- Why is UW-IT moving enterprise resources to Azure?
- Will downtime occur?
- Will my server remain on the UW network?
- Will performance be impacted?
- Do you anticipate any networking issues?
- When will my server be moved?
- Do I need to do anything?
- What will happen if something goes wrong with the migration?
- Our server has strict timeframes during which it must be online to support UW business needs. How will the migration time be chosen?
- Will firewall configurations follow my server to Azure?
- Where will my server data be located?
- What are the expected costs for this work?
Why is UW-IT moving enterprise resources to Azure?
The decision to migrate to Azure was driven by a thorough analysis of the current infrastructure (~1,000 virtual and physical machines across 3 data centers), which identified the potential for enhanced capabilities. Aging data centers and limited on-campus resources, along with increasing demand for research computing resources requires UW-IT to shift its strategy from on-premises to cloud.
Advantages of moving to the cloud include:
- Cost efficiency: Reduced spending on physical infrastructure maintenance, power, cooling, and hardware refreshes. The pay-for-use model allows better resource scaling.
- Built-in redundancy and disaster recovery through globally distributed data centers and automatic failover capabilities.
- Enhanced security features, including:
- Regular security updates and patches
- Advanced threat detection
- Compliance with education-specific regulations (FERPA, HIPAA)
- Identity management integration with Azure AD
- Improved accessibility for remote learning and working through standardized access protocols and integration with Microsoft 365 education tools.
- Automated backup and data protection with geographic redundancy and point-in-time recovery options.
- Scalability to handle enrollment fluctuations and research data growth without capital expenditure on new hardware.
- Simplified IT management through centralized monitoring, automated maintenance, and reduced physical infrastructure oversight.
This initiative is vital to UW-IT’s ability to continue supporting the UW with efficient, modern technologies that allow people to focus on their core work rather than managing infrastructure.
Yes, there is the potential for downtime associated with migration. For a normal migration, the outage is expected to be the equivalent of a server reboot, i.e. a few minutes. A server reboot is necessary to allow your virtual server to properly recognize its changed circumstances. Any longer downtime would be unexpected and because of unforeseen problems. See What will happen if something goes wrong with the migration?
Will my server remain on the UW network?
Yes, servers will remain on the UW Network. However, the IP address for your server will change. If that IP address has been hard coded anywhere, that could introduce potential issues. We will update the DNS record for your server as part of the migration. As part of the preparation for migration, a team member will work with you to design a migration process that takes into account your specific setup. This is an opportunity to discuss potential problems associated with a change of IP address.
There should be no decrease in performance. If needed, we can increase the capacity after migration.
Do you anticipate any networking issues?
Networking between UW on-campus networks and Azure is expected to function well, with sufficient bandwidth and relatively low latency. If your server is reliant on other on-premises resources with a large data payload, we will want to evaluate whether there will be an impact.
For example, rather than using the TSM backup service when moving servers, we’ll use the Azure native Azure Backup. This change means that backup data no longer needs to traverse that network link. Our ability to recover your server or data will not be affected. However, it’s important to note that the IP address for your server will change. If that IP address has been hard coded anywhere, that could introduce potential problems. We will update the DNS record for your server as part of the migration. If you think an IP address change could cause problems, please contact us using this form.
We have not finalized the schedule for server migrations; however, we plan to:
- Group servers that have dependencies and, where possible, by customer
- Leverage existing Windows Update time windows for your servers
We will contact you with more specific details around the timing in the coming weeks.
UW-IT will perform the server migrations. To prepare for the migration work, the team will require your collaboration for design and decision making based on the specific needs of your server setup. Please review the Workload Migration Process Overview for more detail. If you have concerns about this migration process, please contact us using this form.
What will happen if something goes wrong with the migration?
To cover any potential issues, a non-running copy of your VM will remain on-premises.
Should the migration cause a significant problem, we can quickly start up this copy of your server to get your server operating again. Once we have confidence that the failback is no longer needed, the copy of your VM will be removed.
The migration process includes a final call to discuss the workload shutdown plan, which is an opportunity to raise and review any technical issues that have occurred during the migration.
Please send a message to help@uw.edu if:
- A high-severity issue arises at any point in the process (don’t feel that you must wait for the final call).
- Any issue occurs after the final migration call.
At any point in the migration process, for any technical issue, please contact us by sending a message to help@uw.edu with “[name of your server] — server migration issue” in the subject line.
Our server has strict timeframes during which it must be online to support UW business needs. How will the migration time be chosen?
If you have specific timeframes during which your server cannot be offline, please let us know. The bulk of the migrations for the first wave of server migrations will take place from April through September 2025.
To schedule your migration, we consider several variables:
- When your server is currently applying Windows Updates along with any required restart. We aim to target your migration shortly after that time of day to avoid introducing a new interruption at a different time of day.
- Whether your server has dependencies on other servers and group those servers together to avoid potential network performance issues.
- Needs of other customers.
- Any no-go times you report to us.
We will communicate with each customer the specific day and time planned for your server migration once we’ve determined the full range of customer needs.
Will firewall configurations follow my server to Azure?
Windows Managed Server provides Windows Firewall-based capabilities for customers. As a host-based firewall, all configurations will follow the server regardless of where it is hosted.
A few customers additionally leverage the UW-IT Managed Firewall, a network appliance-based firewall. UW-IT Managed Firewall does not have an Azure solution. The Windows Managed Server team is looking into providing this capability for customers with this need. To the best of our knowledge, the first wave of migrations does not include servers that have a UW-IT Managed Firewall. However, if you have servers that leverage the UW-IT Managed Firewall that are included in the first wave, please let us know.
It is also possible that your server provides services to partners who have a firewall, and those partners have a firewall configuration tied to your server’s existing IP address or DNS name. In this scenario, if the firewall configuration is DNS-based, no additional work is needed. If that other firewall’s configuration is IP-based, then we’ll need to work with you to ensure that the new IP address is reserved and communicated to your partners with sufficient time for them to make those changes before the server migration. The Windows Managed Server team does not usually work with this kind of configuration; we rely on your awareness to ensure that the issue is addressed.
Where will my server data be located?
Data for servers hosted in Azure will reside in one of the following Azure regions:
- West US 2 (Washington)
- Central West US (Wyoming)
For additional details on Azure regions, please refer to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/explore/global-infrastructure/geographies/#geographies.
What are the expected costs for this work?
There will be no changes to billing through FY26. As we develop our Azure operations, we will update you on the financial operations model.