Azure Migrate (Discovery, Assessment & Server Migration)

What it is good at

One console for inventory, dependency mapping, right-sizing, TCO modelling and the actual replication. Agentless for VMware and Hyper-V. Free for the migration window itself.

Where it falls down

Azure only. Agentless VMware replication has disk-count and size limits; very large or very chatty servers may need the agent-based path.

Capabilities

• Changed-block tracking / incremental sync
• Wave / batch orchestration
• Agentless operation
• Discovery and assessment
• Application dependency mapping
• Non-disruptive test migration
• Encryption in flight
• API / CLI automation
• Programme reporting / audit trail

Cost and licensing

Cost category

Free — No licence cost from the vendor.

Indicative price

Tool is free; first 180 days of replication per server included

Licence model

Azure Migrate itself carries no licence fee. Discovery and assessment are free. Server migration is free for the first 180 days per machine, after which Azure Site Recovery per-instance charges apply. You still pay for the target Azure compute, storage and network.

How to license it

Create an Azure Migrate project in any Azure subscription - no SKU to buy. Deploy the Azure Migrate appliance OVA/VHD on-prem. Use Azure Hybrid Benefit to carry existing Windows Server / SQL Server licences into Azure.

Lifecycle

Current

Vendor page

https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/migrate/

Pricing and licensing last reviewed 2026-09-18. Indicative only - confirm with the vendor.

Supported sources

• VMware vSphere / ESXi (vCenter)
• Microsoft Hyper-V (Windows Server)
• Hyper-V managed by System Center VMM
• Physical server - Windows
• Physical server - Linux
• Amazon Web Services (EC2)
• Google Cloud (Compute Engine)
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• XenServer (Citrix Hypervisor)
• Nutanix AHV (Prism)
• Proxmox VE
• Plain KVM / libvirt (RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE)

Supported targets

• Microsoft Azure (IaaS)
• Azure Local / Azure Stack HCI