Transforming Data migration using Azure Copilot
Introduction Data migration is critical, yet it is one of the most complex tasks in any cloud adoption journey. Whether you’re moving workloads from on-premises environments, consolidating hybrid deployments, or transitioning from other cloud providers, the migration process involves multiple tools, intricate planning, and risk management. What’s New in Azure Copilot With the new “Storage Migration Solutions Advisor” capability in Azure Copilot, Microsoft is transforming this experience into a conversational, AI-driven workflow that accelerates decision-making and reduces operational friction. Why This Matters Traditionally, customers faced challenges such as: Weeks of advisory time spent choosing the right migration tool amongst the many (Azure Storage Mover, AzCopy, Data Box, File Sync etc., and various Partner solutions). High support overhead due to missteps during migration if a sub-optimal tool or service is used. The Storage Migration Solutions Advisor feature introduces: Conversational Guidance: Share your migration needs with Copilot, like talking with an Azure advisor. Scenario-Based Recommendations: Tailored suggestions based on transfer data size, protocol, and bandwidth. Expanded Coverage: Supports on-premises to Azure, cloud-to-cloud (AWS/GCP to Azure), and hybrid scenarios. Native and Partner solutions: Copilot can recommend Microsoft-native (1P) solutions and third-party (3P) tools for specialized scenarios —ensuring flexibility for enterprise needs. User Workflow: Step-by-Step Initiate Migration: Start with a prompt like “How can I migrate my data into Azure?” or “What’s the best tool for moving 1 PB from AWS S3 to Azure Blob?” Provide Details: Copilot will guide you by asking for details about your requirement, such as source type (e.g., NAS, SAN, AWS S3, GCS), protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, S3 API), target (e.g., Azure Blob, Files, Elastic SAN), data size, and bandwidth. Azure and Partner Solutions: Based on your requirements, Copilot recommends the best-fit Azure solution. If a partner solution is better suited to your requirement, Copilot will also select and recommend the appropriate solution with links to its documentation and/or its Azure marketplace page. Examples Copilot generates recommendations for migrating an on-premises file share to Azure Files. Figure 1 Prompt from user invokes Copilot Migration recommendation workflow Figure 2 Copilot understanding protocols that customer environment has access to Figure 3 Copilot asking user's target Storage type Figure 4 Copilot gathering inputs on data size, network bandwidth availability and transfer direction Figure 5 Copilot recommendation for user scenario Copilot recommends Partner solutions for specialized migration scenarios Figure 1 Prompt from user invokes Copilot Migration recommendation workflow Figure 2 Copilot understanding protocols that customer environment has access to Figure 3 Copilot asking user's target Storage type Figure 4 Copilot gathering inputs on data size, network bandwidth availability and transfer direction Figure 5 Copilot recommendation for user scenario Pro Tips Run a small proof-of-concept migration to estimate throughput and timing, especially for large datasets or small file sizes. Combine Copilot’s recommendations with Azure Storage Discovery for visibility into your storage estate after migration. Getting Started Navigate to Azure Portal → Copilot. Try prompts like: o “Help me migrate an NFS share to Azure Files.” o “What’s the best tool for moving 1 PB from AWS S3 to Azure Blob?” Explore Manage and migrate storage accounts using Azure Copilot | Microsoft Learn for detailed guidance. Ready to simplify your migration journey? Start using Azure Copilot’s Storage Migration Solutions Advisor today and experience AI-driven efficiency for your cloud transformation.
Azure Migrate: Now Supporting Premium SSD V2, Ultra and ZRS Disks as Targets
We are excited to announce that we have added assessment and migration support for Premium SSD v2,Ultra Disk and ZRS Disks as storage options in Azure Migrate, with Premium SSD v2 and ZRS Disks now Generally Available and Ultra Disk in Public Preview. This further enhances the assessment and migration experience Azure Migrate offers and allows you to bring your mission critical workloads to these key Azure Storage offerings seamlessly. What’s New Additional Assessment targets: Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks As part of the migration journey to the cloud, Azure Migrate makes recommendations on what cloud resources to move your workloads to. Post successful discovery of on-prem workloads, Azure Migrate utilizes multiple parameters like size, IOPS, and throughput to make target recommendations in Azure. Instead of just static sizing, assessments can map actual performance demand to Azure VM and disk SKUs, optimizing performance, resiliency, and total cost of ownership to give you a tailored recommendation that fits your cloud migration journey. With today’s announcement, we are adding more supported disks to Azure Migrate, providing you with improved guidance to ensure that you land on the resources in Azure that align with your goals. If you are looking to migrate your demanding on-premises applications and workloads to Azure, you will benefit from these advanced disk options, which come with greater flexibility and enhanced performance. For example, Premium SSD v2 disks decouple capacity from performance, allowing you to dial IOPS and throughput precisely to your workload’s needs. For high-end scenarios, Ultra Disks offer the highest performance among Azure managed disks, while ZRS disks provide zonally redundant storage to further protect your data. With these included in Azure Migrate’s assessment engine, you end up with a right‑sized, data‑driven target configuration that aligns Azure storage choices with how workloads actually run. Below is a snippet of how the assessment recommendations appear in Azure Migrate for Premium V2 SSD disks. Customers can get details on the disk type, provisioned IOPS, throughput, cost, and seamlessly migrate using the assessment to the recommended target. Migrating to Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks in Azure Migrate When Premium SSD v2 or Ultra disks are identified as the optimal targets based on workload characteristics during the assessment phase, they can be auto-populated seamlessly into the migration process. This workflow accelerates the lift-and-shift of on-prem disks to Azure’s high performance managed disks. Below is a snippet from the replication step during migration: Assessing and Migrating to ZRS Disks in Azure Migrate Azure Migrate also has enhanced resiliency by supporting migration to ZRS Disks during Migration. Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) for Azure Disks synchronously replicates data across three physically separate availability zones within a region - each with independent power, cooling, and networking - enhancing Disk availability and resiliency. While creating Assessments in Azure Migrate, you can configure a range of target preferences, including the newly introduced option to enable zone-redundant storage (ZRS). You can opt-in to enable ZRS Disk recommendations by editing the Server (Machine) default settings in the Advanced settings blade. Since the preview announcement for these capabilities, recommendations for Ultra, Premium v2 and ZRS Disks have led to petabytes of data being successfully migrated into Azure. Below is a quote from our Premium v2 (Pv2) customer that was provided during the preview: "Through this preview, we have Pv2 disks recommendations in place of Pv1, which is beneficial for our estate during migration in terms of both cost and performance. We are now awaiting General Availability " – Yogesh Patil, Cloud Enterprise Architect, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) With these added capabilities, Azure Migrate and Azure disk storage are more ready than ever for migrating your most demanding and mission-critical workloads. Learn more about Azure Migrate and for expert migration help, please try Azure Accelerate. You can also contact your preferred partner or Microsoft field for next steps. Get started in Azure today!
