Azure · Cloud Migration · IaaS & PaaS

The Server Room Is
Costing You More
Than the Migration Will.

Cooling. Hardware maintenance. Physical security. The cost of staying on-premises compounds every month, and the next failure isn’t optional. TechWise migrates mid-market companies to Azure with the same team from design through go-live through ongoing management. No handoff. No context loss.

Talk to a Migration Expert

No commitment · Scoped per environment

● 200+ Cloud Migrations Completed

● Data integrity validated at every phase

● Same team — design through ongoing management

● Microsoft Solutions Partner — Infrastructure & Azure

Two Approaches

Move It As-Is.
Or Modernize While You Move.

Two migration approaches — TechWise scopes which is right for each workload before anything moves. Most mid-market migrations use both.

IaaS · Lift-and-Shift

Move the servers.
Cut the server room bill.

Your existing servers and workloads move to Azure virtual machines, with minimal changes to the application layer, maximum speed to the cloud. Eliminates hardware maintenance and data center costs immediately. Right for most mid-market infrastructure.

→ Windows and Linux VMs migrated to Azure compute

→ File servers and storage to Azure Blob and Files

→ Networking – VPN, load balancing, multi-site connectivity

→ Identity migrated alongside infrastructure. Entra ID, SSO

→ Hardware decommission plan: server room costs eliminated

PaaS · Modernization

Move the data.
Ditch the database server overhead.

SQL Server databases migrated to Azure SQL, not just moved to a VM, but modernized to a fully managed database service. No more SQL Server licensing, patching, or administration. Compatibility assessed and blockers remediated before migration begins.

→ Compatibility assessment: blockers identified before any data moves

→ Blocker remediation before cutover

→ Migration to Azure SQL Database or Managed Instance

→ Geo-redundant configuration post-migration

→ Performance validated against on-prem baseline

How TechWise Migrates

Designed Before It’s Executed.
Signed Off at Every Step.

Most migration problems start before a single server moves. Architecture decisions made under pressure, no documented rollback plan, cutovers that go wrong because nobody tested the environment first. TechWise designs the migration before executing it, and gets written sign-off before each phase begins.

Phase 01 — Discovery

Full environment mapped in writing.

Every server, workload, dependency, and integration documented. Azure architecture designed. Migration plan delivered in writing: what moves, in what order, on what timeline, before any work begins.

Phase 02 — Pilot (if needed)

Validate a subset before committing everything.

For complex environments, TechWise migrates a representative subset first, validating performance, connectivity, and integration in Azure before the full migration proceeds. Catches surprises before they become incidents.

Phase 03 — Migration

Cutovers outside business hours. Rollback ready.

Workloads migrated in planned sequence. Data integrity validated at each step. Cutovers scheduled outside business hours with a defined rollback procedure in place. Nothing goes to production without client sign-off.

Phase 04 — Validation & Handover

Performance verified. Same team stays on.

Performance validated against on-prem baseline. Connectivity tested across all sites. After go-live, the migration team transitions directly to 24/7 ongoing management. no knowledge transfer, no new team, no re-explaining the environment.

Scope

The Scope Is Defined
Before We Start.

Every migration is scoped in writing before work begins. Azure consumption charges are billed separately by Microsoft. They are not part of the TechWise engagement fee.

Included in Every Migration

✓ Discovery, architecture design, and written migration plan

✓ IaaS lift-and-shift and PaaS/SQL migration execution

✓ Identity migration – Entra ID, SSO, directory services

✓ Networking – VPN, load balancing, multi-site connectivity

✓ Data integrity validation at every phase

✓ Written sign-off at each milestone before proceeding

✓ Cutover planning with defined rollback procedure

✓ Hardware decommission planning

✓ Post-migration optimization including right-sizing and cost baseline

✓ Direct transition to ongoing management (same team)

Not Included in This Engagement

— Azure consumption charges billed directly by Microsoft

— End-user device procurement or replacement

— Application code changes or custom development

— Remediation of pre-existing issues found in discovery

— User training beyond role-specific go-live guidance

— Third-party SaaS migrations (Google Workspace, Salesforce, etc.)

Client responsibilities: provide environment access, participate in discovery sessions, designate a technical point of contact, and sign off at each milestone before the next phase begins.

We migrated from physical servers to Azure. TechWise assessed in two weeks, migrated in six weeks, and found $14,000 a month in waste during the cloud cost assessment afterward. The server room maintenance we eliminated more than paid for the migration in Year 1.

CFO — $65M Distribution Company, Chicago

Migration Strategies

The Migration Strategy Is Scoped
Per Workload. Not Applied as a Template.

