Azure has recently introduced the Managed Disks migration functionality that allows users to migrate from unmanaged Disks to Managed Disks in the Azure Portal in a single click.
Here is an overview of the benefits for those using Managed Disks:
- High availability across the compute and storage resources
- Integration of the disks, images, snapshots as the first-class resources
- Application scaling without paying attention at the storage account limits
- VM Scale Sets with up to 1,000 instances
- Azure Role Based Access Control is available for secure disks, snapshots, and images
A complete list of the benefits is available here.
How to migrate to Managed Disks in the Azure Portal
Click on the info banner on the VM overview pane
Click on Migrate in the migration modal dialog
If your VM is in an Availability Set, the Availability Set has to be migrated first.
[su_note note_color=”#eeeeee” text_color=”#151212″]Pro Tip: protect VMs with managed disks with Azure Site Recovery.[/su_note]
Migration progress will be displayed in the migration modal as indicated below
An additional disk resource will now be available in the Resource Group view. You’ll see one disk for every OS & Data Disks that were attached to the VM.
Additional details about the disks of the VM are available on the Disks item in the sidebar
Suggested reading
- Automating migration to Managed Disks with PowerShell or CLI
- Advanced Azure resources monitoring and automation