Episode 3 - Azure Migration Insights with Kevin Evans

We will dive into Azure migration , but before we get started , I want to remind you to subscribe to our podcast on social media so you never miss an episode . It helps us to reach more amazing people like yourself . So today we have a special guest on this podcast called Kevin Evans . Can you start by introducing yourself , please ?

We do like big sky thinking , that kind of thing . You know , I specialize in a couple of domains . I do infra infrastructure right , that's where I started . I also do cybersecurity as well , and I do cloud native as well , right , so nice mix there , right , and they all bleed into each other .

But on a day-to-day basis , I help customers , you know , accelerate their journey into Azure or get the best out of Azure .

So virtual machines you'll be either using ESXi by VMware right , it's very popular Hyper-V or you'll have what we call bare metal right , typically database servers , that kind of thing , right , stuff that needs to raw horsepower , right ?

Or is it requires that dedicated access to the hardware and you need a process of typically getting those services , those workloads , into Azure , right ? But you also need to know how much it's going to cost as well , right ? And what the translation is from on-premise hardware and architecture to what it looks like in the cloud , right ?

Because it's completely two different things . So a lot of people trip up on I'll just migrate what I've got , put it in Azure and it'll work , which is not the case . Which is not the case . You've got to do a lot of discovery , you've got to do a lot of prep work , you need to do a lot of dependency analysis .

We talk about software bill of materials that includes operating systems and architecture . So , thinking about that , you need to know how much it's going to cost , quite frankly , if it's going to work . So I've come across some niche cases over my time , but the major hurdles are we're going to manage it .

In a way , we managed it on premise One , that's inefficient and two , it might not work . So how many ? Azure Migrate Alliance is going to help you Get you the data and the information . So , one , you can make technical decisions and two , you can feed that back to your leadership right in the stakeholders in your organization .

And basically , how much is it going to cost ?

So basically , you can download an OVA image I think it is from our website , get it deployed as an appliance virtually inside your environment , and as long as it connects to the vCenter or the Hyper-V I'm trying to remember what the Hyper-V version is called . I really should know this .

But the virtual machine manager that you get for Hyper-V , as long as you can integrate with the WMI queries , you'll be able to pull that data back centrally , and then what you do is you log , ship those results back up to Azure , right . And then there's a nice tool built into the Azure portal .

The great thing is you can break it up into projects , into sections . So a lot of customers like to start small , but when we think about it , crawl , walk and run with any piece of technology , especially if it's new . So I always say we have this canary face . Well , what servers should we look at to understand how the tool works .

Let's set up discovery on that . What the appliance actually does is one it checks the hardware that that virtual machine's running on how many CPUs , vcores , how much memory it's got storage . What we tend to find is a lot of on-premise servers that are overspec'd . So you buy your piece of tin HP , dell and normally it's overreact .

There's more memory in there than it's required , there's more CPU than it's required , there's more storage than what's required , because you've purchased it right , so you use it , whereas with the cloud you can really right-size it and traditionally hardware isn't like for like .

Hardware in the cloud is more modern and more efficient and we have more different hardware types , right . If we look at Azure right from a virtual machine point of view . So what you'll find is you actually need less cores , less CPUs right , because it's newer hardware . Right , we swap that out constantly .

Right , and that reduces your cost , makes it more efficient . The way it does that is it queries the WMI queries on the server , right , and it also speaks to the vCenter right , if you're using ASXI and it finds out where your peaks and troughs are .

So you may have batch processes running a couple of times a month , right , but normally the CPUs are idling around 30 to 40% . Well , you can do things around that , right , and that's going to make it cheaper for you , I'm sure . But the one thing I really see go on . Sorry , nick , go .

So when we think about how we used to build data centers on premise , we'd have networking , right , connectivity We'd have , we'd have external ISPs helping us , we'd have traditional firewalls deployed , we would manage those virtual machines with different sets of tools . And then it always comes back to landing zones .

