Demystifying Azure Migrations – Part 5 (Discover): Custom Scripts

In the introduction to this series, we identified that there are multiple parts of the cloud migration journey; namely: Discover, Assess, Migrate, Manage, and Operate.

We will cover various tools that either falls into one of or span multiple phases in the migration journey.

As a quick-link reference, here is the list of tools this series will cover:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Discover
  • Part 2: Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit
  • Part 3: Service Map
  • Part 4: OVF/OVA
  • Part 5: Custom Scripts
• Assess
  • Part 6: Microsoft Azure Cost Estimator Tool
  • Part 7: Azure Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator
  • Part 8: Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Readiness Assessment
  • Part 9: Azure Site Recovery (ASR) Deployment Planner Tool
• Migrate
  • Part 10: Azure Websites Migration Assistant
  • Part 11: Azure Database Migration Planner
  • Part 12: Azure Migrate
  • Part 13: Azure Migration Center
• Part 14: Manage and Optimize
• Part 15: Third-Party Tools
• Part 16: Summary

Continuing our focus on the tool(s) that fall within the first phase: Discovery, the next tool that we categorize under Discovery, is Custom Scripts.

What Is It Used For?

Custom Scripts are fairly self-explanatory. They are used to collect data about your environment (or a specific element of your environment) and possibly will include some level of reporting as well.

The challenge is that there is an infinite number of custom, community-based scripts out there. And you have to decide for yourself if you trust the authors/scripts. The other challenge is that the script may or may not work in your environment, may need some higher level of permissions/access to work correctly, etc.

Here are a few examples of custom scripts that could be used for discovery:

IMPORTANT: We do not endorse the use of any of these scripts. Please use at your own risk.

• Active Directory Discovery Scripts
• Infrastructure Discovery for Azure Cloud Migrations
• Hyper-V Environment Inventory

Pro’s vs Con’s

Here is a quick list of what we deem as Pro’s/Con’s of this tool.

Pro’s

• Usually available for free
• Community contributed (meaning others can contribute/improve)
• No additional software, infrastructure, etc. to set up and configure for use

Con’s

• Potentially damaging to the environment
• May not include any reporting (just a data export)
• Some scripts may no longer be maintained/updated to support newer environments/OSes

Other Thoughts

When using custom scripts, we would recommend reviewing the script itself. If you’re trying to obtain some specific information, you may be able to extract a specific portion of the script that you need. That way you know exactly what you are executing in your environment.