In today’s uncertain economic environment, cost is top of mind for every organization. With uncertain global economic conditions, high inflation rates, and challenging job markets, many businesses are tightening their spending. Yet, companies continue to prioritize substantial budget allocations for digital transformation, especially for the agility, performance, and security gained by migrating applications to the cloud. The reason is simple: investments in cloud translate to positive impacts on the business revenue and significant cost savings.  

But how do businesses turn this opportunity into reality? In this article, we’ll look at  several levers that Azure provides to help organizations maximize the cost benefits of migrating .NET and Java apps to the cloud. One of the things to note about cost optimization is that it’s not only about the price. There are significant financial benefits to be gained when you leverage the right technical resources, have access to best practices from real-world experiences with thousands of customers, and flexibility of the right pricing option for any scenario. These factors may result in a compelling total cost of ownership (TCO).  

Let’s look at some of these benefits for Azure App Service customers below: 

• Azure landing zone accelerators
• Enterprise web app patterns
• Powerful Azure Migrate automation tooling
• Offers to offset the initial cost of migration
• Cost-effective range of pricing plans

Faster time to value with expert guidance through landing zone accelerators  

For cloud migration projects, getting it right quickly from the start sets the foundation for business success and savings. Azure landing zone accelerators are prescriptive solution architectures and guidance that aid IT pros in preparing for migration and deployment of on-premises apps to the cloud.  

Provided at no additional cost and capturing the expert guidance from migrations done with thousands of customers, landing zone accelerators are a compelling differentiator with Azure that help organizations focus on delivering value rather than spend cycles doing the heavy lifting of migration on their own. Based on well-architected principles and industry best-practices for securing and scaling application and platform resources, these resources create tangible cost savings by reducing the time and effort to complete app migration projects.  

Learn more about other landing zone accelerator workloads, and watch the Azure App Service landing zone accelerator demo. 

Enhance developer skilling with the reliable enterprise web app pattern

The reliable web app (RWA) pattern is another free resource from Azure that is specifically designed to empower developers confidently plan and execute the migration process. It is targeted at both experts in the cloud and developers who may be more familiar with on-premises tools and solutions and taking their first steps in the cloud. Built on the Azure Well-Architected Framework, this set of best practices helps developers successfully migrate web applications to the cloud and establishes a developer foundation for future innovations on Azure. We are pleased to announce that a reliable web app pattern for Java is now available, in addition to the .NET pattern announced at Build.

The reliable web app pattern provides guidance on the performance, security, operations, and reliability of web applications with minimal changes during the migration process. It smoothens the learning curve and greatly reduces the length of the migration project, thereby saving organizations the cost of maintaining on-premises infrastructure any longer. The Azure Architecture Center provides comprehensive guidance, open-source reference implementation code, and CI/CD pipelines on GitHub. Check out the free, on-demand Microsoft Build 2023 session to learn more. 

Accelerate the end-to-end migration journey with free automated tooling  

Costs of tooling and automation are often underestimated during migration projects. Azure Migrate is a free Microsoft tool for migrating and modernizing in Azure. It provides discovery, assessment, business case analysis, planning, migration, and modernization capabilities for various workloads on premises—all while allowing developers to run and monitor the proceedings from a single secure portal. Watch this short demo of the business case feature, and find Azure Migrate in the portal to get started.

Azure Migrate, Azure Advisor, and Azure Cost Management and Billing are components of this migration journey that provide guidance, insights, and the ability to right-size Azure resources for optimal cost-efficiency. 

Offset the initial cost of migration projects with Azure offerings

To alleviate risks and help jumpstart migration with confidence, Azure Migrate and Modernize partner offers are available to customers. It not only helps build a sustainable plan to accelerate the cloud journey with the right mix of best practices, resources, and extensive guidance at every stage, but may also include agile funding to off-set the initial costs.  

With Azure Migrate and Modernize, moving to the cloud is efficient and cost-optimized with free tools like Azure Migrate and Azure Cost Management. Additionally, it supports environmentally sustainable outcomes and drives operational efficiencies, while reducing migration costs through tailored offers and incentives based on your specific needs and journey. Work with your Microsoft partner to take advantage of these offers in your enterprise app migration.  

Benefit from a wide range of flexible and cost-effective plans

Azure App Service is one of the oldest and most popular destinations for .NET and Java app migrations, with over two and a half million web apps and growing fast. It offers a wide range of flexible pricing options to save on compute costs. Azure Savings Plan for Compute is ideal if the flexibility to run dynamic workloads across a variety of Azure services is crucial. Reserved instances are another popular option, providing substantial cost savings for workloads with predictable resource needs. There are various pricing plans and tiers to suit every budget and need—from a new entry-level Premium v3 plan called P0v3, to large-scale plans that support up to 256GB memory. For hobbyists and learners, Azure App Service has one of the most compelling free tiers that continues to attract new developers every day.  

Check out the Azure App Service pricing page and pricing calculator to learn more.  

Learn more

Interested in learning more? Dive deeper into the cost optimization strategies and see how other organizations have optimized their cost of migration with the following papers: 

• Save up to 54 percent versus on-premises and up to 35 percent versus Amazon Web Services by migrating to Azure.
• Forrester study finds 228 percent ROI when modernizing applications on Azure PaaS.
• Plan to manage costs for App Service.
• Read our customer stories, including from the NBA, a leading sports association in United States, and Nexi, a leading European payment technology company.  

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