Deployment takes a few minutes. You can select Notifications on the toolbar to monitor deployment progress.
13. On the SQL Database page for your database, select Query editor (preview) in the left menu.
14. Enter your login information, and select OK.
15. Enter the following query in the Query editor pane. Select Run, and then review the query results in the Results pane.

SELECT TOP 20 pc.Name as CategoryName, p.name as ProductName

FROM SalesLT.ProductCategory pc

JOIN SalesLT.Product p

ON pc.productcategoryid = p.productcategoryid;

Assess your on-premises database:

1. In the Data Migration Assistant, select the New (+) icon, and then select the Assessment project type.
2. Specify a project name, in the Source server type text box, select SQL Server, in the Target server type text box, select Azure SQL Database, and then select Create to create the project.
3. When you’re assessing the source SQL Server database migrating to a single database or pooled database in Azure SQL Database, you can choose one or both of the following assessment report types: Check database compatibility, Check feature parity, Both report types are selected by default.
4. In the Data Migration Assistant, on the Options screen, select Next.
5. On the Select sources screen, in the Connect to a server dialog box, provide the connection details to your SQL Server, and then select Connect.
6. In the Add sources dialog box, select AdventureWorks2012, select Add, and then select Start Assessment.

Create a Database Migration Services instance:

1. In the Azure portal, select + Create a resource, search for Azure Database Migration Service, and then select Azure Database Migration Service from the drop-down list.
2. On the Azure Database Migration Service screen, select Create.
3. On the Create Migration Service screen, specify a name for the service, the subscription, and a new or existing resource group.
4. Select the location in which you want to create the instance of the Azure Database Migration Service.
5. Select an existing virtual network (VNET) or create a new one.
6. Select a pricing tier.
7. Select Create to create the service.

Create a migration project:

1. In the Azure portal, select All services, search for Azure Database Migration Service, and then select Azure Database Migration Services.
2. On the Azure Database Migration Services screen, search for the name of the Azure Database Migration Service instance that you created, and then select the instance.
3. Select + New Migration Project.
4. On the New migration project screen, specify a name for the project, in the Source server type text box, select SQL Server, in the Target server type text box, select Azure SQL Database, and then for Choose type of activity, select Offline data migration or Online data migration.
5. Select Create and run activity to create the project and run the migration activity

Specify Source On-premises SQL Database:

1. On the Migration source detail screen, specify the connection details for the source SQL Server instance e.g. FQDN of SQL Server, admin name (domain name\username) and password.
2. Click Encrypt Connection. Click Save.

Specify Target Azure SQL Database:

DMS Wizard

1. On the Migration target details screen, specify the connection details for the target Azure SQL Database Server.
2. Select Save, and then on the Map to target databases screen, map the source and the target database for migration.
3. Select Save, on the Select tables screen, expand the table listing, and then review the list of affected fields.
4. Select Save, on the Migration summary screen, in the Activity name text box, specify a name for the migration activity.
5. Expand the Validation option section to display the Choose validation option screen, and then specify whether to validate the migrated databases for Schema comparison, Data consistency, and Query correctness.
6. Select Save, review the summary to ensure that the source and target details match what you previously specified.
7. Select Run migration.
8. After the migration completes, select Download report to get a report listing the details associated with the migration process.
9. Verify the target database(s) on the target Azure SQL Database server.

Monitor & Cutover to Azure SQL Database:

Data migration using SQL Management Studio

1. On the migration activity screen, select Refresh to update the display until the Status of the migration shows as Running.
2. Click on a specific database to get to the migration status for Full data load and Incremental data sync operations.
3. When you’re ready to complete the database migration, select Start Cutover.
4. Make sure to stop all the incoming transactions to the source database; wait until the Pending changes counter shows 0.
5. Select Confirm, and the select Apply.
6. When the database migration status shows Completed, connect your applications to the new target Azure SQL Database.

Migrate a SQL Server database to Azure SQL Database

Azure Database Migration Service partners with DMA to migrate existing on-premises SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL databases to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance or SQL Server on Azure virtual machines.

