You can migrate an on-premises file server to Azure and ensure that important file shares are replicated across your organization without needing the Distributed File System (DFS).

Scenario

Contoso is a mid-sized financial services company based in London, with a branch in New York. Most of its IT environment runs on-premises on Windows Server, including virtualized workloads on Windows Server 2016 hosts.
Contoso’s IT staff is in the process of migrating servers to Windows Server 2025.

The Contoso IT director has noticed that the operational model is outdated, with limited automation and reliance on legacy technologies.
Contoso’s IT engineering team has started exploring Azure capabilities. They want to determine whether Azure services can help modernize the current operational model through automation and virtualization.

As part of the initial design, Contoso’s IT team has asked you, as the lead systems engineer and server administrator, to set up a proof-of-concept environment.
This environment should validate whether Azure services can help modernize the IT infrastructure and achieve business objectives.

One of the first elements Contoso’s IT staff plans to migrate is file sharing.
Currently, many file servers are distributed throughout the organization.
Additionally, Contoso uses DFS to consolidate shared folders across the enterprise and synchronize content to branches using DFS-Replication (DFSR).
It is important for you to explore options for moving this shared content to Azure.

In this module, you will learn how to:

• Deploy Azure File Sync
• Migrate from DFS
• Use Storage Migration Services to migrate file servers to Azure

By the end of this module, you will be able to efficiently migrate file sharing to Azure for Contoso.

Learning objectives

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Describe Azure file services
• Configure Azure file services
• Configure connectivity to Azure file services
• Describe Azure File Sync
• Implement Azure File Sync
• Deploy Azure File Sync
• Manage cloud tiering
• Migrate from DFSR to Azure File Sync

Prerequisites

To get the most out of this module, you should have knowledge and experience in the following areas:

• Managing the Windows Server operating system and Windows Server workloads in on-premises scenarios, including Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), Domain Name System (DNS), DFS, Microsoft Hyper-V, and file and storage services
• Common Windows Server management tools
• Core Microsoft compute, storage, networking, and virtualization technologies
• Implementing and managing IaaS services in Azure
• Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD)
• Security-related technologies (firewalls, encryption, multi-factor authentication)
• PowerShell scripting on Windows
• Automation and monitoring

Next unit: Describe Azure file services