Migrate on-premises machines to Azure

This article describes options for migrating on-premises machines to Azure.

Migrate with Azure Migrate

We recommend that you migrate machines to Azure using the Azure Migrate service. Azure Migrate is purpose-built for server migration. Azure Migrate provides a centralized hub for discovery, assessment, and migration of on-premises machines to Azure.

Follow these links to migrate with Azure Migrate:

• Learn about migration options for VMware VMs, then migrate VMs to Azure with agentless or agent-based migration.
• Migrate Hyper-V VMs to Azure.
• Migrate physical servers or other VMs, including AWS instances to Azure.

Migrate with Site Recovery

Site Recovery should be used for disaster recovery only, and not migration.

If you're already using Azure Site Recovery, and you want to continue using it for migration, follow the same steps that you use for disaster recovery.

• VMware VMs: Prepare Azure and VMware, start replicating machines, check that everything's working, and run a failover.
• Hyper-V VMs: Prepare Azure and Hyper-V, start replicating machines, check that everything's working, and run a failover.
• Physical servers: Follow the walkthrough to prepare Azure, prepare machines for disaster recovery, and set up replication.

Note

When you run a failover for disaster recovery, as a last step you commit the failover. When you migrate on-premises machines, the Commit option isn't relevant. Instead, you select the Complete Migration option.

Next steps

• Review common questions about Azure Migrate.