Alternatives After the Deprecation of the Azure SQL Migration Extension in Azure Data Studio
The Azure SQL Migration extension for Azure Data Studio is being deprecated and will be retired by February 28, 2026. As part of our unified and streamlined migration strategy for Azure SQL, we are consolidating all migration experiences into a consistent, scalable platform. If you are currently using the Azure SQL Migration extension, this blog will guide you through recommended replacement options for every phase of migration, whether you are moving to Azure SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, or Azure SQL Database. What is happening to the Azure SQL Migration extension in ADS? As you already know, Azure data studio will officially retire on February 28, 2026. The Azure SQL Migration extension in Azure Data Studio will also retire along with Azure Data Studio on February 28, 2026. The Azure SQL Migration extension will no longer be available in the marketplace of Azure Data Studio. What should you use instead? Below is the updated guidance for the migration tool categorized by migration phase and target. 1) Pre‑Migration: Discovery & Assessments Prior to migration, it is advisable to evaluate the SQL Server environment for readiness and to determine the right-sized Azure SQL SKU. Below are the recommended options: A) SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc Use the SQL Server migration experience in the Azure Arc portal for: Instance discovery at scale Migration assessments at scale, including: Readiness assessment for all Azure SQL targets. Performance-based, right-sized target recommendations. Projected Azure costs with the recommended target configuration. Reference: Steps to get started with the Azure Arc assessments- Deploy Azure Arc on your servers. SQL Server instances on Arc-enabled servers are automatically connected to Azure Arc. See options to optimize this. B) Automated assessments at scale using Azure DMS PowerShell and Azure CLI The Azure DataMigration modules in Azure PowerShell and Azure CLI can be used to automate assessments at scale. Learn more about how to do this. Here are the sample templates to automate the assessment workflow: Azure PowerShell DataMigration cmdlets DMS Azure CLI commands C) Azure Migrate For scenarios where assessments are required at data center level including different types of workloads like Applications, VM Servers and databases, use Azure Migrate to perform discovery and assessments at scale. Learn more about Azure Migrate. References: Review inventory Create SQL Assessment Review SQL Assessment 2) Migrations Based on the migration targets, here are the recommended tools you can use to carry out the migration: A. To Azure SQL Managed Instance The following options are available for migrating data to Azure SQL Managed Instance: 1. SQL Migration experience in Azure Arc For migrations to Azure SQL MI, leverage the streamlined SQL Migration experience in Azure Arc which lets you complete the end-to-end migration journey in a single experience. This experience provides: Evergreen assessments and right-fit Azure SQL target recommendation. Inline Azure SQL Target creation. Free Azure SQL MI Next generation General Purpose service that lets you experience the power of Azure SQL MI for free for 12 months. Near zero downtime migration using Managed Instance link powered by Distributed Availability Group technology. Secure connectivity. Reference blog: SQL Server migration in Azure Arc 2. Automated migration at scale using Azure DMS PowerShell and Azure CLI To Orchestrate migrations to Azure SQL MI at scale programmatically, use: DMS PowerShell cmdlets DMS Azure CLI commands Learn more about how to do this. B. To SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines To migrate to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, use: 1. Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) DMS supports migrating to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines using both online and offline methods. Your SQL Server backups can be in Azure Blob Storage or on a network SMB file share. For details on each option, see: Backups stored in Azure Blob Storage Backups maintained on network SMB file shares Note: The migration experience from SQL Server on-premises to SQL Server on Azure VM will soon be available in SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc. 2. Automated migration at scale using Azure DMS PowerShell and Azure CLI For programmatic migrations to Azure SQL Virtual Machines: DMS PowerShell cmdlets DMS Azure CLI commands Learn more about how to do this. 3. SSMS option: SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) migration component If you can connect to both SQL Server on-premises and SQL Server running on Azure VM using SQL Server Management Studio, the migration component in SSMS can help you to migrate to SQL Server on Azure VM. For details, see SSMS Migration component. C. To Azure SQL Database Migrating a SQL Server database to Azure SQL Database typically involves migrating schema and data separately. Here are the options to perform offline and online migration to Azure SQL Database: 1. Offline migration to Azure SQL Database a. Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) portal experience Use Azure DMS portal to migrate both schema and data. Azure DMS uses Azure Data Factory and leverages the Self-hosted Integration Runtime (SHIR). Installation steps are here. b. Automated migration at scale using Azure DMS PowerShell and Azure CLI Use Azure DMS PowerShell and Azure CLI command line to orchestrate the schema and data migration to Azure SQL Database at scale: DMS PowerShell cmdlets DMS Azure CLI commands Learn more about how to do this. 2. Online migration to Azure SQL Database Using Striim To enable online migration of your mission critical databases to Azure SQL Database leverage Striim. Microsoft and Striim have entered a strategic partnership to enable continuous data replication from off-Azure SQL Servers to Azure SQL Database with near-zero downtime. For more details, refer to: Zero downtime migration from SQL Server to Azure SQL Database | Microsoft Community Hub Removing barriers to migrating databases to Azure with Striim’s Unlimited Database Migration program... To leverage the Striim program for migrations, please reach out to your Microsoft contact or submit the below feedback to get started. Summary The table below provides a summary of the available alternatives for each migration scenario. Migration Scenario Guided experience Automation experience Pre-Migration (Discovery + Assessment) SQL Migration experience in Azure Arc / Azure Migrate DMS PowerShell / Azure CLI To Azure SQL Managed Instance SQL Migration experience in Azure Arc DMS PowerShell / Azure CLI To SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine DMS Azure Portal / SSMS migration component DMS PowerShell / Azure CLI To Azure SQL Database DMS Azure portal (offline & schema migration) / Striim (online migration) DMS PowerShell / Azure CLI (offline & schema migration) Final Thoughts Simplify your SQL migration journey and improve migration velocity to all Azure SQL targets, leverage the connected migration experiences in SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc, DMS, and SSMS. For SSMS, as a first step we brought the capabilities to perform assessment and migration to higher versions of SQL Server including to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines. As a next step, we are bringing cloud migration capabilities as well into SSMS. Feedback We love hearing from our customers. If you have feedback or suggestions for the product group, please use the following form: Feedback form As you begin your migration to Azure, we welcome your feedback. If you do not see suitable alternatives for any migration phases, use the feedback form to let us know so we can update the options accordingly.
Azure Migrate Physical Server Discovery - ServerDiscoveryService.exe Crash Bug
Summary The Azure Migrate appliance for physical server discovery fails to complete discovery due to a crash bug in ServerDiscoveryService.exe. The service successfully connects to target servers but crashes during WSMan transport cleanup before any discovery data is collected. Environment Appliance OS: Windows Server 2022 Standard Evaluation (Build 20348) Appliance Type: Physical server discovery (script-based installation) ServerDiscoveryService.exe Version: 2.0.3300.663 .NET Version: 8.0.22 (CoreCLR 8.0.2225.52707) Target Servers: Windows Server (various) and Linux, all on-premises Discovery Agent Version: 2.0.03300.663 Appliance Configuration Manager Version: 6.1.294.1847 Symptoms Target server validation succeeds in the appliance configuration manager CIM sessions connect successfully (logs show "TestConnection succeeded for CIM Session with HTTP protocol") Connections are immediately disposed with "Disposing all connections when the process is shutdown" No discovery data is collected Azure portal shows error 60001 with misleading "Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure'" message Discovery status remains "Discovery Incomplete" for all Windows servers Root Cause The ServerDiscoveryService.exe process crashes repeatedly with an unhandled NullReferenceException in the WSMan transport finalizer. This is visible in the Windows Application Event Log: Application: ServerDiscoveryService.exe CoreCLR Version: 8.0.2225.52707 .NET Version: 8.0.22 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at