SERVICE SCOPE
What’s in scope.
01
Estate discovery and business case
Establish workloads, owners, dependencies, deadlines and business constraints. Connect the reason for change to technical condition, risk and TCO assumptions so the organisation can prioritise work across teams.
02
Workload route decisions
Compare retaining, retiring, replacing, rehosting, replatforming and refactoring. Record the selected route and the alternatives that were rejected, including the requirements and evidence that justify the decision.
03
Foundation and migration planning
Define landing-zone, identity, network and governance work before sequencing dependent workloads. Include database and infrastructure changes, validation, rollback and acceptance criteria in the plan.
04
Application, data and AI modernisation
Identify where an infrastructure move is insufficient. Route application constraints to engineering assessment, and data or AI ambitions to a readiness review that tests sources, governance and platform fit.
05
Post-change operations
Connect the programme with ownership, security, resilience, cost and performance measures after migration. Agree the managed-operation scope and responsibilities so the destination includes a way to run the estate.
Choose the assessment that matches the trigger.
A specific business concern can begin with a focused review. Several connected concerns need an estate-level map to establish dependencies and sequence.
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Ageing SQL or Windows platforms: Legacy Risk Scan.
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One constrained application: Application Modernisation Sprint.
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An analytics or AI ambition: Data and AI Readiness.
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Fragmented hybrid governance: Control Plane Review.
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Cost or performance without clear ownership: Cloud Value Review.
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Several connected triggers: Azure Modernisation Map.
Every recommendation should show its working.
A useful programme record identifies the workload and owner, business and technical trigger, dependency, route decision, assumptions and change wave. It also records risk, rollback and acceptance requirements, plus the measure used to assess the environment after change. Azure Migrate can contribute discovery and estimation evidence for applicable workloads, while architecture and commercial scope still require validation.
01
Organise change around connected business services
A server-by-server move can miss the shared database, identity dependency or batch integration that makes several workloads one business service. Establish those relationships before creating migration waves. The estate decision should explain which systems move together, which must be prepared first and which can remain where they are.
Azure Migrate provides discovery and assessment capabilities for supported scenarios, including readiness, sizing and cost evidence. The usefulness of those outputs depends on the information collected and the assumptions selected. Braintree’s programme should combine that evidence with application support, business criticality, commercial constraints and the operating team’s capacity to absorb change.
02
Prepare a workload register that business owners can validate
Bring inventories, dependency information, vendor requirements, existing costs, licences and the calendar of business-critical periods. Identify the owner of each business service, its users and the evidence required to confirm that it still works after transition. Where an owner or dependency is unknown, record the gap as programme work.
The scope should identify foundation preparation, workload migration, application or data changes and the operational handover. Customer owners approve business requirements and acceptance; delivery teams provide the agreed technical evidence. A migration wave should have entry conditions, validation and recovery decisions. Managed operations, further modernisation and retirement of old infrastructure need explicit ownership after the transition, including any period where old and new environments run together.
03
Decisions the assessment should make visible
Decision
Evidence to examine
What to agree
Workload route
Business purpose, application support, dependencies and target readiness.
The reason to retain, replace, retire, migrate or modernise.
Wave sequence
Shared services, change windows and acceptance capacity.
Which workloads move together and which dependencies must be ready first.
Operating transition
Support coverage, access, monitoring, recovery and residual infrastructure.
Who owns the service at each stage and when legacy resources can retire.
BEFORE YOU DECIDE
Practical questions.
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Does every workload need to move?
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Is an Azure Migrate estimate a quotation?
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Can Microsoft programme support help?
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Can a programme begin before every workload is fully assessed?
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What does assessment confidence change?
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Should old infrastructure be removed immediately after migration?
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Who signs off a migration wave?
BUILD YOUR BUSINESS CASE
Separate the move from the improvement it should enable.
The problem to solve.
Moving a workload and changing its architecture are different decisions. Combining them without a clear sequence can increase delivery and operational risk.
What success should look like.
Choose which workloads to move, improve, retain or retire, with a target architecture and evidence for each wave.
Bring these into the discussion.
A useful starting point for your team and the people approving the investment.
Useful reading for your proposal.
Evidence, examples and questions to take into the decision.
Customer story
7 September 2023
Customer story
Efficient Group: infrastructure shaped around the business
A customer example of Azure within a broader infrastructure and workplace programme.
Read the customer story
Insight
20 August 2026
Programme planning
Align the plan with the commercial calendar
Bring licence and renewal constraints into migration sequencing.
Read the insight
Insight
14 August 2026
Acceptance testing
Require recovery evidence before accepting the move
Consider how to validate the complete application rather than individual resources alone.
Read the insight
LET’S GROW.
Work through the next step with Braintree.
Bring the estate and the change priorities. We will help sequence the decisions before committing to a migration wave.
