How to Migrate a Two-Tier On-Premises Application to Azure VMs and SQL Managed Instance

Here is a simplified post covering the full migration solution in easy-to-follow steps.

Goals
Application: SmartHotel360
Solution Overview
Prerequisites:
Step-by-Step Guide

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framework/migrate/azure-best-practices/contoso-migration-rehost-vm-sql-managed-instance

Goals

Move existing application to Azure for cost and management benefits.
Maintain equal performance as the on-premises version.
Minimize administrative overhead after the migration.
Use Azure SQL Managed Instance for the database.

Application: SmartHotel360

Tier 1: Frontend web server (WEBVM)
Tier 2: Database server (SQLVM)

Solution Overview

We’ll rehost your application by migrating it to Azure. The database will move to Azure SQL Managed Instance, and the front-end application will run on an Azure Virtual Machine (VM).

Prerequisites:

Azure Subscription
On-premises VMware Environment (ESXi hosts, vCenter Server)
On-premises application with web and database tiers (e.g., SmartHotel360, WEBVM, SQLVM)

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Prepare Azure for your Migration

Create a dedicated subnet for your SQL Managed Instance. This subnet must be empty and cannot be used by any other service.
Create a virtual network (VNET) for your Managed Instance and VMs. This VNET will connect everything together.
Configure custom DNS pointing to your on-premises domain controllers and Azure DNS for the best compatibility.

2. Set up your Azure SQL Managed Instance

Create the Managed Instance in your desired Azure region and select appropriate pricing and storage options.

3. Get Azure Database Migration Service (ADMS) Ready

Register ADMS in your Azure subscription.
Create an Azure Storage blob container and generate a SAS URI. This is needed for the service to access your database backups during the migration.
Create an Azure Database Migration Service instance. Place this in your production network subnet for access to your on-premises database server.

4. Prepare Azure Migrate

Add the Migration and Modernization tool to your Azure Migrate project.

5. Configure Your On-Premises Environment

Deploy the Azure Migrate appliance (download an OVA image, import to VMware).
Discover your VMs. The appliance will find the VMs that you want to migrate.
Set up Accounts: Make sure you have accounts created for accessing and managing your Azure VMs after migration.

6. Replicate the On-Premises VMs

Start replicating the VMs selected for migration. This will create copies in Azure.

7. Migrate the Database using ADMS

Create an ADMS migration project.
Specify source details: (on-premises SQL Server) and target information (Azure SQL Managed Instance).
Provide backups and network share access.
Run the migration and verify that the database has successfully moved.

8. Migrate the VMs using Azure Migrate

Test migrate your VMs into a non-production Azure virtual network to ensure everything works.
Perform full migration. Optionally shut down the on-premises VMs during the final migration for minimal data loss.
Verify and manage VMs in the Azure Portal.

9. Finalize the Migration

Update DNS records for your web application to point to the new Azure VM.
Update the connection string in your application’s config file to connect to the Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Restart your application for the changes to take effect.

10. Clean Up

Decommission your old on-premises VMs. Remove them from vCenter and backup jobs.
Update documentation to reflect the new location of your VMs and database.

Congratulations! Your application is now running in Azure!

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