In the first section of the course, Cloud Migration Overview, we will address general techniques that are best practices for migrating to the cloud as well as specific features that will support migrating databases and virtual machines to the cloud. We will begin with the importance of establishing a solid performance baseline before migration as well as the importance of documenting your candidate system. We will also look at planning a good time frame for your migration and some of the factors that you need to consider when scheduling your migration window. In addition, we will look at some post-migration steps that are necessary to ensure that your system is operating correctly after the migration has taken place.

In the next section of the class, we will look at database migration and some of the issues that are involved when migrating an on-premise database to the cloud. We will also look at the two major types of migrations homogeneous and heterogeneous and some of the issues that are unique to both of these types of migrations. In addition to the mechanics of performing the migration, we will look at some of the performance considerations when migrating an on-premise database system to the cloud. To conclude the section, we will migrate a database using both homogeneous and heterogeneous techniques.

Next, we will take an in-depth look at virtual machine migrations. We will look at the various techniques that can be used to perform virtual machine migrations and detail the different hypervisors from which virtual machines can originate. We will look at the various operating systems that can be migrated and go in-depth on the file formats used to migrate virtual machines.

The benefits of this are in the area of Disaster Recovery. The section will conclude discussing and walking through various ways that migrating to the cloud can be used to greatly assist Disaster Recovery efforts. This is an introductory course, and while the intent is not to provide an in-depth example on every possible cloud migration technique, it will provide a solid foundation in cloud migration and the skills to move forward with more complex cloud migration efforts.