 

Azure SQL Migration (Source Microsoft Corp)

 

Moving a SQL Server database to Microsoft Azure SQL Database with Data Migration Assistant is a three-part process:

1. Prepare a database in a SQL Server for migration to Azure SQL Database using the Data Migration Assistant (DMA).
2. Export the database to a BACPAC file.
3. Import the BACPAC file into an Azure SQL Database.

Using Microsoft Data Migration Assistant

Step 1: Prepare for migration

Complete these prerequisites:

• Install the newest version of Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Installing SSMS also installs the newest version of SQLPackage, a command-line utility that can be used to automate a range of database development tasks.
• Download and Install the Microsoft Data Migration Assistant (DMA).
• Identify and have access to a database to migrate.

Follow these steps to use Data Migration Assistant to assess the readiness of your database for migration to Azure SQL Database:

1. Open the Microsoft Data Migration Assistant. You can run DMA on any computer with connectivity to the SQL Server instance containing the database that you plan to migrate; you do not need to install it on the computer hosting the SQL Server instance.
2. In the left-hand menu, click New to create an Assessment project. Fill in the form with a Project name (all other values should be left at their default values), and then click Create.
3. On the Options page, click Next.
4. On the Select sources page, enter the name of SQL Server instance containing the server you plan to migrate. Change the other values on this page if necessary, and then click Connect.
5. In the Add sources portion of the Select sources page, select the checkboxes for the databases to be tested for compatibility, and then click Add.
6. Click Start Assessment.
7. When the assessment completes, look for the checkmark in the green circle to see if the database is sufficiently compatible to migrate.
8. Review the results the SQL Server feature parity results. Specifically review the information about unsupported and partially supported features, and the recommended actions.
9. Review the Compatibility issues by clicking that option in the upper left. Specifically review the information about migration blockers, behavior changes, and deprecated features for each compatibility level. For the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, review the changes to Full-Text Search since SQL Server 2008, and the changes to SERVERPROPERTY(‘LCID’) since SQL Server 2000. For details about these changes, links for more information are provided. Many search options and settings for Full-Text Search have changed.
10. Optionally, click Export report to save the report as a JSON file.
11. Close the Data Migration Assistant.

Step 2: Export to BACPAC file

Follow these steps to use the SQLPackage command-line utility to export the AdventureWorks2008R2 database to local storage.

1. Open a Windows command prompt and change your directory to a folder in which you have the 130 version of SQLPackage, such as C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\DAC\bin.
2. Execute the following SQLPackage command at the command prompt to export the AdventureWorks2008R2 database from localhost to AdventureWorks2008R2.bacpac. Change any of these values as appropriate to your environment.

SQLPackageCopy

sqlpackage.exe /Action:Export /ssn:localhost /sdn:AdventureWorks2008R2 /tf:AdventureWorks2008R2.bacpac

Once the execution is complete the generated BACPAC file is stored in the directory where the sqlpackage executable is located. In this example, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\DAC\bin.

3. Log in to the Azure portal.
4. Create a SQL Server logical server

A SQL Server logical server acts as a central administrative point for multiple databases. Follow these steps to create a SQL server logical server to contain the migrated Adventure Works OLTP SQL Server database.

1. Click the New button found on the upper left-hand corner of the Azure portal.
2. Type sql server in the search window on the New page, and select SQL server (logical server) from the filtered list.
3. Click Create, and enter the properties for the new SQL Server (logical server).
4. Complete the SQL server (logical server) form with the values from the red box in this image.
5. Click Create to provision the logical server. Provisioning takes a few minutes.

Step 3: Create a server-level firewall rule

1. Click All resources from the left-hand menu, and click the new server on the All resources page. The overview page for the server opens and provides options for further configuration.
2. Click Firewall in the left-hand menu under Settings on the overview page.
3. Click Add client IP on the toolbar to add the IP address of the computer you are currently using, and then click Save. This creates a server-level firewall rule for this IP address.
4. Click OK.

