The Azure Migrate solution is expected to be a production-ready product for organizations in the first half of 2018, Microsoft indicated this week.

The new Azure Platform Appliance includes Windows Azure, SQL Azure and a "Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage and server hardware".

The appliance consists of the Windows Azure cloud operating system, the SQL Azure cloud-based database service and a Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage and server hardware.

Microsoft is adding previews of new Azure Box data-migration, Azure Virtual WAN and Azure Firewall services to its line-up.