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Tutorial: Build a business case or assess servers using an imported CSV file

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As part of your migration journey to Azure, you discover your on-premises inventory and workloads.

This tutorial shows you how to build a business case or assess on-premises machines with the Azure Migrate: Discovery and Assessment tool, using an imported comma-separate values (CSV) file.

If you use a CSV file, you don't need to set up the Azure Migrate appliance to discover servers. You can control the data you share in the file, and much of the data is optional. This method is useful if:

  • You want to create a quick, initial business case or assessment before you deploy the appliance.
  • You can't deploy the Azure Migrate appliance in your organization.
  • You can't share credentials that allow access to on-premises servers.
  • Security constraints prevent you from gathering and sending data collected by the appliance to Azure.

Note

You can't migrate servers imported using a CSV file.

In this tutorial, you learn how to:

  • Set up an Azure account
  • Set up an Azure Migrate project
  • Prepare a CSV file
  • Import the file
  • Assess servers

Note

Tutorials show the quickest path for trying out a scenario, and use default options where possible.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Prerequisites

  • You can add up to 20,000 servers in a single CSV file, and in an Azure Migrate project.
  • Operating system names specified in the CSV file must contain and match supported names.

Prepare an Azure user account

To create an Azure Migrate project, you need an account with:

  • Contributor or Owner permissions on an Azure subscription.
  • Permissions to register Microsoft Entra apps.

If you just created a free Azure account, you're the owner of your subscription. If you're not the subscription owner, work with the owner to assign the permissions as follows:

  1. In the Azure portal, search for "subscriptions", and under Services, select Subscriptions.

    Search box to search for the Azure subscription

  2. In the Subscriptions page, select the subscription in which you want to create an Azure Migrate project.

  3. Select Access control (IAM).

  4. Select Add > Add role assignment to open the Add role assignment page.

  5. Assign the following role. For detailed steps, see Assign Azure roles using the Azure portal.

    Setting Value
    Role Contributor or Owner
    Assign access to User
    Members azmigrateuser

    Add role assignment page in Azure portal.

  6. In the portal, search for users, and under Services, select Users.

  7. In User settings, verify that Microsoft Entra users can register applications (set to Yes by default).

    Verify in User Settings that users can register Active Directory apps

Set up a project

Set up a new Azure Migrate project if you don't have one.

  1. In the Azure portal > All services, search for Azure Migrate.

  2. Under Services, select Azure Migrate.

  3. In Get started, select Create project.

  4. In Create project, select your Azure subscription and resource group. Create a resource group if you don't have one.

  5. In Project Details, specify the project name and the geography in which you want to create the project. Review supported geographies for public and government clouds.

    Boxes for project name and region

    Note

    • Use the Advanced configuration section to create an Azure Migrate project with private endpoint connectivity. Learn more.
    • Ensure that you allow network access to the Azure vNet (selected during project creation with private endpoint connectivity) from the IP address of the machine that you choose to upload the CSV file from.

  6. Select Create.

  7. Wait a few minutes for the Azure Migrate project to deploy.

The Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment tool is added by default to the new project.

Prepare the CSV

Download the CSV template and add server information to it.

Download the template

  1. In Migration goals > Servers, databases and web apps > Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment, select Discover.

  2. In Discover machines, select Import using CSV.

  3. Select Download to download the CSV template. Alternatively, you can download it directly.

    Download CSV template

Add server information

Gather server data and add it to the CSV file.

  • To gather data, you can export it from tools you use for on-premises server management, such as VMware vSphere or your configuration-management database (CMDB).
  • To review sample data, download our example file.

The following table summarizes the file fields to fill in:

Field name Mandatory Details
Server name Yes We recommend specifying the fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
IP address No Server address.
Cores Yes Number of processor cores allocated to the server.
Memory Yes Total RAM, in MB, allocated to the server.
OS name Yes Server operating system.
Operating system names that match or contain the names in this list are recognized by the assessment.
OS version No Server operating system version.
OS architecture No Server OS architecture
Valid values are: x64, x86, amd64, 32-bit or 64-bit
Server type No Type of server
Valid values are: Virtual, Physical
Hypervisor No If server type is Virtual, specify hypervisor name
Valid values are: VMware, Hyper-V
Number of disks No Not needed if individual disk details are provided.
Storage in use (In GB) No You can add how much storage is in use per server.
This field will only be used in Azure VMware Solution assessment sizing logic.
Disk 1 size No Maximum size of disk, in GB.
You can add details for more disks by adding columns in the template. You can add up to twenty disks.
Disk 1 read ops No Disk read operations per second.
Disk 1 write ops No Disk write operations per second.
Disk 1 read throughput No Data read from the disk per second, in MB per second.
Disk 1 write throughput No Data written to disk per second, in MB per second.
CPU utilization percentage No Percentage of CPU used.
Memory utilization percentage No Percentage of RAM used.
Total disks read ops No Disk-read operations per second.
Total disks write ops No Disk-write operations per second.
Total disks read throughput No Data read from the disk, in MB per second.
Total disks write throughput No Data written to disk, in MB per second.
Network In throughput No Data received by the server, in MB per second.
Network Out throughput No Data transmitted by the server, in MB per second.
Firmware type No Server firmware. Values can be "BIOS" or "UEFI".
No Server MAC address.

