Rehost

Rehosting is the basic approach to the lift and shift model. There are no code changes and it is basically the fastest way to migrate. I just want to remind everyone that this can be the costliest approach to moving to Azure, but is arguably the simplest.

We use this approach in the following situations:

• There is a need to move applications into Azure quickly
• Applications require being run on a VM
• You do not want to change code or can’t (no source code)

Once migrated, I will look for opportunities to optimize, but usually in this scenario there aren't many opportunities other than rapid scaling.. Let’s look at what this would look like:

Some good tools to assist in this type of migration are the following:

• Azure Site Recovery: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/site-recovery/
• Data Migration Tool: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/database-migration/

Now, it is at this point that we need to remember that this type of environment will need boundaries like an on-premise environment does, so don’t forget about your firewalls, load balancer, and routing. Quite a few organizations forget about these and then get burned on their budget because of the cost of these resources. With the complexity of on-premise networks, you should list all the resources you will need. Also, keep in mind, that you can use your licenses to help lower the cost of the VM in Azure.