Teradata to Azure Migration — Complete Package¶

Comparative positioning note

This document is written from the perspective of Microsoft Azure, Cloud Scale Analytics, and CSA Loom. Any description of third-party or competing products, services, pricing, or capabilities is derived from publicly available documentation and sources believed accurate at the time of writing, and is provided for general comparison only. We do not claim expertise in, or authority over, any non-Microsoft product or service; the respective vendor's official documentation is the authoritative source for their offerings, which may change over time. Nothing here is intended to disparage any vendor — where a competing product has genuine advantages, we aim to note them honestly. Verify all third-party details against the vendor's current official documentation before making decisions.

Audience: Enterprise data teams running Teradata (on-prem appliances or VantageCloud) evaluating or executing a migration to Azure (Synapse, Databricks, Fabric). This hub page links every artifact in the package and provides a decision matrix for choosing your migration path.

Quick-start decision matrix¶

Your situation	Recommended starting point	Primary Azure target
Executive asking "should we migrate?"	Why Azure over Teradata then TCO Analysis	N/A — strategic read
Need a business case with numbers	TCO Analysis	N/A — financial read
Architect mapping Teradata features	Feature Mapping	Depends on feature
DBA converting SQL scripts	SQL Migration	Synapse / Databricks
ETL team replacing TPT/BTEQ	Data Migration, Tutorial — TPT to ADF	ADF + ADLS + Delta
Data engineer converting BTEQ to dbt	Tutorial — BTEQ to dbt	Databricks / Fabric
Platform team mapping TASM workloads	Workload Migration	Synapse / Databricks
Security / compliance team	Security Migration	Entra + Purview + Monitor
Performance validation team	Benchmarks	Synapse / Databricks
Migration lead planning phases	Best Practices then this page (Gantt)	All

Package contents¶

Strategic and financial¶

Document	Lines	Purpose
Why Azure over Teradata	~400	Strategic rationale, market position, honest pros/cons
TCO Analysis	~350	5-year cost model: on-prem appliance vs Azure vs VantageCloud

Technical migration guides¶

Document	Lines	Purpose
Feature Mapping (Complete)	~400	40+ Teradata features mapped to Azure equivalents
SQL Migration	~450	25+ SQL conversion patterns with before/after examples
Data Migration	~400	TPT export, ADF ingestion, validation frameworks
Workload Migration	~350	TASM classes to Azure workload management
Security Migration	~300	Access logging, RLS, roles, encryption mapping

Hands-on tutorials¶

Document	Lines	Purpose
Tutorial — BTEQ to dbt	~350	End-to-end: convert a BTEQ script to a tested dbt model
Tutorial — TPT to ADF	~350	End-to-end: replace TPT pipeline with ADF + ADLS + dbt

Validation and planning¶

Document	Lines	Purpose
Benchmarks	~300	Performance, concurrency, cost-per-query comparisons
Best Practices	~300	Schema assessment, phased cutover, common pitfalls

Original guide¶

Document	Lines	Purpose
Teradata Migration Overview	~205	Foundational guide covering architecture, 5 phases, cost, pitfalls

Typical migration timeline (12-24 months)¶

The Gantt chart below shows a representative timeline for a mid-to-large Teradata estate (50-500 TB, 2,000-10,000 tables). Adjust durations to your specific environment.

gantt
    title Teradata → Azure Migration (18-month reference)
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM
    axisFormat  %b %Y

    section Phase 1 — Assessment
    Inventory & discovery           :a1, 2025-01, 2025-02
    Workload profiling (TASM)       :a2, 2025-02, 2025-03
    Tool evaluation (SAMA, sqlglot) :a3, 2025-02, 2025-03
    Migration tier classification   :a4, 2025-03, 2025-04
    Business case & TCO             :a5, 2025-03, 2025-04

    section Phase 2 — Design
    Target architecture design      :d1, 2025-04, 2025-05
    Schema mapping (PI → partition) :d2, 2025-05, 2025-06
    Security model design           :d3, 2025-05, 2025-06
    Network & ExpressRoute plan     :d4, 2025-05, 2025-06

    section Phase 3 — Migration
    Azure landing zone deployment   :m1, 2025-06, 2025-07
    Tier-D decommission             :m2, 2025-06, 2025-08
    Tier-A bulk SQL translation     :m3, 2025-07, 2025-10
    Tier-B manual refactor          :m4, 2025-08, 2026-01
    Tier-C architectural rework     :m5, 2025-10, 2026-03
    Data bulk load (TPT → ADLS)     :m6, 2025-07, 2025-09
    CDC / continuous sync           :m7, 2025-09, 2026-04
    dbt model development           :m8, 2025-08, 2026-02

    section Phase 4 — Cutover
    Parallel run (per schema)       :c1, 2026-01, 2026-04
    BI re-validation                :c2, 2026-02, 2026-05
    Consumer repointing             :c3, 2026-03, 2026-05
    Teradata read-only              :c4, 2026-04, 2026-05

    section Phase 5 — Decommission
    Final extract & archive         :x1, 2026-05, 2026-06
    License termination             :x2, 2026-06, 2026-06
    Hardware decommission           :x3, 2026-06, 2026-07

Migration tiers (from original guide)¶

Every workload should be classified before migration begins.

Tier	Description	Typical percentage	Action
A Direct migrate	Pure SQL, standard ANSI features	30-40%	Automated translation via SAMA / sqlglot
B Refactor required	Teradata-specific SQL (QUALIFY, RECURSIVE, MERGE)	20-30%	Manual rewrite to Spark SQL or T-SQL
C Architectural rework	TASM-dependent, custom Java UDFs, QueryGrid	10-20%	Redesign in dbt + Databricks / Synapse
D Decommission	Zombie workloads, unused tables, dead ETL	20-40%	Archive output, delete