The 6-Rs Migration Framework
Apply the Rehost, Replatform, Rearchitect, Rebuild, Replace, and Retire strategies to a portfolio of on-premises applications and select the best path for each.
What Is the 6-Rs Framework?
The 6-Rs Migration Framework is a structured approach for categorising how each on-premises workload should move to the cloud. Microsoft and the broader industry use these six strategies — also called migration patterns — to make portfolio decisions efficient and consistent. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach, architects assess each application individually and assign it the most appropriate R.
Rehost: Lift and Shift
Rehost (Lift and Shift) means moving a workload to Azure with no code changes. You take the existing VM image or application binary and run it on Azure IaaS. This is the fastest strategy and is typically used for legacy applications that are difficult to modify or for organisations with tight migration deadlines. Azure Migrate's replication engine automates rehosting for most Windows and Linux VMs.
# Trigger a replication for lift-and-shift using Azure CLI
az migrate server migration start-replication \
--resource-group myRG \
--project-name myMigrateProject \
--machine-name 'web-server-01'