Step 3: Import a BACPAC file to Azure SQL Database

The SQLPackage command-line utility is the preferred method to import your BACPAC database to Azure SQL Database for most production environments.

SqlPackage.exe /a:import /tcs:”Data Source=<your_server_name>.database.windows.net;Initial Catalog=<your_new_database_name>;User Id=<change_to_your_admin_user_account>;Password=<change_to_your_password>” /sf:AdventureWorks2008R2.bacpac /p:DatabaseEdition=Premium /p:DatabaseServiceObjective=P6

Connect using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio.
2. In the Connect to Server dialog box, enter this information.

• Server type: Specify Database engine
• Server name: Enter your fully qualified server name, such as mynewserver20170403.database.windows.net
• Authentication: Specify SQL Server Authentication
• Login: Enter your server admin account
• Password: Enter the password for your server admin account

3. Click Connect.
4. In Object Explorer, expand Databases, and then expand myMigratedDatabase to view the objects in the sample database.

Using Azure Database Migration Service

Azure Database Migration Service (ADMS), now in limited preview, can help you migrate existing on-premises SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL databases to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, or SQL Server on an Azure Virtual Machine.

ADMS is designed to simplify the complex workflows you can encounter when migrating various database types to databases in Azure.

1. In the Azure portal, select Data Migration Service, and then click New Migration Project.
2. In New Migration Project, enter a unique project name, server source type and a target server type.
3. Click Start.
4. Provide all options under Migration target details, and then click Save.
5. Provide all options under Migration source detail, and then click Save.
6. In the Select source databases list, select each source database you want to migrate, and then click Save.
7. Review the details summary, and then click Run Migration to start the migration. The amount of time the migration will run depends on a variety of factors including size and complexity of the database, source disk speed, and network speed.
8. Once the migration is finished, a Completed status will be displayed in the SQL Migration dashboard.

Migrating VMware Virtual Workloads to Microsoft Azure Cloud

Overview

Migrating to the cloud doesn’t have to be difficult, but many organizations struggle to get started. Before they can showcase the cost benefits of moving to the cloud or determine if their workloads will lift and shift without effort, they need deep visibility into their own environment and the tight interdependencies between applications, workloads, and data. Azure Migrate, Azure Database Migration Service, and Azure Cost Management provides a frictionless approach to moving VMware VMs to Azure.

Microsoft – Cloud Security Certification

Microsoft Azure has been certified by Australian Signals Dicrectorate (ASD), Department of Defence. Check your region to verify Azure certification by the regulator if you have regulatory compliance requirements.

• Microsoft has undergone an Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment of Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and been certified on the Certified Cloud Services List (CCSL) by ASD for Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365
• Microsoft Azure has been awarded PROTECTED classification level by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD). Microsoft Azure is the first global cloud provider which has been awarded PROTECTED
• Azure, Cloud App Security, Intune, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Power BI are awarded certification after rigorous independent assessments of cloud providers by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
• Azure, Cloud App Security, Intune, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Power BI are awarded ISO/IEC 27001 certification meeting criteria specified in the ISO certification

Licensing Cost & Azure Hybrid Benefit

• customers with Software Assurance to run Windows Server VMs on Azure at a lower rate.
• save up to 40 percent on Windows Server VMs
• Use existing SQL Server licenses toward SQL Database managed instances
• Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances to further reduce costs—up to 72% on PAYG prices per year or per three years terms on both Windows and Linux virtual machines.
• pay only for the underlying compute and storage for SQL VM
• 82% savings over PAYG rates on Azure and up to 67% compared to AWS RIs for Windows VMs.
• 49% cost savings estimated using the Azure TCO calculator comparing on-premsies VMware VMs. Actual savings may vary based on region, instance type and usage. Reference Nucleus Research
• You can specify whether you’re enrolled in Software Assurance and can use the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit.

