Amazon.com Inc. isn’t the only cloud provider that is working on making it easier for companies to switch from competing products to its platform.

Microsoft Corp., the firm’s top rival in the base-level infrastructure-as-a-service segment of cloud computing, today introduced new resources that aim to streamline the onboarding process for Azure adopters. The most significant addition is an assessment service that aims to help companies understand what they stand to gain by moving applications to the platform. As part of the deal, Microsoft dispatches consultants who can size up an organization’s infrastructure, calculate how much the company could save by migrating and present the results in a neat report.

The service should come handy for the technology giant’s salespeople when pitching new prospects. It’s available for free, which will make it appealing both for companies seeking to compare Azure against other platforms and for firms that are still in the early stages of adopting the cloud. Within the latter group, Microsoft is placing a particular emphasis on potential customers that use its on-premises software.

The assessment service is rolling out alongside an updated version of Azure Site Recovery aimed at streamlining the migration of on-premises virtual machines that run on Windows Server. It’s designed to be used with Azure Hybrid Cloud Use Benefit,  a program that lets customers deploy their existing licenses of the operating system in the cloud. Microsoft claims that the offer can help shave up to 40 percent off the price tag.

Today’s additions join several existing tools that the company has been offering to ease the switch for customers. One of them is the Virtual Machines Readiness Assessment tool, which is designed to help with technical aspect of migrations. The software can examine each instance in a company’s data center and highlight any comparability issues that need to be resolved before workloads can be moved to Azure. 

Image: Microsoft