Azure Migration Tools: Your Toolkit for Moving to the Cloud 

Your on-premises servers are creaking under the load. The backup tapes are piling up in the corner. And any time someone mentions disaster recovery, there’s an uncomfortable silence around the boardroom table.

Meanwhile, your competitors are spinning up new services in minutes, scaling globally at the click of a button, and paying only for what they use. The cloud is practically shouting your name. Are you ready for the move?

Migrating to Azure doesn’t have to be a scary leap into the unknown.

With the right Azure migration tools in your arsenal, what seems like an impossible task becomes a manageable journey. Let’s take a look at how to make your move to the cloud as smooth as possible.

You could assume migration is as simple as moving from server A to B. But it’s usually a lot more complex than that.

You’ve got to deal with dependencies, maintain security, minimise downtime, and make sure everything works perfectly on the other side. Without proper tools, your organisation can find itself tangled in a web of manual processes, compatibility issues, and unexpected costs.

The right cloud migration tools provide visibility into what you have and help you plan the journey. They automate the heavy lifting, and validate that everything’s working as expected. They’re the difference between a migration that takes months of painful manual work and one that runs like clockwork.

Most importantly, these tools help you avoid the classic migration pitfalls: underestimating complexity, missing critical dependencies, or worse—losing data in transit.

Let’s start with Azure Migrate: mission control for the process. It’s a comprehensive hub that brings together everything you need to discover, assess, and migrate your infrastructure to Azure.

At its core, Azure Migrate helps you answer three critical questions:

• What do we have?
• Will it work in Azure?
• How do we get it there?

The platform discovers servers across your environment (physical, virtual, or even other clouds), assesses their readiness for Azure, and provides the tools to migrate them when you’re ready.

Rather than juggling multiple tools and spreadsheets, Azure Migrate gives you a single dashboard showing your entire migration project. It tracks dependencies between servers, and Azure sizing and costs. It even suggests the right VM sizes for optimal performance and cost.

When should you start with Azure Migrate? Almost always. Even if you end up needing specialist tools for specific workloads, Azure Migrate gives you the bird’s-eye view that’s essential for planning. The only exception might be if you’re doing a very focused migration of a single application or database—in which case, jumping straight to a specialist tool could make sense.

Data is the lifeblood of modern business, and migrating it safely can be the most nerve-wracking part of any cloud journey. Fortunately, Azure offers a suite of purpose-built tools to handle everything from small databases to massive data warehouse migrations.

Azure Database Migration Service

The Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) is your go-to tool for migrating databases at scale. It supports a wide range of source databases (SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Oracle) and handles both online and offline migrations.

What makes DMS useful is its ability to perform online migrations with minimal downtime. Your source database stays operational while DMS replicates changes to Azure, allowing you to cut over when you’re ready. It’s technically complex, but nice and smooth when done right.

Database Migration Service and the Azure SQL Migration extension

Following the retirement of Data Migration Assistant (DMA) in June 2025, Microsoft has streamlined the migration process. The assessment capabilities that DMA provided have been integrated into Azure Migrate, making it a one-stop shop for both discovery and assessment.

Azure SQL Migration extension (for Azure Data Studio) is now the recommended tool for SQL Server assessment and migration. It’s got a modern interface for evaluating your databases and orchestrating migrations to Azure SQL. Think of it as DMA’s spiritual successor, but better integrated with the Azure ecosystem.

Azure Database Migration Service remains the workhorse for actual data movement. Once the Azure SQL Migration extension has assessed your databases and you’ve addressed any compatibility issues, DMS handles the heavy lifting of moving your data to Azure.

SQL Server Migration Assistant

When you’re dealing with heterogeneous migrations (moving from another platform like Oracle, DB2 or MySQL to SQL Server/Azure SQL) the SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) is your specialist tool. It handles schema conversion, data type mapping, and even converts stored procedures and functions.

SSMA is useful when you’re not just migrating but also modernising. Moving from an expensive Oracle installation to Azure SQL Database? SSMA will translate your PL/SQL to T-SQL and help you take advantage of cloud-native features.

Azure Synapse Pathway

If you’re running data warehouses on platforms like Teradata, Snowflake, or SQL Server, Azure Synapse Pathway helps you modernise these workloads for Azure Synapse Analytics. It analyses your existing code, schemas, and workflows, then provides automated translation and modernisation recommendations.

Synapse Pathway helps you move from traditional data warehousing to a modern analytics platform that combines big data and data warehousing technologies.