System.Management.Automation.Remoting.Client.BaseClientTransportManager.CloseAsync() at System.Management.Automation.Remoting.Client.WSManClientSessionTransportManager.CloseAsync() at System.Management.Automation.Remoting.Client.BaseClientTransportManager.Finalize() The crash also triggers an access violation: Faulting application name: ServerDiscoveryService.exe, version: 2.0.3300.663 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure Server Discovery Service\ServerDiscoveryService.exe These crashes occur approximately every 10 minutes. Troubleshooting Completed Verified manual connectivity works: PowerShell Invoke-Command and New-CimSession both succeed from the appliance to target servers using the same credentials Verified WinRM configuration: Targets have WinRM HTTP listener on port 5985, LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy is set to 1 Verified assemblies exist: Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.dll is present in the GAC on both the appliance and target servers Tested both FQDNs and IP addresses: Same failure occurs with both Tested both local and domain credentials: Same failure with properly formatted credentials (domain\user) Verified time synchronization: Appliance clock is accurate Verified appliance is up to date: All components show current versions Tested with fresh appliance: Previously tried OVA-based appliance with similar results; rebuilt using Microsoft's PowerShell script installer on clean Server 2022—same issue Relevant Log Locations C:\ProgramData\Microsoft Azure\Logs\ConfigManager\ClientOperations_*.log - Shows successful CIM connections followed by immediate disposal C:\ProgramData\Microsoft Azure\Logs\ConfigManager\ApplianceOnboarding-Portal-*.log - Shows error 60000 "UnhandledException" with message "Internal error occured." (note: typo is in original) Windows Event Log (Application) - Contains the actual crash stack traces Conclusion This is a code defect in ServerDiscoveryService.exe—a null reference exception in a finalizer is a programming error that cannot be caused by configuration or environmental factors. The service connects successfully but crashes before completing its work. Request Please escalate to the Azure Migrate engineering team for a bug fix in ServerDiscoveryService.exe version 2.0.3300.663.Migrating from AWS RDS for MySQL to Azure Database for MySQL - Considerations and Approaches
This post covers various strategies for migrating AWS RDS for MySQL to Azure Database for MySQL, how to use them to maximize efficiency and cost savings, different migration considerations, the importance of proper planning and preparation, and potential pitfalls that can arise during the process.Deep dive into the SSMA Code Conversion Copilot Architecture
The Problem We Set Out to Solve Migrating from Oracle PL/SQL to SQL Server T‑SQL is notoriously complex. While SSMA’s rule engine covers hundreds of conversion rules, edge cases, custom logic, and nuanced syntax but it often slips through. Developers end up spending hours manually fixing scripts, validating correctness, and worrying about regressions. The Copilot was built to tackle this pain point: augment SSMA’s rule engine with large language models (LLMs) that can reason about tricky conversions, explain their logic, and accelerate the migration process. But building trust in AI‑generated code meant we had to design an architecture that was controllable, reliable, and secure. SSMA Code Conversion Copilot was released back in the month of May and some of the use cases are elaborated here. This blog talks about the inner working of Copilot. ⚙️ Semantic Kernel for Skill / Plugin Management At the heart of SSMA Copilot lies Semantic Kernel, Microsoft’s open‑source framework for integrating LLMs. It offers two big capabilities: Prompt management — defining prompts as reusable “skills” with parameters like model, temperature, and token count. Agentic orchestration — automating workflows by chaining tools and prompts together. For Copilot, we deliberately chose only prompt management at this point. We have also added native skills such as checking the correctness of syntax and semantics but have not used agentic orchestration for the current implementation. ❌ Why Not Agentic Features? Agentic orchestration can be powerful, but in practice it wasn’t reliable enough for production migrations. Tool selection logic sometimes failed, leading to incorrect validations or spurious edits. Moreover, we saw an issue with latency. Instead, we implemented a deterministic workflow that gave us full control. ✅ Manual Orchestration Workflow Our workflow looks like this (please refer to the diagram): Partial Migration: SSMA generates a baseline conversion. Copilot Authentication: The Copilot is authenticated using the inputs provided by the user. This is where