Can Azure Migratebe used to migrate Windows 2016 File Server with CIFS 1.0 Roles Enabled?

Question

We have an OnPrem Window 2016 File Server we would like to migrate to our Azure Tenant, using Azure Migrate. The server has the CIFS 1.0 Client/Server Roles enabled to support legacy clients with SMB Dependencies. I know in Azure you CANT natively enable CIFS on a Azure Image, but if we used Azure Migrate to migrate the server, would the Roles be enabled and functioning on the migrated server post migration?

Answer 1

Hello @Martin, Michael Thank you for contacting us on Microsoft Q&A platform. Happy to answer any questions you may have!

Based on the information you provided, I understand that you want to migrate Windows 2016 File Server to Azure using Azure Migrate and would like to know if CIFS 1.0 Roles will be Enabled by default.

Azure Migrate is a tool that can help you migrate your on-premises workloads to Azure. When you use Azure Migrate to migrate your Windows Server 2016 file server to Azure, the migrated server will be a virtual machine running in Azure.

However, it's important to note that CIFS 1.0 is an outdated protocol that is no longer supported by Microsoft. In fact, CIFS 1.0 has been deprecated since Windows Server 2012 R2. Therefore, it's recommended that you disable CIFS 1.0 on your on-premises file server and migrate to a newer version of SMB, such as SMB 3.0 or later.

If you do decide to migrate your Windows Server 2016 file server to Azure using Azure Migrate, the CIFS 1.0 client/server roles will not be enabled by default on the migrated server. You will need to manually enable these roles on the migrated server if you require them. However, as mentioned earlier, it's recommended that you disable CIFS 1.0 on your on-premises file server and migrate to a newer version of SMB.

This is the list of supported setups in Azure:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/server-software-support#windows-server

Suggestions: You may want to look for modernizing the File share approach and explore Azure File Share as a possible solution.

Please refer to the below links might be helpful:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-files-introduction

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/files-smb-protocol?tabs=azure-portal

Hope this helps. Feel free to reply if you have any further questions.

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