Migration Path

Microsoft offers an end-to-end solution to provide you with a proven framework and tools to migrate your first workload and give you a complete roadmap for discovery, migration, and continual optimization, including better insights and strategies for running your entire datacenter portfolio on Azure. Migrating to Azure is simple three-stage process and focuses on how to identify virtual machines, applications, and data that can easily be moved to the cloud.

Supported Platform

• VMware vCenter Server 5.5, 0 and later version managed virtual machines
• Any On-premises Storage (vSAN, FC SAN, NFS or iSCSI)
• Appliance-based, agentless, and non-intrusive discovery of on-premises virtual machines.
• Currently Azure Migrate supports only Locally redundant storage (LRS). However, once you migrated to Azure, you can use Geo-redundant storage.
• Lift & Shift migration to Azure IaaS Cloud
• Azure migrate will recommend the use of Azure Database Migration Service
• Use Azure Site Recovery Manager to migrate business critical and large VMs to Azure Cloud

Stage 1 – Assess Your VMware vSphere Environment

Use these four steps to discover and assess your on-premises workloads for migration to Azure.

1. Prepare your environment.
2. Discover virtual machines.
3. Group virtual machines.
4. Assess the groups of virtual machines.

Step 1: Prepare your environment

1. To get started with Azure Migrate, you need a Microsoft Azure account or the free trial.
2. Assess VMware Virtual machines located on vSphere ESXi hosts that are managed with a vCenter server running version 5.5 or 6.0.
3. The ESXi host or cluster on which the Collector VM (version 8.0) runs must be running version 5.0 or later.
4. To discover virtual machines, Azure Migrate needs an account with read-only administrator credentials for the vCenter server.
5. Create a vCenter virtual machine in .ova format. Download an appliance and import it to the vCenter server to create the virtual machine. The virtual machine must be able to connect to the internet to send metadata to Azure.
6. Set statistics settings for the vCenter server to statistics level 2. The default Level 1 will work, but Azure Migrate won’t be able to collect data for performance-based sizing for storage.

Tag your virtual machines in vCenter (optional)

Use these steps to tag your virtual machines in vCenter server.

1. In the VMware vSphere Web Client, navigate to the vCenter server instance.
2. To review current tags, click Tags.
3. To tag a virtual machine, click Related Objects > Virtual Machines, and select the virtual machine.
4. In Summary > Tags, click Assign.
5. Click New Tag, and specify a tag name and description.
6. To create a category for the tag, select New Category in the drop-down list.
7. Specify a category name and description and the cardinality, and click OK.

Step 2: Discover virtual machines

Using Azure Migrate to discover on-premises workloads involves these steps.

1. Create a Project.
2. Download the Collector appliance.
3. Create the Collector virtual machine.
4. Run the Collector to discover virtual machines.
5. Verify discovered virtual machines in the portal.

Create a Project

Azure Migrate projects hold the metadata of your on-premises machines and enables you to assess migration suitability.  Use these steps to create a project.

1. Log on to the Azure portal and click New.
2. Search for Azure Migrate in the search box, and select the service Azure Migrate (preview) in the search results, and then click Create.
3. Select the Azure Migrate service from the search results.
4. Click Create.
5. Specify a name for the new project.
6. Select the subscription you want the project to get associated to.
7. Create a new resource group, or select an existing one.
8. Specify an Azure location.
9. To quickly access the project from the Dashboard, select Pin to dashboard.
10. Click Create. The new project appears on the Dashboard, under All resources, and in the Projects blade.

Download the Collector appliance

1. Select the project, and click Discover & Assess on the Overview blade.
2. Click Discover Machines, and then click Download.
3. Copy the Project ID and project key values to use when you configure the Collector.

Deploy the Collector virtual machine

In the vCenter Server, import the Collector appliance as a virtual machine using the Deploy OVF Template wizard.

