Before you use the Azure DevOps Data Migration Tool to migrate your database with high fidelity, it’s important to understand some key concepts and considerations.

Included and Excluded Data

Not all data gets migrated when moving from Azure DevOps Server to Azure DevOps Services. The migration process includes your team project collection, which contains work items, version control history, build definitions, and more. However, certain data is excluded, such as extensions, service hooks, load test data, pipeline agents/pools, and project server integrations. These items will need to be reconfigured post-migration.

Project Limits

Azure DevOps Services has a limit of 1,000 projects per organization, though it’s recommended to keep it under 300. If your on-premises collection contains more projects, you may need to split the collection or delete older projects to stay within the limit and avoid potential performance degradation.

Mapping Databases to Organizations

Each team project collection in Azure DevOps Server corresponds to a single SQL database. During migration, the entire collection is moved to a new Azure DevOps Services organization. It’s important to understand this 1:1 mapping, as you can’t migrate a collection to an existing organization or consolidate multiple collections into a single organization.

Choosing a Data Center

When creating your new Azure DevOps Services organization, you’ll need to select a data center location that suits your needs. Make a note of the region’s shorthand code, as you’ll need this information later in the migration process.

Licensing and Pricing

Most companies already have the necessary licenses to use Azure DevOps Services. We’ve provided a worksheet to help you determine the right licensing plan for your organization. Keep in mind that there may be additional costs for value-added services like hosted load testing or test management extensions.

Reserving Your Organization Name

To ensure your desired organization name is available for the final migration, we recommend reserving it early on by creating a temporary organization with that name. This allows you to then rename the migrated organization to your preferred name later.

Next, let’s dive into completing the prerequisites for your migration. Complete prerequisites for migration