About This Book

Migrating to Server 2025 and Azure is a comprehensive, hands-on guide for IT professionals, system administrators, consultants, and trainers looking to modernize their infrastructure through upgrades to Windows Server 2025 and integrating Azure Hybrid services. Designed around real-world lab exercises, this book takes you on a journey from legacy environments to modern cloud-ready architecture, making it a must-have resource for anyone involved in digital transformation initiatives.

As organizations increasingly embrace hybrid cloud models and prepare for next-generation IT environments, the need for structured, tested, and repeatable migration strategies becomes crucial. This book was written to fill that exact need. It doesn’t just tell you how to migrate – it shows you, step by step, through a series of practical labs grounded in real-world scenarios. Whether upgrading an aging Active Directory environment, migrating file servers, integrating with Azure, or hardening your security posture using modern tools, this book equips you with the knowledge and tools to get it done efficiently and confidently.

Why This Book Matters

With Windows Server 2025 on the horizon, many enterprises face the challenge of upgrading aging infrastructure, replacing deprecated technologies, and embracing hybrid capabilities. Cloud adoption is no longer an optional strategy – it's a necessity for agility, scalability, and security. But migrations can be complex, risky, and disruptive without the right plan and approach.

That’s where Migrating to Server 2025 and Azure shines.

We don’t simply present theoretical concepts. Every chapter, every lab, and every exercise has been field-tested in real environments. You’ll walk away with practical experience, an understanding of the potential pitfalls, and the skills to troubleshoot issues in the real world. This isn’t just a book—it’s your migration playbook.

What You'll Learn

This book is structured into logical sections and guided labs that walk you through every stage of the migration process, from planning and preparation to execution and validation. Here’s a breakdown of what’s inside:

Getting Started & Lab Access

Before diving into the migrations, we set the stage by walking you through how to access and configure your lab environment. You’ll learn how to prepare your virtual infrastructure to simulate a real production environment, giving you a safe and isolated space to test each scenario.

Lab 1: Migrating Active Directory to Windows Server 2025 and Azure

Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) is the cornerstone of every Windows environment. Lab 1 focuses on migrating ADDS from Server 2016 to Server 2025, including preparing the schema, verifying replication health, and performing FSMO role transfers.

You’ll also learn how to demote legacy domain controllers, tune SRV records, configure time synchronization (NTP), and update domain and forest functional levels. A special instructor-led demo shows how to configure a domain controller directly in Azure, highlighting best practices for hybrid AD deployments.

By the end of Lab 1, you’ll have a fully upgraded AD infrastructure ready to support future workloads and hybrid scenarios.

Lab 2: Windows Admin Center and Azure Hybrid Services

Lab 2 introduces you to the power of Windows Admin Center (WAC) and its tight integration with Azure Hybrid Services. You’ll learn to set up WAC, connect it to your Azure environment, and deploy services like Azure Site Recovery and Azure Migrate.

These tools allow you to test disaster recovery scenarios and plan live migrations of on-premises workloads to Azure. The exercises here build your confidence in using Azure-native tools to extend the reach and resilience of your infrastructure.

Lab 3: Migrating File Servers

Due to the volume of data and custom permissions, file servers are often among the most critical and complex workloads to migrate. Lab 3 uses the Storage Migration Service (SMS) in WAC to modernize file servers, demonstrating a full migration to Azure Files. The exercises guide you through preserving NTFS permissions, validating file integrity, and ensuring seamless cutovers.

Lab 4: Upgrading IIS Servers

Web workloads are still alive in enterprise IT, and Lab 4 is focused on modernizing your Internet Information Services (IIS) infrastructure. You'll install WordPress on Server 2012R2 using PowerShell, configure MySQL and PHP, and then walk through several migration and upgrade strategies.

This lab equips you with multiple options for moving and modernizing your web stack, from backing up and restoring IIS to migrating entire websites to Azure using the App Service Migration Assistant.

Lab 5: Migrating Print Servers

Print services may not be glamorous, but they remain essential. This lab guides you through migrating print services from Server 2016 to 2022 using built-in tools to export and import configurations. You’ll also explore Microsoft Universal Print, a cloud-based service that eliminates the need for traditional print servers.

Lab 6: Hardening Windows Server

No migration is complete without addressing security. In Lab 6, you’ll use Microsoft’s Security Compliance Toolkit to apply baseline Group Policy templates to harden your environment. You’ll secure Windows Server 2019/2022 and Windows 10/11, aligning your configurations with best practices and reducing your attack surface.

Lab 7: Migrating DHCP

In Lab 7, you'll handle the migration of DHCP services by exporting and importing the DHCP database. These steps are critical to ensuring a seamless transition that does not disrupt clients relying on DHCP leases and options.

Lab 8: Migrating DNS

Lab 8 tackles DNS migration with two real-world approaches: copying the zone database file for a primary zone and converting a secondary zone into a primary zone. Both methods are fully documented and walk you through preserving resolution accuracy and minimizing downtime.

Lab 9: Upgrading Standalone Storage Spaces

Lab 9 shows how to perform an in-place upgrade for organizations using Storage Spaces from Server 2016 to Server 2022. While this is marked as a review-only exercise, it’s valuable for understanding the prerequisites and limitations of upgrading this specific workload.

Lab 10: Upgrading WSUS

If you're still running WSUS on older operating systems, Lab 10 provides a blueprint for modernizing this vital service. You'll perform an in-place upgrade from Server 2012R2 to 2019 and review post-upgrade tasks like cleanup, verification, and database health checks.

Lab 11: Upgrading a Storage Spaces Direct Cluster

Lab 11 dives deep into high availability scenarios. You'll perform an in-place upgrade of a Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) cluster to Server 2022, even while virtual machines are running—an impressive feat that reduces downtime and showcases the robustness of Windows Server's clustering technologies.

A Unique Learning Approach

This book is built for hands-on learners.

Each lab and exercise is formatted to mirror how professionals work. You'll see:

• Step-by-step instructions
• Screenshots and command-line examples
• PowerShell usage and automation tips
• Instructor-led demos for complex or visual tasks
• Real-world best practices and caveats

Whether you're following along in a home lab or a training environment or are preparing for a large-scale enterprise rollout, the exercises are crafted to ensure retention, reduce confusion, and promote repeatability.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is ideal for:

• IT professionals preparing for server upgrades or migrations
• Consultants building out hybrid solutions for clients
• Trainers and instructors seeking structured labs for courses
• Students in IT programs learning about infrastructure modernization
• Anyone managing Active Directory, Windows Server, file servers, print servers, web servers, or hybrid infrastructure

It assumes moderate comfort with Windows Server, PowerShell, and Azure, but the clear instructions make it accessible to junior admins and ambitious learners.

Final Thoughts

Migrating to Server 2025 and Azure is more than a lab manual—it's a comprehensive roadmap for your infrastructure modernization journey. Every lab, demo, and piece of guidance is built from the ground up to empower you with relevant, tested, and forward-looking skills.

Whether you are moving an entire data center or modernizing a few legacy servers, this book gives you the confidence and capability to do it right.

Welcome to the future of IT. Let’s migrate—together.