1. In vSphere Client console, click File > Deploy OVF Template.
2. In the Deploy OVF Template Wizard > Source, specify the location for the .ovf file.
3. In Name and Location, specify a friendly name for the Collector virtual machine, the inventory object in which the virtual machine will be hosted.
4. In Host/Cluster, specify the host or cluster on which the Collector virtual machine will run.
5. In Storage, specify the storage destination for the Collector virtual machine.
6. In Disk Format, specify the disk type and size.
7. In Network Mapping, specify the network to which the Collector virtual machine will connect. The network must be connected to the internet to send metadata to Azure.
8. Review and confirm the settings, and then click Finish.

Run the Collector to discover virtual machines

1. In the vSphere Client console, right-click the virtual machine > Open Console.
2. Provide the language, time zone, and password preferences for the appliance.
3. In the Azure Migrate Collector, open Set Up Prerequisites, and then

o Accept the license terms, and read the third-party information.

o The Collector checks that the virtual machine has internet access. If the virtual machine accesses the internet via a proxy, click Proxy settings, and specify the proxy address and listening port. Specify credentials if proxy access needs authentication.

o The Collector checks that the Windows profiler service is running. The service is installed by default on the Collector virtual machine.

o Select to download and install the VMware PowerCLI.

4. In Discover Machines, do the following:

o Specify the name (FQDN) or IP address of the vCenter server and the read-only account the Collector will use to discover virtual machines on the vCenter server.

o Select a scope for virtual machine discovery. The Collector can only discover virtual machines within the specified scope. Scope can be set to a specific folder, datacenter, or cluster, but it shouldn’t contain more than 1000 virtual machines.

o If you’re using tagging on the vCenter server, select tag categories for virtual machine grouping. Azure Migrate automatically groups virtual machines based on tag values in the category. If you’re not using tagging, you can group virtual machines in the Azure portal.

5. In Select Project, specify the Azure Migrate project ID and key you copied from the Azure portal. If didn’t copy them, open Azure in a browser from the Collector virtual machine. In the project Overview page, click Discover Machines, and copy the values.
6. In Complete Discovery, you can monitor the discovery status, and check that metadata is collected from the virtual machines in scope. The Collector provides an approximate discovery time.

Verify discovered virtual machines in the portal

1. In the migration project, click Manage > Machines.
2. Check that the virtual machines you want to discover appear in the portal.

Step 3: Group virtual machines

Enterprises typically migrate virtual machines with dependencies together at the same time to ensure their functionality after migration to Azure. Azure Migrate allows you to categorize the virtual machines by group so you can assess all the virtual machines in a group.

• If you provided a tag category—which was an optional step while configuring the Collector—groups will be automatically created for the workloads based on the tag values.
• If a tag category is not provided while configuring the Collector, you can create groups of virtual machines in the Azure Migrate portal.

Optional: Assess machine dependencies before adding them to a group

1. In Manage > Machines, search the Machine for which you want to view the dependencies.
2. In the Dependencies column for the machine, click Install agent.
3. To calculate dependencies, download and install these agents on the machine: o Microsoft Monitoring agent

o Dependency agent

4. Copy the workspace ID and key to use later when you install the Microsoft Monitoring agent on a machine.
5. After you install the agents on the machine, return to the portal and click Machines. This time the Dependencies column for the machine should contain the text View dependencies. Click View dependencies.
6. By default, the dependency time range is an hour. Click the time range to shorten it, specify start and end dates, or change the duration. Press Ctrl + Click to select multiple machines on the map, and then click Group machines.
7. In Group machines, specify a group name. Verify the machines you added have the dependency agents installed and have been discovered by Azure Migrate. Machines must be discovered to assess them. We recommend that you install the dependency agents to complete dependency mapping.
8. Click OK to save the group settings. Alternatively, you can add machines to an existing group.

Create a Group

You can create groups of virtual machines from the Machines blade or from the Groups blade, using a similar process.

Create a group from the Machines blade

1. Navigate to the Dashboard of a project and click the Machines tile.
2. Click Group Machines.
3. Specify a name for the group in the Name box, and then select the machines that you want to add to the group.
4. Click Create.

