In the previous two trips of this articles series, databases trip to SQL Server on Azure VM and to Azure SQL Database, we discussed the benefits of migrating your on-premises SQL Server databases to the Microsoft Azure database platforms and the methods that can be followed to migrate the on-premises databases to the Azure database platforms.

In the previous articles of this series, we built the bridge that leads us to the best way of migrating our SQL workload to Microsoft Azure, by showing how to create the databases migration strategy that contains a deep study of the current environment and the available options in Azure to replace the on-premises setup, which we tried to make it easier by providing all Azure database services and the workload that fits each service, and finally, we introduced several Microsoft tools and services that can be used to assess the current setup, provide migration guidance steps and migrate the databases to Microsoft Azure services with the minimal downtime.

In the previous articles of this series we discussed how to draw the initial strategy when planning to migrate the SQL workload to Microsoft Azure, the different database target platforms provided by Microsoft Azure that can be used as a migration target, based on the workload type, and finally, we went through some tools that help in discovering and assessing the on-premises environment by identifying the migration blocking issues and providing guidance steps for the migration process.

In the previous articles, Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Planning the jump and Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Services Selection, we discussed the steps that you should follow when you start thinking loudly that you need to migrate your SQL workload to Azure, by checking your on-prem site and the available services and features in Azure that meet your workload handling requirements. After that, we went through different database services provided by Azure and which one fits a specific workload, in order to make it easy for you to translate the current workload as an Azure service.

In the previous article, Migrating SQL workloads to Microsoft Azure: Planning the jump, we discussed the main points that should be checked and considered while drawing your plan to migrate the SQL workload from the on-premises datacenters to Microsoft Azure. In this article, we will go through the different database services that are provided by Microsoft Azure to help you in selecting the proper service that can serve your SQL workload when migrating it to Microsoft Azure.

In this article, we will discuss several points that should be considered when planning to migrate the on-premises SQL workload to Microsoft Azure cloud services. This article is the first step in a series of articles that discuss how to perform the SQL and No-SQL workload migration smoothly to the cloud.