Migrating High IO Relational Workloads to Azure for the Win

Background:
In the modern era of cloud computing, businesses are continuously moving towards robust and scalable cloud solutions. Microsoft’s Azure, with its IaaS offering, provides an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to transition their on-premises high IO relational databases to the cloud without compromising performance or requiring refactoring.

Objective:
This presentation aims to provide attendees with a comprehensive understanding of the methodologies, strategies, and best practices involved in migrating high IO databases to Azure using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Key Points:

1. Introduction to Azure IaaS: Understand the core components of Azure IaaS and how it differs from other Azure offerings.
2. Benefits of Migration: Discussion on the advantages of migrating to Azure, such as scalability, high availability, disaster recovery, and cost efficiency, especially for databases with high IO demands.
3. Sizing Assessment: Essential steps and tools to evaluate the current infrastructure, identify potential license savings and understanding of resource usage.
4. Performance Optimization: Dive deep into Azure’s performance-enhancing features such as premium storage, optimized virtual machine sizes, and Azure Blob storage configurations that cater to high IO operations.
5. Migration Strategies: Overview of various migration methods, from the lift-and-shift approach to more hybrid solutions, tailored to different organizational needs and complexities.
6. Post-migration Best Practices: Tips for monitoring, managing, and optimizing the performance of the database on Azure IaaS.

Conclusion:
By the end of the presentation, attendees will be equipped with the knowledge and tools to effectively plan and execute a migration of high IO databases to Azure using IaaS, ensuring correct sizing, high performance, and cost-efficiency.