Best practices for data migration in Azure

Successful data migration involves both picking the right tool and using it wisely. Here are the practices that separate smooth migrations from painful ones:

• Start with assessment: Always run assessment tools first. Finding out about compatibility issues after you’ve started migrating is like discovering you’re allergic to chocolate halfway through a Dairy Milk.

• Test with real data: Don’t just test with a handful of sample records. Use a representative subset that includes edge cases, special characters, and the weird data that accumulates over years of operation.

• Plan for cutover: The technical migration might be automated, but the cutover (the actual moment when you switch systems) needs careful coordination. Who needs to be involved? What’s the rollback plan? How will you verify success?

• Monitor post-migration: The job isn’t done when the data lands in Azure. Monitor performance, check data integrity, and be ready to optimise based on real-world usage patterns.

Azure Migrate comes in super handy when moving servers to Azure. Whether you’re dealing with VMware, Hyper-V, physical servers, or even AWS instances, it gives you a path to get them running in Azure.

Azure Migrate Server Migration

The Server Migration tool within Azure Migrate handles the nuts and bolts of moving your servers. It uses agentless migration for VMware or Hyper-V VMs (no software to install on each server) and agent-based migration for physical servers and other scenarios.

The tool handles replication in a smart way. It takes an initial copy of your server, then continuously replicates changes until you’re ready to cut over. This means minimal downtime; often just a few minutes for the final switchover.

The tool also helps you test migrations before committing. You can bring up a copy of your server in Azure, verify everything works, then delete the test instance—all while your production server keeps running.

Azure Site Recovery

While Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is primarily known as a disaster recovery solution, it’s also a powerful migration tool. In some specific scenarios, it’s the preferred method for migrating servers to Azure.

ASR excels at complex migrations involving:

• Multi-tier applications that need to fail over together
• Servers requiring specific boot orders
• Applications needing consistent snapshots across multiple VMs

ASR has been battle-tested in countless disaster recovery scenarios, making it a reliable choice for migrations. If your migration needs to happen over a weekend with zero room for error, ASR’s proven track record makes it a solid choice.

Not everything fits neatly into the “database” or “server” category. Some migrations need specialist attention.

Azure DevOps migration tools

If you’re moving from on-premises Azure DevOps Server (formerly Team Foundation Server) to Azure DevOps Services in the cloud, there’s a specific set of migration tools designed for this purpose. The migration tools handle work items, source control, build definitions, and all the intricate connections between them.

These tools are particularly important because DevOps data is highly interconnected. A work item links to commits, which trigger builds, which create releases. Maintaining these relationships during migration is really important for preserving your development history and processes.

Microsoft provides the official Azure DevOps Services Migration Tool for supported scenarios, though the process can be complex for highly customised installations.

Azure Backup

While it’s not strictly a migration tool, Azure Backup does play a key role in migration projects. Before you start moving anything, having solid backups gives you the confidence to proceed and the ability to recover if something goes wrong.

Azure Backup can protect your on-premises workloads before migration, maintain protection during the transition, and continue protecting them once they’re in Azure. It’s a safety net you don’t want to ignore.

Third-party tools that complement Azure

Sometimes, Azure’s native tools need a helping hand. Third-party solutions can fill gaps in areas like:

• Complex application discovery and dependency mapping

• Migrating from specific platforms Azure tools don’t cover

• Automated testing and validation

• Cost optimisation and right-sizing recommendations

Consider this: if Azure’s native tools cover 80% of your needs and you’re spending significant time and money trying to solve that last 20%, a specialist third-party tool might be worth it. But if you’re adding a tool just because it has a few nice-to-have features, you’re probably better off keeping things simple with Azure’s native toolkit.

Migration strategies

The cloud migration world loves its Rs: rehost, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, replace. You have to be sure what type of migration you’re going for. Here’s when to use each:

• Rehost (lift-and-shift): Perfect when you need to move quickly or when applications are stable and don’t need cloud-native features. Most Azure migration tools excel at this approach.

• Refactor: Make minimal changes to take advantage of cloud features. Maybe you’ll use managed disks instead of standard storage, or Azure SQL Database instead of SQL Server on a VM.

• Rearchitect: Significant changes to make use of cloud-native capabilities. This usually means moving away from pure migration tools to development and deployment tools.

• Rebuild: Starting from scratch in the cloud. At this point, you’re not really migrating, you’re developing something new.

• Replace: Moving to a SaaS solution. Why migrate that old CRM when you could move to Dynamics 365?