Add/Remove machines to/from an existing group if you require

1. Navigate to the dashboard of a project and click the Groups tile.
2. Select the Group you want to add/remove machines to/from.
3. Click Add Machines or Remove Machines.
4. Select the machines that you want to add/remove to/from the group.
5. Click Add or Remove.

Step 4: Assess groups of virtual machines

Create an assessment

Follow these steps to generate an assessment for the group.

1. Select the project you want under Project.
2. On the project dashboard, click Groups.
3. Create a new group or select an existing group to assess under Group.
4. Click Create Assessment to create a new assessment for the group.

The assessment includes these details.

• Summary of the number of machines suitable for Azure which is referred to as Azure Readiness.
• Monthly estimate of the cost for running the machines in Azure after migration.
• Storage monthly cost estimate.

Assessment calculation

Azure Migrate performs three checks on virtual machines in this order:

1. Azure Suitability Analysis
2. Performance-based sizing
3. Monthly cost estimate

Stage 2: Migrate virtual machines using Azure Site Recovery

Before you start deployment, review the architecture and make sure you understand all the components you need to deploy.

Next, make sure you understand the prerequisites and limitations for a Microsoft Azure account, Azure networks, and storage accounts. You also need:

• On-premises Site Recovery components
• On-premises VMware prerequisites
• Mobility service component installed on the virtual machine you want to replicate.

These are the general steps to migrate:

1. Set up Azure services such as Virtual Networks, Availability Group, Network Load Balancer, Address Space, Subnets, Resource Group, Storage Accounts, Public IPs.
2. Connect to VMware servers.
3. Set up the target environment.
4. Complete migration.

I assume, you have completed the step1. So I am moving on to step 2.

Create a Recovery Services vault

1. Sign in to the Azure portal > Recovery Services.
2. Click New > Monitoring & Management > Backup and Site Recovery.
3. In Name, specify a friendly name to identify the vault. If you have more than one subscription, select one of them.
4. Create a resource group, or select an existing one. Specify an Azure region. To check supported regions, see geographic availability in Azure Site Recovery Pricing Details.
5. If you want to quickly access the vault from the dashboard, click Pin to dashboard, and then click Create.
6. The new vault will appear on Dashboard > All resources and on the main Recovery Services vaults blade.

Select a protection goal

In this task, select what you want to replicate, and where you want to replicate to.

1. Click Recovery Services vaults > vault.
2. In the Resource Menu, click Site Recovery > Prepare Infrastructure > Protection goal.
3. In Protection goal, select To Azure > Yes, with VMware vSphere Hypervisor.

Set up the source environment

In this task, set up the configuration server, register it in the vault, and discover virtual machines.

1. Click Site Recovery > Step 1: Prepare Infrastructure > Source.
2. If you don’t have a configuration server, click Configuration server.
3. In Add Server, check that Configuration Server appears in Server type.
4. Download the Site Recovery Unified Setup installation file.
5. Download the vault registration key. You need this when you run Unified Setup. The key is valid for five days after you generate it.

Register the configuration server in the vault

The next task requires you to run Unified Setup to install the configuration server, the process server, and the master target server. First however, do these three steps.

1. On the configuration server virtual machine, make sure that the system clock is synchronized with a Time Server. It should match. If it’s 15 minutes in front or behind, setup might fail.
2. Run setup as a Local Administrator on the configuration server virtual machine.
3. Make sure TLS 1.0 is enabled on the virtual machine.

Now you are ready to run Setup.

