I'm currently managing a small hybrid environment with Azure Active Directory (AAD), on-premises Active Directory (AD), and Microsoft 365 (M365) services. We've got a VMware 7.x setup along with about 25 physical servers running Windows Server 2019/2022. As our hardware gets older, I'm seriously considering migrating our critical server infrastructure to Azure. I need to know if this move makes sense, especially since costs aren't a major concern right now. Ultimately, I'd like to move domain controllers and file servers to the cloud, and perhaps transition fully to Entra instead of relying on AD. I haven't contacted our managed service provider yet but would appreciate any thoughts or advice from the community!
1 Answer
Moving to Azure isn't as straightforward as a full lift-and-shift. You might find that using Azure services like storage accounts instead of traditional file servers can actually lower costs significantly. It’s essential to consider how you could transition to using Entra and whether you really need to keep domain controllers at all.
I agree, but the idea of completely removing the DCs is a big step. What about applications that require NTLM or Kerberos? I think we need to be clear on what our essential apps need before making any drastic changes.