Pre-migration assessment essentials

Never skip the assessment phase. It’s tempting to dive straight into migration, but understanding what you have is definitely important. Run discovery tools, document dependencies, and identify potential blockers before you start moving anything. (And get some expert help if you need it.)

Pay special attention to:

• Licensing implications (some licences don’t transfer to cloud)

• Compliance requirements (where can data reside?)

• Network dependencies (what talks to what?)

• Performance baselines (how will you know if things are better or worse?)

Phased migration approaches

All-in-one migrations are theoretically possible but a lot of the time they’re not the best idea. Instead, phase your migration:

• Start with non-critical workloads: Build confidence and experience with systems that won’t cause panic if something goes wrong.

• Move in application groups: Migrate related systems together to maintain performance and reduce complexity.

• Keep communication paths in mind: If two systems chat constantly, migrating one while leaving the other on-premises could create performance issues.

Testing and validation strategies

“It worked in test” are famous last words in IT. Proper validation goes far beyond basic functionality checks. You need to test with production-like data volumes because a query that runs instantly with 100 rows might crawl with 10 million. Performance under load is equally critical. That database might handle one user beautifully but struggle when 500 users hit it simultaneously during month-end processing.

Every integration point needs checking too. Your migrated application might work perfectly in isolation, but what about all those other systems that connect to it? The overnight batch job that pulls data, the reporting tool that runs complex queries, the third-party application that integrates via API: they all need validation. Don’t forget to verify your backup and restore procedures work in the new environment, and test your failover and failback scenarios. Nothing ruins a Monday morning quite like discovering your disaster recovery plan doesn’t actually recover anything.

Common pitfalls to avoid

In a complex operation like migration, there are plenty of moving parts, and plenty of things that can go wrong. Watch out for these:

• Underestimating bandwidth needs: That initial replication needs to happen somehow. Calculate how long it’ll take to move your data and plan accordingly.

• Forgetting about egress costs: Data going into Azure is free. Data coming out costs money. If you have systems that need to pull lots of data from Azure, factor this into your planning.

• Ignoring identity and access management: Your on-premises Active Directory doesn’t automatically work in Azure. Plan for identity integration early.

• Assuming everything should move: Sometimes, retiring old systems is better than migrating them. Be strategic about what deserves a cloud future.

With so many tools available, picking the right one can feel overwhelming. Here’s a framework that can guide your choice.

Start with these questions:

• What are you migrating? (Databases, servers, applications, or everything?)

• How much downtime can you tolerate? (None, minutes, hours, or days?)

• What’s your source platform? (VMware, Hyper-V, physical, AWS, etc.)

• Do you need to transform or just move? (Lift-and-shift vs modernisation)

⠀Your answers will point you towards the right tools:

• Migrating everything? Start with Azure Migrate for discovery and assessment

• Just databases? Look at Database Migration Service or SSMA

• Need zero downtime? Focus on tools supporting online migration

• Complex multi-tier apps? Consider Azure Site Recovery

• Modernising while migrating? Check out transformation tools like Synapse Pathway

Scenario-based recommendations

Your decision is also affected by the environment you’re working with. Here are some examples:

Small business moving to the cloud: Start with Azure Migrate for assessment, use built-in migration tools for simple workloads, and consider Azure Backup for safety.

Large SQL Server estate migration: Use Data Migration Assistant for assessment, Database Migration Service for migration, and plan a phased approach by application groups.

Disaster recovery becomes migration: If you already have Azure Site Recovery for DR, use it for migration too. You’ve already done the hard work of replication setup.

Multi-cloud migration: Azure Migrate supports AWS and GCP discovery. Use it for assessment, then appropriate tools for actual migration based on workload types.

Cost considerations

Tool costs are just part of the equation. Consider:

• Tool licensing: Some tools are free, others have costs based on usage

• Migration bandwidth: Moving terabytes of data isn’t free

• Running costs during migration: You might be paying for both environments temporarily

• Professional services: Complex migrations might need expert help

• Testing and validation: Budget time and resources for proper testing

That’s a lot of information, but migrating to Azure doesn’t have to be a daunting challenge. With the right tools at hand, you have everything needed for a successful transition.

At Synextra, we understand that behind every migration is a business trying to innovate faster, reduce costs, and stay competitive. If you’re contemplating an Azure migration and want to discuss which tools and approaches would work best for your specific situation, we’d love to chat. As a boutique cloud MSP, we bring the human touch to what can often feel like an overwhelming technical challenge.

Ready to start your cloud journey? Get in touch to explore how we can make your Azure migration as smooth as possible.