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On-Demand Workshop
Azure Landing Zones for EDUs
When: October 26th
Audience: Education (EDU)
Redapt and Microsoft Elevate hosted an intensive, four-hour workshop for Education (EDU) organizations focused on modernizing SQL workloads and preparing for cloud migration. Led by Jacob Edelblute, CISSP, PMP, the session explored how to establish a secure, scalable Azure Landing Zone foundation while evaluating migration paths from on-premises SQL environments to Azure.
The workshop covered Azure reference architectures, governance and security best practices, SQL Server migration strategies, and options for modernizing data and analytics with Microsoft Fabric. Attendees also explored backup and disaster recovery planning, workload assessment considerations, and potential Microsoft funding opportunities and licensing savings.
The session provided a practical framework for defining migration goals, assessing existing workloads, and determining whether a pilot or migration is the right next step toward a more secure, scalable, and modern cloud environment.
Talk to an expert about Landing Zones for EDUs!
Speaker
Jacob Edelblute, CISSP, PMP
Practice Lead - Security & Infrastructure, Redapt
(7:56) Azure landing zone
Jacob covered Azure’s management hierarchy, subscriptions, resource groups, identity and access controls, regions, storage, and hub-and-spoke networking. He emphasized establishing governance and security as part of migration planning.
(49:06) Migration strategy
The workshop reviewed lift-and-shift, refactor, re-architect, and rebuild approaches. SQL choices included SQL Server on Azure VMs for faster, like-for-like moves; Managed Instance for compatibility with less application change; and Azure SQL Database Hyperscale for modernization and scalability. The best fit depends on compatibility, migration urgency, and available time for code changes.
(1:05:05) SQL planning and risks
Jacob highlighted assessment, workload testing, dependency discovery, data synchronization, and test failovers as important preparation. Compatibility issues may require changing the target, such as moving to a VM before modernizing later.
(1:22:24) Fabric and analytics
Fabric was presented as a way to ingest and transform data into bronze, silver, and gold layers for analytics and reporting. Options discussed included mirroring, pipelines, Dataflows Gen2, and shortcuts; a pilot was suggested as a possible step before production migration.
(1:38:35) Governance, security, and recovery
Topics included Azure Policy, tagging and cost controls, identity protections such as MFA and PIM, Key Vault, Defender for Cloud, backup, and disaster recovery. Jacob distinguished backups from disaster recovery and noted that recovery targets should be guided by RPO and RTO needs.
(2:07:22) Next steps and funding
Jacob outlined defining goals and capabilities, assessing the environment, then deciding whether to pilot or proceed to migration. Potential Microsoft funding and licensing savings were mentioned, but eligibility depends on the workload and qualification process. No specific customer project or migration commitment was agreed in the workshop.