Migration And Modernization Sequencing — Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
Discovery Before Migration: What Azure Migrate Actually Does
A scenario describes an organization assessing on-premises servers before moving to Azure. Candidates conflate Azure Migrate with Azure Database Migration Service because both involve moving things to Azure. Azure Migrate is the assessment and orchestration hub — server discovery, dependency mapping, lift-and-shift planning. Database Migration Service handles schema-aware, live database cutovers. The sequence matters: assess first, migrate second, and match the tool to what is actually being moved.
What This Pattern Tests
Azure migration sequencing questions test dependency-aware ordering for DevOps toolchain and application modernization. For AZ-400, migrating a CI/CD toolchain means moving source control (Azure Repos or GitHub) and package feeds (Azure Artifacts) before the build/release pipelines that consume them. For application migration, Azure Migrate assesses on-premises workloads, Azure Database Migration Service handles database replication with continuous sync, and Azure Site Recovery handles VM replication. The sequence follows data gravity: databases first (Azure SQL, Cosmos DB), application tier second (App Service, Container Apps), and presentation tier last (Static Web Apps, Front Door). The trap is migrating pipelines before their artifact sources are available in Azure, or migrating the web tier before the API it depends on.
Decision Axis
Dependency graph determines migration order: data stores and artifact repositories first, consumers and pipelines last.
Associated Traps
More Top Traps on This Exam
Decision Rules
When the stated data volume cannot be transferred online within the available bandwidth and time window, choose Azure Data Box (offline physical shipment) over AzCopy (online network transfer).
Domain Coverage
Difficulty Breakdown