Azure Migration Switzerland

The complete guide for businesses – from strategy to operations.

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What Is an Azure Migration?

An Azure migration is the relocation of servers, applications, and data from your own data centre or another hosting provider to Microsoft Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform. Depending on your starting point, this ranges from moving individual virtual machines to fully modernising your entire IT landscape.

For Swiss businesses, Azure is particularly relevant because Microsoft is the only major cloud provider operating two dedicated regions in Switzerland – and because the tight integration with Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and common business applications significantly simplifies operations.

Why Azure for Swiss Businesses?

Data residency in Switzerland: With the Switzerland North (Zurich) and Switzerland West (Geneva) regions, your data physically stays in Switzerland – decisive for revDSG compliance, regulated industries, and your customers' trust.

Seamless Microsoft integration: Most Swiss SMEs already work with Microsoft 365. Azure uses the same identities (Entra ID), the same administration, and the same security mechanisms – substantially reducing complexity and training effort.

Scalability instead of investment cycles: Rather than buying new servers every five years, you pay for what you use – and scale in minutes instead of months. That turns capital expenditure into predictable operating costs.

A foundation for AI: Anyone wanting to deploy AI solutions such as automation, AI agents, or private AI needs a modern data infrastructure. Azure is the natural base for it – from Azure OpenAI to the data services our AI solutions build on.

The Six Migration Strategies

Not every workload should take the same path to the cloud. For each system, we choose one of these strategies:

Rehost (Lift & Shift)

Servers and applications move to the cloud unchanged. The fastest path with the least adaptation – ideal as a starting point or when data centre contracts are expiring.

Replatform

Small optimisations during migration – e.g. switching from a self-managed SQL server to Azure SQL. Less operational overhead without a full redevelopment.

Refactor

Applications are selectively adapted to use cloud services such as containers or serverless functions. More effort, but significantly lower running costs.

Rearchitect

The architecture is fundamentally reworked – for example from a monolith to microservices. For business-critical systems with high scaling demands.

Rebuild

The application is redeveloped in the cloud. Sensible when the existing solution has reached the end of its technological lifecycle.

Replace

A custom-built system is replaced by a SaaS solution – e.g. a self-hosted email server by Microsoft 365.

How an Azure Migration Works

Assessment

We inventory your infrastructure, applications, and dependencies and evaluate what belongs in the cloud – and what doesn't (yet).

Planning

For each workload we define the migration strategy, design the target architecture in Azure, and plan sequencing, time windows, and rollback scenarios.

Migration

Execution happens step by step, without a big bang: workload by workload, with tests after every step and minimal disruption to daily business.

Optimisation

After migration we optimise costs (reserved instances, right-sizing), security, and performance – and take over ongoing operations if you wish.

Thinking your migration through?

In a free intro call, we analyse your infrastructure and recommend the right migration strategy.

Book a Free Intro Call

What Does an Azure Migration Cost – and How Long Does It Take?

Both depend on scope. As honest guidance: migrating individual workloads or a smaller server setup typically starts in the five-figure range and completes within a few weeks. Comprehensive transformations involving multiple systems, legacy applications, and hybrid scenarios run over several months.

What matters most for the total cost are the ongoing costs after migration: with right-sizing, reserved instances, and the Azure Hybrid Benefit, operating costs can often be reduced by 30–40% compared to an unoptimised environment. That's exactly why our approach doesn't end with the migration but with optimisation and operations.

The Five Most Common Mistakes

Lift & shift for everything – without checking which workloads would benefit from cloud services. The result: the old problems on new infrastructure, often at higher cost.
Budgeting only for the migration – ongoing operating costs (compute, storage, egress) get underestimated because nobody plans for right-sizing and reservations.
Data protection as an afterthought – checking where data lives and who can access it only after migrating risks expensive rework or compliance violations.
No rollback plan – every migration needs a defined way back in case a workload doesn't perform as expected in the cloud.
Forgetting the team – the best cloud architecture is worth little if nobody in the company can operate it. Knowledge transfer belongs in every migration project.

We've summarised what to look for when choosing the right partner in a dedicated article: Azure Migration Partner Switzerland – what really matters.

Frequently Asked Questions

Azure Migration in Switzerland: Your Questions

Data Protection, Licences & Approach

Yes, if you want it to. Microsoft operates two Swiss Azure regions: Switzerland North (Zurich area) and Switzerland West (Geneva area). Workloads and data can run entirely within these regions – your data never leaves Switzerland. For most SMEs, Switzerland North is the right choice; Switzerland West serves as a secondary region for disaster recovery.

Azure can be operated in full compliance with the revDSG. What matters is the right configuration: data residency in Swiss regions, cleanly governed access, encryption, and a data processing agreement with Microsoft. We configure every migration along these principles from day one – data protection is part of the architecture, not a checkbox at the end.

Step by step is the norm – and our clear recommendation. Hybrid scenarios, where part of your systems stay on-premises while others run in Azure, are technically mature (e.g. via Azure Arc or VPN/ExpressRoute). Many of our projects start with a single non-critical workload and expand in stages.

Existing licences with Software Assurance can be applied via the Azure Hybrid Benefit – reducing compute costs for Windows Server and SQL workloads by up to 40%. In addition, Microsoft offers extended security updates in Azure for older server versions (e.g. Windows Server 2012) that would be chargeable on-premises.

Yes – numerous Swiss banks and insurers run regulated workloads in Azure. FINMA's circulars on outsourcing and operational risk require audit rights, data location controls, and sound risk management, among other things – requirements Microsoft covers with specific contractual amendments for financial services. Responsibility for correct implementation remains with the institution, which is why the architecture must be designed for it from the start.