We’re excited to announce general availability of the Azure Database Migration Service (DMS), which is designed to enable seamless database migrations with minimal downtime from a variety of sources to the Azure data platform. With Azure DMS, take your first steps toward optimizing your IT infrastructure and free up valuable time and resources that you can redirect towards transforming your business.

Azure DMS reduces the complexity of cloud migrations by integrating functionality from proven migration engines such as the Data Migration Assistant, the SQL Server Migration Assistant, and the Database Experimentation Assistant into one easy-to-use service. Azure DMS is tuned to ensure the optimal migration experience, whether upgrading from legacy versions of Microsoft SQL Server or moving from sources such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MySQL, and others. The new service streamlines tasks with a guided, straightforward process that enables minimal-downtime migrations—your regular operations can continue during migration activities.

First, you’ll assess source databases for any potential blocking or feature-parity issues, and review and implement workarounds as needed. Next, you’ll begin the migration process using Azure DMS, which will perform all the associated steps for you. You’ll rest easy knowing that the resilient and fully automated workflow takes advantage of best practices that Microsoft has tested over time and determined to be the most successful.

Customer and partners who’ve used Azure DMS have positive feedback about the service:

The Azure Database Migration Service was a lifesaver for us moving our databases to Azure. We successfully migrated over 100 databases to Azure using the DMS service over a period of two months without any downtime or loss of data. This process would have taken us well over six months and days/weeks of downtime for our users were we using any other method. We really appreciated working with the DMS team; they made our journey to the cloud practically seamless for our SQL workloads.

Greg Matuskovic, IT Executive and Services Director, Willis Towers Watson

The Azure Database Migration Service helped significantly in many ways. First, it alerted us to changes required. Second, it transferred the data quickly, allowing us to review the progress. Third, and most importantly, it allowed us to transfer data for static tables before transferring the dynamic tables. This greatly reduced the downtime required to move to the cloud. Being part of the preview of this product was a lifesaver for me and my team.

Jeff Schwartz, Hosted Services Manager, Innovative Systems

Begin your journey with the Database Migration Guide, which enables you to customize your migration plan based on your organization’s source and target data platforms. For an overview of cloud migration, visit the Azure Migration Center.

Get started today:

• Start your free Azure account or sign in to your existing account.
• Set up site-to-site connectivity with ExpressRoute or VPN.
• Find out more about Azure DMS.
• Learn more and sign up for Azure DMS offerings in preview.

Additional resources

• Review frequently asked questions about Azure DMS.
• Hear from your peers who’ve migrated their data to Azure.
• Learn the prerequisites for Azure DMS.