GCP to Azure Migration Center¶
The definitive resource for migrating from Google Cloud Platform analytics to Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric, and CSA-in-a-Box.
Who this is for¶
This migration center serves federal CIOs, CDOs, Chief Data Architects, platform engineers, data engineers, and analysts who are evaluating or executing a migration from GCP analytics services (BigQuery, Dataproc, GCS, Looker, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Cloud Composer, Vertex AI) to Azure-native services. Whether you are responding to an Assured Workloads compliance gap, an IL4/IL5 coverage requirement, a procurement consolidation mandate, or a strategic shift toward open storage formats, these resources provide the evidence, patterns, and step-by-step guidance to execute confidently.
Quick-start decision matrix¶
| Your situation | Start here |
|---|---|
| Executive evaluating Azure vs GCP | Why Azure over GCP |
| Need cost justification for migration | Total Cost of Ownership Analysis |
| Need a feature-by-feature comparison | Complete Feature Mapping |
| Ready to plan a migration | Migration Playbook |
| Federal / government-specific requirements | Federal Migration Guide |
| Migrating BigQuery or Dataproc | Compute Migration |
| Migrating GCS data | Storage Migration |
| Migrating Dataflow, Composer, or Pub/Sub | ETL Migration |
| Migrating Looker or Looker Studio | Analytics Migration |
| Migrating Vertex AI or BigQuery ML | AI/ML Migration |
| Migrating IAM, DLP, or Data Catalog | Security Migration |
Strategic resources¶
These documents provide the business case, cost analysis, and strategic framing for decision-makers.
| Document | Audience | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Why Azure over GCP | CIO / CDO / Board | Executive white paper covering federal compliance superiority, unified Fabric platform, M365 ecosystem synergy, open Delta Lake format, and talent availability |
| Total Cost of Ownership Analysis | CFO / CIO / Procurement | BigQuery editions vs Fabric capacity, Looker seat costs vs Power BI, 5-year TCO projections across three federal scenarios, hidden cost analysis |
| Federal Migration Guide | CISO / ISSO / Compliance | Assured Workloads vs Azure Government, FedRAMP High coverage gaps, IL4/IL5/IL6 comparison, ITAR, CMMC, agency-specific patterns |
Technical references¶
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Complete Feature Mapping | 50+ GCP services mapped to Azure equivalents across storage, compute, ETL, BI, AI/ML, governance, monitoring, and DevOps with migration complexity ratings |
| Migration Playbook | The original end-to-end migration playbook with capability mapping, worked examples, phased 34-week project plan, and competitive framing |
Migration guides¶
Domain-specific deep dives covering every aspect of a GCP-to-Azure migration.
| Guide | GCP capability | Azure destination |
|---|---|---|
| Storage Migration | GCS, BigQuery managed storage, object lifecycle | ADLS Gen2, OneLake, Delta Lake |
| Compute Migration | BigQuery SQL/ML, Dataproc Spark, slots, clustering | Databricks SQL, Fabric, dbt, Direct Lake |
| ETL Migration | Dataflow, Cloud Composer, Dataform, Pub/Sub, Cloud Functions | ADF, dbt, Databricks Workflows, Event Hubs, Azure Functions |
| Analytics Migration | Looker, LookML, Looker Studio, Explores, embedding | Power BI, DAX, semantic models, Power BI Embedded |
| AI/ML Migration | Vertex AI, AutoML, BigQuery ML, Gemini, AI Search | Azure ML, Databricks MLflow, Azure OpenAI, AI Search |
| Security Migration | Cloud IAM, Data Catalog, DLP, Cloud KMS, VPC SC | Entra ID, Purview, Key Vault, Private Endpoints, Defender |
Government and federal¶
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Federal Migration Guide | Assured Workloads vs Azure Government, FedRAMP coverage analysis, IL4/IL5/IL6, ITAR, CMMC, procurement, agency-specific patterns |
How CSA-in-a-Box fits¶
CSA-in-a-Box is the core migration destination -- an Azure-native reference implementation providing Data Mesh, Data Fabric, and Data Lakehouse capabilities. It deploys a complete data platform with:
- Infrastructure as Code (Bicep across 4 Azure subscriptions)
- Data governance (Purview automation, classification taxonomies, data contracts)
- Data engineering (ADF pipelines, dbt models, Databricks/Fabric notebooks)
- Analytics (Power BI semantic models, Direct Lake, Copilot integration)
- AI integration (Azure OpenAI, AI Foundry, RAG patterns)
- Compliance (FedRAMP, CMMC, HIPAA machine-readable control mappings)
For capabilities beyond CSA-in-a-Box's current scope (e.g., Copilot Studio agents, Power Apps operational apps, Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence), this migration center provides direct guidance using the broader Azure and Microsoft ecosystem.
Migration timeline overview¶
gantt
title Typical GCP Analytics-to-Azure Migration (34 weeks)
dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
section Discovery
Inventory and mapping :a1, 2026-01-06, 2w
section Landing Zones
Deploy CSA-in-a-Box DMLZ/DLZ :a2, after a1, 5w
section Pilot Domain
Port one domain end-to-end :a3, after a1, 8w
section BigQuery Migration
Wave-based dataset migration :a4, after a3, 10w
section Dataproc + Streaming
Spark, Flink, Pub/Sub :a5, after a2, 10w
section Looker Migration
LookML to Power BI :a6, after a4, 10w
section GCS Cutover
Bucket-by-bucket migration :a7, after a5, 10w
section Decommission
Read-only, cost baseline :a8, after a7, 6wLast updated: 2026-04-30 Maintainers: CSA-in-a-Box core team