Add operating systems

Assessment recognizes specific operating system names. Any name you specify must exactly match one of the strings in the supported names list.

Add multiple disks

The template provides default fields for the first disk. You can add similar columns for up to twenty disks.

For example, to specify all fields for a second disk, add these columns:

  • Disk 2 size
  • Disk 2 read ops
  • Disk 2 write ops
  • Disk 2 read throughput
  • Disk 2 write throughput

Import the server information

After adding information to the CSV template, import the CSV file.

  1. In Migration goals > Servers, databases and web apps > Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment, select Discover.
  2. In Discover machines, select Import using CSV
  3. Upload the .csv file and select Import.
  4. The import status is shown.
    • If warnings appear in the status, you can either fix them or continue without addressing them.
    • To improve assessment accuracy, improve the server information as suggested in warnings.
    • To view and fix warnings, select Download warning details .CSV. This operation downloads the CSV with warnings included. Review the warnings and fix issues as needed.
    • If errors appear in the status so that the import status is Failed, you must fix those errors before you can continue with the import:
      1. Download the CSV, which now includes error details.
      2. Review and address the errors as necessary.
      3. Upload the modified file again.
  5. When the import status is Completed, the server information has been imported. Refresh if the import process doesn't seem to be complete.

Update server information

You can update the information for a server by importing the data for the server again with the same Server name. You can't modify the Server name field. Deleting servers is currently not supported.

Verify servers in the portal

To verify that the servers appear in the Azure portal after discovery:

  1. Open the Azure Migrate dashboard.
  2. On the Azure Migrate - Servers > Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment page, select the icon that displays the count for Discovered servers.
  3. Select the Import based tab.

Supported operating system names

Operating system names provided in the CSV must contain and match. If they don't, you won't be able to assess them.

A-H I-R S-T U-Z
Asianux 3
Asianux 4
Asianux 5
CoreOS Linux
Debian GNU/Linux 4
Debian GNU/Linux 5
Debian GNU/Linux 6
Debian GNU/Linux 7
Debian GNU/Linux 8
FreeBSD		 IBM OS/2
macOS X 10
MS-DOS
Novell NetWare 5
Novell NetWare 6
Oracle Linux
Oracle Linux 4/5
Oracle Solaris 10
Oracle Solaris 11
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Red Hat Fedora		 SCO OpenServer 5
SCO OpenServer 6
SCO UnixWare 7
Serenity Systems eComStation
Serenity Systems eComStation 1
Serenity Systems eComStation 2
Sun Microsystems Solaris 8
Sun Microsystems Solaris 9

SUSE Linux Enterprise 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise 12
SUSE Linux Enterprise 8/9
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11
SUSE openSUSE		 Ubuntu Linux
VMware ESXi 4
VMware ESXi 5
VMware ESXi 6
Windows 10
Windows 2000
Windows 3
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows NT
Windows Server (R) 2008
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2019
Windows Server Threshold
Windows Vista
Windows Web Server 2008 R2
Windows XP Professional

Business case considerations

  • If you import servers by using a CSV file and build a business case:
    • Performance history duration in Azure settings will not be applicable
    • Servers where no performance data is specified will be classified as unknown in the business case utilization insights chart and will be sized as-is without rightsizing for Azure cost
    • Servers where server type and virtualization are not specified will be classified as Not applicable in virtualization distribution and no virtualization software cost will be added in on-premises cost.

Note

To get an accurate Arc business case estimates, enter the Server name, Cores, Memory (in MB), and OS Name in the respective columns in the CSV file.

Assessment considerations

  • If you import servers by using a CSV file and creating an assessment with sizing criteria as "performance-based":
    • For Azure VM assessment, the performance values you specify (CPU utilization, Memory utilization, Disk IOPS and throughput) are used if you choose performance-based sizing. You will not be able to provide performance history and percentile information.
    • For Azure VMware Solution assessment, the performance values you specify (CPU utilization, Memory utilization, Storage in use(GB)) are used if you choose performance-based sizing. You will not be able to provide performance history and percentile information.
  • To get an accurate OS suitability/readiness in Azure VM and Azure VMware Solution assessment, please enter the Operating system version and architecture in the respective columns.

Next steps

In this tutorial, you: