- Start with a detailed assessment of your current workloads and dependencies. - Utilize Azure Migrate to facilitate the migration process, choosing a phased approach that allows for the migration of non-critical systems first. - Implement Azure Site Recovery for real-time data replication and failover capabilities, ensuring data consistency. - Leverage blue-green deployments to validate the new Azure environment before switching traffic. - Schedule migrations during off-peak hours and conduct pre-migration tests using Azure DevTest Labs to identify potential issues. - Finally, monitor performance with Azure Monitor and establish a rollback plan using Azure Backup to quickly revert to the previous state if necessary.

To ensure minimal downtime during cloud migration following strategies can be leveraged: 1) Conduct a thorough pre-migration assessment to identify critical systems. 2) Use a phased migration approach, starting with non-critical workloads. 3) Implement a hybrid cloud model to keep services running during the transition. 4) Schedule migrations during off-peak hours to reduce user impact. 5) Employ real-time data replication to keep backups updated. 6) Set up automated failover and rollback mechanisms to handle issues quickly. 7) Leverage cloud-native tools and real-time monitoring for smooth execution and rapid issue resolution.

The application migration to cloud require much deeper assessment to achieve clean migration and zero transaction impact. The pre-migration assesment criteria such that: - Is multi-region support requires and how long? - Supporting data prep (like config, reference, certificate etc) - Data Local/Master: The region to hold Local transaction data and region to hold Master transaction data. - Traffic cutover aspects: % of traffic redirection to cloud. also caching of traffic so that duplication transaction must be served by given region and platform remains idempotent. - Transaction Data migration: Migrated entire transactional data to target cloud region after/during successful cutover.

To minimize downtime during major cloud migrations and IT transitions, I focus on: ? Migration Rehearsals: Conducted full-scale simulations in a sandbox environment to identify potential issues. ? Dual-Running Strategy: Implemented parallel operations of old and new systems during transition phases. ? Automated Rollback: Developed one-click rollback procedures for immediate reversion if critical problems arise. ? Traffic Shifting: Utilized blue-green deployment techniques to gradually redirect traffic to new infrastructure. ? Real-time Monitoring: Deployed advanced telemetry tools to instantly detect and alert on performance degradations.

- Plan : Create a detailed one! - Test : Use test environment to identify issues. - Migrate : Do it in stages less critical to critical. - Plan for disasters: Have backup and recovery strategies in place. Always leverage cloud provider's support whenever necessary.