There are numerous reasons businesses nowadays are migrating their on-premise servers to the cloud, such as Azure. To name a few, these encompass improved security, greater reliability, and cost-effectiveness. If you have been wondering how to migrate on premise server to Azure, this step-by-step guide will enlighten the path for you.

Introduction

Microsoft Azure is a commendable choice for businesses aiming to innovate their computing infrastructure as it offers several features such as AI and data analytics, steadily monitored security, a panoptic suite of cloud services, and seamless integration with your preferred tools. This guide will showcase the process on how to migrate on premise server to Azure, keeping the process secure and smooth.

Step 1: Assessment

Map out your current resources for a comprehensive assessment. It includes identifying the applications, data, scripts, and associated configurations that are currently running on your on-premise server. Azure Migrate can be a remarkable tool that can provide an in-depth map of the server's environment, pointing out interdependencies, and consequently simplifying the task of planning the migration.

Step 2: Getting Ready

Prepare your Azure environment for the migration. It includes creating a Storage Account, a Virtual Network, a Network Security Group, and a Windows Server image if you are running Windows on-premises. Validation of each of these aspects is critical for seamless migration.

Step 3: Deployment

You can deploy Azure Migrate to replicate your data from the on-premise server to Azure. It provides critical insights on performance-based capacity and sizing.

Step 4: Replication

Synchronizing your on-premise server with Azure is the next step. Azure Site Recovery serves as a tool to condense all your on-premises applications, data, and configurations and replicate them onto Azure. It creates an exact replica of your server on Azure, guaranteeing no data loss during the migration.

Step 5: Migration

Following successful replication, you can now migrate your on-premise server to Azure. A failover can be triggered from Azure Site Recovery, and post verification, you can commit the failover. This step migrates your on-premises environment to Azure.

Step 6: Post Migration

Post-migration steps involve confirming the server’s accessibility, testing the applications, performance tuning, and optimizing the resources whenever needed. As an advantage, you can run the Azure Cost Management tool to keep an eye on your ongoing costs and manage your budget efficiently.

Conclusion

In conclusion, knowing how to migrate on-premise server to Azure is no longer a tedious process, courtesy of tools like Azure Migrate and Azure Site Recovery that Microsoft provides. This guide aimed at detailing the step-by-step process on securely migrating your on-premise server to Azure. It's important to approach this process strategically, documenting all the changes, and validating each step to prevent any data loss or interruptions in service. Azure, with its advanced set of features and robust handling, can be of immense benefit to your business, and thus it justifies the effort put into migrating.