A 15-year-old ERP system migrates differently than a file server. A workload running at 80 percent utilization migrates differently than one running at 12 percent. We scope the right approach per workload after the assessment. Not before. The assessment is what tells us which workloads should move as-is, which should be modernized, and which should be rebuilt.

Lift and Shift (Rehost)

Move As-Is. Fastest. Lowest Risk.

Lift and shift moves workloads to Azure without changing the application or its configuration. A server running on-premise becomes a virtual machine running in Azure. The workload behaves identically. The difference is where it runs. Lift and shift is the fastest migration approach, carries the lowest risk, and is the right starting point for organizations that need to get out of a data center quickly. It is not the approach that maximizes Azure cost efficiency.

Replatform

Moderate Changes. Better Cloud Economics.

Replatform moves workloads to Azure and makes targeted changes to take advantage of cloud capabilities, moving a database to a managed Azure SQL service instead of running SQL Server on a virtual machine, for example. The application logic stays the same; the underlying infrastructure changes. Replatform takes more planning than lift and shift but produces better ongoing cost economics and reduces the infrastructure management burden.

Refactor

Redesigned for Cloud. Highest ROI. Longest Timeline.

Refactor rebuilds workloads to run natively in Azure, breaking monolithic applications into microservices, moving to serverless compute, or rebuilding on Azure PaaS services. Refactor produces the best long-term cost and performance outcomes but requires the most time, planning, and engineering investment. TechWise advises on which workloads are candidates for refactoring versus which should be lifted and shifted first.

Common Questions

Questions About Azure Migrations.

Cloud migration moves your servers, databases, and workloads from on-premises infrastructure to Azure. The mechanics are well-understood. The risks are not. Most migration failures trace to decisions made before any server moves: architecture choices made under pressure, dependencies not documented, cutovers that were never tested. TechWise runs discovery and produces a written migration plan before any work begins. Written sign-off is required at every phase before the next one starts.

Lift and shift moves your servers to Azure virtual machines without changing the application or its configuration. It is the fastest approach and the lowest risk. It is not the approach that maximizes cloud economics. That is intentional: most organizations are better served getting out of the data center quickly on a known architecture than spending months optimizing before the migration. We right-size and optimize after migration, using real Azure usage data instead of estimates.

Migration timelines depend on workload count, complexity, and approach. A mid-market environment with 10 to 20 workloads using lift-and-shift takes 8 to 16 weeks from assessment to go-live. Larger environments, complex dependencies, or migrations that include replatforming decisions take longer. We provide a phased migration plan with timeline estimates after the assessment. Not before. The assessment tells us how complex the environment actually is.

An Azure migration assessment maps your current environment, determines the right migration approach per workload, and estimates Azure costs after migration. We map every server, workload, dependency, and integration, design the Azure architecture, and produce a written migration plan: what moves, in what order, on what timeline, at what estimated Azure cost. You receive the full assessment in writing before any migration work begins. Nothing proceeds without your sign-off on the plan.

Azure Migrate is a Microsoft tool that discovers and assesses on-premises environments before migration: server inventory, dependency mapping, Azure cost estimation, and migration progress tracking. It is the primary tool we use for every Azure migration assessment. The assessment phase takes two to four weeks depending on environment complexity. Findings are delivered in writing before any migration work begins.

Data is replicated to Azure continuously during the migration period while your on-premises systems run normally. We validate data integrity before cutover. Cutover happens outside business hours with a defined rollback procedure in place. After cutover, the on-premises systems remain available during a stabilization period before decommission. Data loss does not occur in a migration with proper replication and validated cutover procedures.

Azure Site Recovery replicates on-premises VMs to Azure and executes migrations with minimal downtime. It is our primary tool for VM migrations. It replicates your on-premises VMs to Azure in the background while your systems run normally. When we are ready for cutover, we validate the Azure environment and execute a failover. Production traffic moves to Azure with downtime measured in minutes. For most environments, cutover happens overnight with no user impact at the start of the business day.

Post-migration optimization is the process of right-sizing Azure resources after go-live using actual usage data, not pre-migration estimates. It is included in every migration engagement. After go-live, we identify right-sizing opportunities, surface reserved instance candidates based on real workload patterns, and deliver a prioritized cost recovery roadmap. The $14,000 per month found in the client testimonial on this page came from this process.

Tell Us What’s Broken.
We’ll Tell You How to Fix It.

Every managed engagement starts with a free assessment of your environment: no scope surprises. Tell us what’s broken, what’s keeping you up at night, or what you’re trying to build. We’ll tell you exactly what it takes and which model fits.

  • Free environment assessment, before any scope is finalized

  • 30-minute call with a senior engineer, not a sales rep

  • Six engagement models, from project to enterprise SOC

  • Chicago · Philadelphia · Los Angeles

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