Why Indian Enterprises Are Migrating to Azure
Microsoft Azure has two data centre regions in India — Central India (Pune) and South India (Chennai) — with a third region (West India, Mumbai) active for specific services. This local data residency, combined with Azure’s comprehensive compliance certifications, makes it the top cloud choice for Indian BFSI, Healthcare, and Government organisations.
Beyond compliance, Indian enterprises migrate to Azure for: reduced infrastructure CapEx, unlimited scalability, built-in disaster recovery, Microsoft 365 integration, and access to Azure AI and analytics services.
Phase 1: Cloud Readiness Assessment
Use Azure Migrate to discover and assess your on-premise workloads. Azure Migrate scans your environment, identifies all servers and their dependencies, estimates Azure sizing and monthly costs, and highlights migration risks. This phase typically takes 2–4 weeks for a 50-server environment.
Phase 2: Define Migration Strategy (6 Rs)
For each workload, choose a migration strategy:
- Rehost (Lift & Shift) — Move as-is to Azure VMs (fastest, lowest risk)
- Replatform — Minor changes to leverage cloud (e.g., SQL Server to Azure SQL MI)
- Rearchitect — Refactor for cloud-native (containers, microservices)
- Rebuild — Rewrite using cloud-native services
- Retire — Decommission unused applications
- Retain — Keep on-premise (compliance, latency-sensitive)
Phase 3: Foundation (Landing Zone Setup)
Before migrating workloads, establish your Azure Landing Zone: management group hierarchy, subscription design, hub-spoke VNet topology, Azure Policy for governance, Azure AD RBAC, connectivity (ExpressRoute or VPN to India offices), and Azure Security Centre baseline.
Phase 4: Wave-Based Migration
Migrate in waves, starting with low-risk workloads: Wave 1 — Dev/Test environments, Wave 2 — File servers & non-critical apps, Wave 3 — Business applications, Wave 4 — Core systems & databases. Use Azure Site Recovery for zero-downtime server migrations.
Phase 5: Post-Migration Optimisation
- Right-size VMs based on actual usage (Azure Advisor recommendations)
- Purchase Reserved Instances for predictable workloads (up to 60% savings)
- Enable Azure Defender for Cloud for security posture management
- Configure Azure Monitor and Log Analytics for visibility
- Implement Azure Backup for all IaaS VMs
Planning your Azure migration? Get a free cloud readiness assessment from Virajo AutoSoft →