1. Run the Unified Setup installation file.
2. In Before You Begin, select Install the configuration server and process server.
3. From the Third-Party Software License screen, click I Accept to download and install MySQL.
4. From the Registration screen, select the registration key you downloaded from the vault, and then click Next.
5. From the Internet Settings screen, specify how the Provider running on the configuration server connects to Azure Site Recovery over the Internet.
6. If you want to connect with the proxy that’s currently set up on the machine, select Connect to Azure Site Recovery using a proxy server.
7. If you want the Provider to connect directly, select Connect directly to Azure Site Recovery without a proxy server.
8. If the existing proxy requires authentication, or if you want to use a custom proxy for the Provider connection, select Connect with custom proxy settings. o If you use a custom proxy, you need to specify the address, port, and credentials.
9. From the Prerequisites Check screen, run a check to make sure that installation can run. If a warning appears about the Global time sync check, verify that the time on the system clock (Date and Time settings) is the same as the time zone.
10. In the MySQL Configuration screen, create credentials for logging on to the MySQL server instance that is installed.
11. From the Environment Details screen, select whether to replicate VMware virtual machines. If you will, Setup checks that PowerCLI 6.0 is installed.
12. From the Install Location screen, select where you want to install the binaries and store the cache. The drive you select must have at least 5 GB of disk space available, but we recommend a cache drive with at least 600 GB of available space.
13. From the Network Selection screen, specify the listener (network adapter and SSL port) on which the configuration server sends and receives replication data. Port 9443 is the default port used for sending and receiving replication traffic, but you can modify this port number to suit your environment’s requirements. In addition to the port 9443, we also open port 443, which is used by a web server to orchestrate replication operations. Do not use port 443 for sending or receiving replication traffic.
14. In the Summary screen, review the information and click Install. When installation finishes, a passphrase is generated. You will need this when you enable replication, so copy it and keep it in a secure location. After registration finishes, the server is displayed on the Settings > Servers in the vault.

Step 2: Connect to VMware servers

To allow Azure Site Recovery to discover virtual machines running in your on-premises environment, you need to connect your VMware vCenter Server or vSphere ESXi hosts with Site Recovery. Note the following before you start:

• If you add the vCenter server or vSphere hosts to Site Recovery with an account without administrator privileges on the server, the account needs these privileges enabled:

o Datacenter, Datastore, Folder, Host, Network, Resource, Virtual machine, vSphere Distributed Switch.

o The vCenter server needs Storage views permissions.

• When you add VMware servers to Site Recovery, it can take 15 minutes or longer for them to appear in the portal.

Step 3: Set up the target environment

Before you set up the target environment, make sure you have an Azure storage account and a virtual network set up.

1. Click Prepare infrastructure > Target, and select the Azure subscription you want to use.
2. Specify whether your target deployment model is Resource Manager-based, or classic.
3. Site Recovery verifies that you have one or more compatible Azure storage accounts and networks.

Create replication policy

You need a replication policy to automate the replication to Azure.

1. To create a new replication policy, click Site Recovery infrastructure > Replication Policies > Replication Policy.
2. Under RPO threshold, specify the RPO limit. This value specifies how often data recovery points are created. An alert is generated if continuous replication exceeds this limit.
3. Under Recovery point retention, specify (in hours) how long the retention window is for each recovery point. Replicated virtual machines can be recovered to any point in a window. Up to 24 hours retention is supported for machines replicated to premium storage, and 72 hours for standard storage.
4. Under App-consistent snapshot frequency, specify how often (in minutes) recovery points containing application-consistent snapshots will be created.
5. Click OK to create the policy.
6. When you create a new policy it’s automatically associated with the configuration server. By default, a matching policy is automatically created for failback. For example, if the replication policy is rep-policy then the failback policy will be rep-policy-failback. The failback policy isn’t used until you initiate a failback from Azure.

Prepare for push installation of the Mobility service

The Mobility service must be installed on all virtual machines you want to replicate. There are several ways to install the service, including manual installation, push installation from the Site Recovery process server, and installation using methods such as System Center Configuration Manager. Here you can review prerequisites and installation methods for the Mobility Service.

If you want to use push installation from the Azure Site Recovery process server, you need to prepare an account that Azure Site Recovery can use to access the virtual machine.

The following describes the options:

• You can use a domain or local account

For Windows, if you’re not using a domain account, you need to disable Remote User Access control on the local machine. To do this, in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, add the DWORD entry LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, with a value of 1.