Nick , I know we were trying to dodge the question , but it always comes back to landing zones , right , because it's really important that you get this right . It's , you know , the way you are looking at it is if you've got the right foundations in place , whatever workloads you put in there , it's going to help you secure them and manage them right .

I've seen customers that have massive system center environments on premise managing their on-prem and then I show them the automation tools that we've got in Azure or the update manager , right , and all of a sudden this massive operational overhead starts to get reduced .

But things like security , you know , the stuff that we can do in the cloud is more capable than what we could ever have done on premise , right ? So how do we protect our workloads right ? How do we enable HA for our tier one workloads right ? Our diamond apps ? How do we build reliability right ? And that's where the well-architected framework comes into place .

So it's not just about migrating , it's also making sure you've got a safe place for those resources to land , because we want this to be a success , don't we ? Regardless ?

Once you've got your landing zone in place , you figure the whole lot out . You create an Azure Migrate project , you get to appliance on-prem You've already created a site-to-site connection from Azure to your on-premise environment and you start to get some artifacts that are deployed in Azure .

So it gives you a good feel of what's going on and how the platform works , but really understanding exactly what you need . Running agent deployments I mean there is an agentless discovery mode for Azure Migrate , but I would say use agents . It is more work where you get better data and try and run the discovery for at least 30 days .

So you get a full calendar month of the peaks and the troughs of the performance requirements for the workloads that you have on-premise .

It was very bespoke . I'd not come across many kind of architectures like that in my lifetime , in my experience , and we had difficulties migrating that I believe we managed to get around it when we got some specialist migration tools which were outside the Microsoft ecosystem right to help us with that .

But you can't just come and bring everything and you can't bring a server . That's end-of-life . I once had a request from a customer to try and virtualize Windows NT in Azure . Now the folks that are listening and Nick's looking at me like what's Windows NT Right ?

And I had another customer the same with Windows 2003 , server 2008 , and now 2012, . Right , I think most versions of that are end-of-life as well . Right , I see a lot of customers go oh no , what do we do ? We've left it . We've left it . We've left it . Right , we'll put it in Azure .

It's Microsoft's problem , kind of , and it's like no shared responsibility model . So you need to again educate people on the shared responsibility model . And that's a great matrix because it shows you what you need to do as a customer and what Microsoft brings to the table as well . So Microsoft runs its data centers very well .

It's obviously secure on that , but then the stuff that is you as the customer that needs to take responsibility for it as well . I have to educate a lot on that .

So some modernization work might need to take place , some remediation work might need to take place , but when you're talking about migrations , coming up with some low-hanging fruit , we're going to do some IT buzzwords .

Here you get to understand the process of how to move something from on-premise to the cloud and then have it working for your customers or your users which the workload serves . It's also a great way of understanding your infantry . So what I mean by that is a lot of customers go . I didn't know we had that . What's that doing there ?

Well , it's just been running for years . We don't know what it does and no one uses it . Ok , well , we can get rid of that then . It's a great way of cleaning house as well . Ok , brilliant .

I just want to say that I'm going to be a part of the event . It's kind of crazy . I travel a lot for work , right , so it's difficult for me to go to some events , so I have to pick which ones I am , but I miss the European ones . I always see you , nick , you've got the most stamped passport ever everywhere .

So , no , I really enjoy seeing that online as well . One of our folks have gone to an event , but yeah .

The people I get through the door , especially people starting out in tech . It's some of the , the people from all different walks of life , and that's where I got the idea right For this skybound summit . Right , that I'm I'm putting together at the moment in the background is how do I do that ? But make it bigger ?

Because I just want to teach as many , teach as many folks as possible and get them and get as many folks together that are very like-minded as well , right , so we can all have fun and learn some new tech . So , yeah , it's really big for me . It's . It's something that wasn't available to me when I started my tech career .

So you know , just give them back , right .