Accelerate Cloud Migration with Wave Planning in Azure Migrate
ShubhamJain92 walks through the new wave planning capability in Azure Migrate, highlighting how this feature organizes and accelerates enterprise cloud migrations for improved predictability and reduced risk.
Accelerate Cloud Migration with Wave Planning in Azure Migrate
Introduction
Migrating to the cloud can be challenging, with complex dependencies and risks that can slow organizational progress. Azure Migrate’s new wave planning feature—now in public preview—helps enterprises address these challenges by organizing the migration journey into logical, iterative waves. This structured approach brings speed, control, and confidence to every step of the process.
Key Benefits
- Accelerate migrations: Quickly identify and prioritize ‘quick win’ workloads by leveraging discovery and assessment insights.
- Reduced risks: Group interdependent systems with application grouping, dependency analysis, and tagging to enable safer, iterative migrations.
- Increased predictability: Centrally visualize migration timelines and progress for continuous feedback and proactive adjustment.
- Application-centric planning: Enable migrations and modernization at the application level, aligning IT efforts with business needs.
Concepts and Stages
Planning Stage
- Organize applications and workloads into waves based on business priorities and technical dependencies.
- Use tags, dependency analysis, and workload data to create logical migration groups.
- Define Azure targets and select appropriate migration tools based on Azure Migrate recommendations.
- Establish comprehensive wave plans, detailing steps, timelines, and resources needed.
Execution Stage
- Execute and modernize application workloads in the defined waves.
- Track migration and modernization activities centrally for all workloads within each wave.
- Integrate server migration activities using Azure native tools like Azure Database Migration Service.
- Enable end-to-end migration workflows from on-premises or other clouds to Azure Virtual Machines.
- Continuously monitor wave progress, compare with planned timelines, and implement corrective actions if needed.
Continuous Improvement
Wave planning transforms migration from a single event into an ongoing process. Organizations benefit by iterating, learning, and adapting, ultimately reducing risk while gaining value from the cloud transformation.
Getting Started
- Azure Migrate – Wave planning
- Cloud Adoption Framework: Wave Planning Guidance
- Overview of Azure Migrate
- Application-centric migration in Azure Migrate
Updated: Nov 11, 2025
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