the model is also decided. Alternately, the user can use the managed endpoint that is controlled by Microsoft. LLM Completion: Copilot fills in gaps. Moreover, it explains the solution, points out the error that it is trying to resolve in simple language. Parsing & Compilation: A target‑dialect parser checks syntax. This catches unsupported constructs or binding issues far more reliably than prompt tuning. Spurious Edit Detection: LLMs are instructed to only enhance flagged portions of code. Any edits to “correct” blocks incur penalties, with a strict threshold of zero spurious edits allowed. Query Execution & Data Generation: Where possible, we generate minimal synthetic data (two rows per table) to validate equivalence between source and target queries. Semantic Equivalence Checks: For cases where execution isn’t feasible, we use LLM‑based scoring to judge logical fidelity. This loop repeats until syntactic and semantic correctness is achieved. By using this workflow, we avoided regression spirals and ensured predictable outcomes across dialects. This workflow was tested using our built-in evaluation framework which has leveraged the rich test cases of SSMA. 🔑 Feature Comparison Managed Endpoint Authentication was released with SSMA 10.4 in November 2025. Managed Endpoint BYOK Provisioning OpenAI Endpoint No Yes LLM Model Selection Automatic Manual Authentication Mandatory Entra ID OpenAI Endpoint and Key Private Endpoint Support No Yes Cross Tenant Dependency* Yes No Pricing Free Consumption in actuals *Cross Tenant Dependency: The endpoint is hosted in Microsoft tenant while the authentication happens in the user tenant. 🔒 Privacy and Data Handling A critical point: we don’t store your data. The scripts you provide are used only for generating the migration output. Once the process completes, the data is flushed. No proprietary code or schema information is retained. This design ensures: Security: We run OpenAI in Microsoft tenant following all security protocols. Trust: Copilot is a tool, not a repository. Compliance: Aligns with enterprise privacy expectations. 🌟 Why This Matters By combining Semantic Kernel framework, SSMA Copilot delivers reliable migrations without sacrificing flexibility. And with the managed endpoint, it’s now easier and safer than ever to adopt — no keys, no storage, no friction. This isn’t just about faster migrations. It’s about building trust in AI‑assisted workflows, ensuring correctness, and giving enterprises confidence that their data is secure. Get started with your Copilot based migration journey using SSMA for Oracle
Tenant to tenant mail migration from large to small organization
According to Microsoft sales team the answer in https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/migrating-email-from-one-office365-account-to/da67871d-10b3-40d3-9108-cbd0a020c917 is most likely wrong! Can you confirm that? (commenting is not possible anymore) We are a small group in a very large organization now established as an independent company. A very common situation. New licenses for Office365 including everything and all premium have been acquired for our small independent group. The very reason to continue using Office365 is to ensure a smooth migration of Outlook mail including calendar, and only spending a minimum of time on related tasks. MS sales team advice that you can do a migration as in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/cross-tenant-mailbox-migration?view=o365-worldwide, but you require "Cross Tenant User Data Migration", which only is available to "Enterprise Agreement" customers - and of course not for our small group. How can we quickly and smoothly do the migration? In case of a work-around like exporting data to a PST-file, then please observe that this task must be completed in the web app, and we cannot achieve admin privileges in the large organization. The question has been migrated from https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/thread/updatethread?forum=msoffice&threadId=01afb132-ad73-413b-b1ac-6439e24374e8&editType=EditThreadByOwner&messageId=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.
365 Tenant To Tenant Migration
I have a tenant who is not set up to be GCC compliant. We have created another tenant that is now GCC compliant and need to move the tenants from the original tenant to the newly created GCC compliant tenancy. I am not sure how we can go about doing this with the destination and origination having the same domain name. I have created the users with the onmicrosoft accounts, instead of the .org users, but we still have the issue of migration. How do we move these users? What is the expected down time for their domain if we use a dummy domain? I am very concerned this is going to result in a massive loss of data.