• If you want to add the registry entry for Windows from a CLI, type: REG ADD HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy /t REG_DWORD /d 1.
• For Linux, the account should be root on the source Linux server.

Install Mobility Service manually by using the GUI

1. Copy the installer executable to the virtual machine that is being migrated to Azure, and then open the installer.
2. On the Installation Option pane, select Install Mobility Service.
3. Select the install location and click Install to being the installation procedure.
4. You can use Installation Progress page to monitor the installer’s progress.
5. Once installation is complete, click the Proceed to Configuration button to register the Mobility Service with your Configuration server.
6. Click on the Register button to complete the registration.

Configure replication

After you have installed and configured both the Process Server and the Mobility Service agents, continue configuring replication in Azure.

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to Site Recovery > Step1: Replicate Application > Enable Replication, and then click Step 1: Source Configure > Source.
2. In Source, select On-Premises.
3. In Source location, select your Configuration Server.
4. In Machine type, select Virtual Machines.
5. In vCenter/vSphere Hypervisor, select the vCenter server that manages the vSphere host, or select the host.
6. Select the process server or the configuration server if you haven’t created any additional process servers, and then click OK.
7. In Target, select the subscription and the resource group in which you want to create the migrated virtual machines. Choose the deployment model for the migrated virtual machines that you want to use in Azure (classic or resource manager).
8. Select the Azure storage account you want to use for replicating data. If you don’t want to use an account you’ve already set up, you can create a new one.
9. Select the Azure network and subnet to which Azure Virtual Machines will connect when they’re created after migration. Select Configure now for selected machines to apply the network setting to all machines you select for protection, or select Configure later to select the Azure network per virtual machine.
10. Point to Virtual Machines > Select, select each enabled machine you want to replicate, and then click OK.
11. In Properties > Configure properties, select the process server account that will automatically install the Mobility service on the machine.
12. By default, all disks are replicated. Click All Disks and clear any disks you don’t want to replicate, and then click OK. You can set additional virtual machine disk properties later if needed.
13. In Replication settings > Configure replication settings, verify that the correct replication policy is selected. If you modify a policy, changes will be applied to the replicating machine and to new machines.
14. Enable Multi-VM consistency if you want to gather machines into a replication group, specify a name for the group, and then click OK.
15. Click Enable Replication. You can track progress of the Enable Protection job in Settings > Jobs > Site Recovery Jobs. After the Finalize Protection job runs the machine is ready for failover.

Step 4: Complete migration

Because migration is different than failover, it is important to configure Site Recovery for a migration.

For migration, you don’t need to commit a failover or delete machines. Instead, select the Complete Migration option for each machine you want to migrate.

1. In Replicated Items, right-click the virtual machine, and then click Complete Migration.
2. Click OK to complete the migration.

You can track progress in the virtual machine properties by monitoring the Complete Migration job in Site Recovery jobs. The Complete Migration action completes the migration process, removes replication for the machine, and stops Site Recovery billing for the machine.

At this point, your virtual machine has been migrated to Azure and you can begin using the IP addresses you set up in Networking. If you must migrate a database, the next section outlines migrating SQL Server databases using Migration Data Assistant and Azure Database Migration Service. Otherwise, the migration process continues with

Stage 3: Optimize migrated workloads

Cloudyn helps ensure migrated virtual machines continue to deliver targeted resource utilization and best cost by recommending changes. Track costs against budget using spending reports that help identify which virtual machine types are consuming budget and support decisions on how to modify the Azure environment to maximize ROI. Cloudyn benefits include:

• Visibility into resource costs
• Visibility into application and departmental costs
• Budgeting
• Cost optimization with right-sizing guidance

As organizations move on-premises virtual machines to Azure, a best practice is to move workloads through three stages: discover, migrate, and optimize. Microsoft and its partners offer tools to help increase the efficiency and reduce the complexity of those stages.

Release of Server 2012 R2

Microsoft released R2 of the following products.

Windows Server 2012 R2

System Center 2012 R2

Microsoft will also release SQL Server 2014 soon.