A Microsoft Azure migration does not have to be difficult, but it does require careful planning to be successful while limiting the impact on business. What parts of the network will be migrated? What’s the timing? Will it be done all at once or will there be multiple phases? Then, what is the process you will follow to accomplish the migration?

As with Lego sets, you need to follow a process. A strategic plan is required so that each piece of the migration fits together into an optimal solution. Businesses need to set clear priorities, decide the migration order, and determine the necessary resources.

Pre-Migration Considerations

While the concept of a Microsoft Azure migration is intriguing, there are considerations to be aware of before the planning phase begins.

• Compliance requirements can throw up a roadblock if you have sensitive data that that needs to be migrated.
• Proprietary technology, which some businesses use, may not be able to be deployed to Azure for legal reasons.
• Platform-specific applications can be hindered by platform lock-in, making it challenging to move between platforms.
• Insufficient bandwidth is an often-overlooked consideration that can result in frustration and lost productivity. As part of your assessment, perform an analysis of all network traffic to create a baseline that will help determine the amount of bandwidth needed to meet demand.
• System downtime is inevitable in the migration process, so plan accordingly by carefully estimating how much downtime each step of the migration may require.
•  Application and system compatibility can be an issue when running older versions of software. The key here is testing by creating a test environment and documenting as you test.
• Research management systems to determine the best option for your situation so it’s ready to go before you migrate.
• Analyze security requirements. Although the cloud is most often more secure than a traditional infrastructure, you may have additional security needs. Here are insights into what Microsoft has in place for Azure security.

Assessing On-Premise Resources

To build the Lego set correctly, you need to inventory what’s in the box and read the instructions to have an idea of how everything fits together. A Microsoft Azure migration starts with a solid knowledge of your infrastructure and how the all the parts work together. Performing a comprehensive infrastructure assessment is the best place to start.

An assessment will:

• Assess on-premises servers and applications: Understanding current server configurations, how they’re being used and what type they are, helps to determine the current capacity.
• Identify application and server dependencies: It is critical to understand which servers are supporting which applications and how they affect each other.
• Analyze Configurations: This will determine which workloads will migrate without modifications and those that won’t. It will also provide guidelines to remediate potential issues and identify possible configuration changes.
• Cost Planning: Now that you’ve collected resource data, such as memory, storage, and CPU usage, it’s time to estimate your costs using the Azure Calculator.

Building a Proof of Concept

Creating a proof of concept is an excellent idea before migrating the entire infrastructure to Azure. You can’t anticipate all possible issues during a proof of concept, but you can get a better understanding of the challenges you may face.

Microsoft offers a 30-day account that allows for $200 in credit to explore Azures capabilities, plus over 25 services that are free. You can deploy and test and get insight into the data capabilities available.

If you need help in planning how to set up your test environment, give CCB a call. We can connect you with a sales engineer to talk through what your objectives and goals are before you start.

Microsoft Azure Migration Approaches

The four most common strategies for migrating to Azure are:

• Rehost: Often referred to as a “lift and shift” migration, this allows existing applications to migrate to Azure quickly, by substituting the cloud infrastructure for yours with no modifications to your architecture. The downside is that this type of migration doesn’t take advantage of the elasticity of the cloud platform, which diminishes your cost savings.
• Refactor: This cloud migration approach requires small application code changes that allow you to benefit from auto-scaling. This approach can save money over time by using only the resources needed at a given moment.
• Rearchitect: Some applications may require more extensive modification of the code to benefit from running in the cloud. Rearchitecting takes time and is more expensive initially but will save money over time.
• Replace: Some applications are just too old and monolithic to make migrating them to the cloud worthwhile. Consider SaaS (software-as-a-service) alternatives designed for the cloud.

Little did my son realize all the considerations and planning needed to successfully build his Lego set, but the logical aspect overshadowed the excitement of what he was going to accomplish. He was thrilled by what he created in the end.

Careful planning, testing, and execution are a necessary part of the process, but enjoy the journey, knowing that the result will be a well-performing and cost-saving Microsoft Azure migration.

Ready to take the next step in your Microsoft Azure migration? From assessing your resources to choosing a migration approach and getting started, CCB can help.

The post Microsoft Azure Migration: Getting Ready to Move to the Cloud appeared first on CCB Technology.

As I listened to him share his vision, I was intrigued by the concept since we were considering opening a new remote office. There were questions that I struggled with though… Was it possible to not have servers on-site? What happens if the connection between the central and remote locations goes down? When that happens, how are business-critical resources accessed? I put Azure vs traditional infrastructure side by side to find out. 

Traditional Infrastructure

Traditional infrastructures offer a sense of control and security over relevant business data, applications, and infrastructure and that control is why many stay with a traditional infrastructure instead of moving to a cloud-based platform. Owning the physical equipment and software and having it on-premises, allows control of physical access and if implemented well, can yield many benefits.

However, some limitations hinder their potential:

• Traditional infrastructures can be complex and rigid, preventing them from adapting to changes necessitated by business situations.

• Traditional infrastructures require comprehensive planning from the start to prevent ad hoc infrastructures that can jeopardize business goals.

• Traditional infrastructures can be challenging to scale to meet changing business requirements outside of virtualization, which requires in-depth knowledge of the virtualization platform and the physical hardware to support it.

• One of the biggest limiters of traditional infrastructure is that businesses must continue to purchase updated hardware and software.

Introducing Microsoft Azure 

Today, we can take the whole concept of centralizing the core servers, etc., one step further and place the core infrastructure in Microsoft Azure, keeping only switches and vendor-provided devices such as modems and firewalls onsite. All critical infrastructure services like Active Directory, print and file servers, business-critical applications and more would move into the cloud utilizing one or several of the cloud solutions models.

Just as virtualization transformed the scalability and efficiency of traditional on-premises infrastructure and reduced the overall total cost of ownership (TCO), cloud providers have changed how IT professionals strategize when planning their networks.

Microsoft joined Amazon (AWS) in the cloud by creating the Azure platform, first as an internal initiative codenamed Project Red Dog, then released to developers in 2008 at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference. Now they are the world-leading enterprise-cloud provider, used by 90% of Fortune 500 companies.

Microsoft offers an extensive portfolio of cloud services ranging from compute to storage to IoT and more. The Azure platform provides businesses with the following benefits over traditional infrastructures.

• Elasticity and Resilience: Traditional infrastructures are susceptible to downtime, have limited capacity and cannot guarantee a consistently high level of server performance. Azure excels in providing elasticity and resilience enabling you to build a structure that can add or reduce compute power or storage as needed.

• Flexibility and Scalability: There are two ways to scale a traditional infrastructure: purchase physical hardware or virtualize. Whereas Azure provides the ability to quickly build, deploy and manage applications or systems as it best serves the business.

• Deployment: Adding new servers and/or applications within a traditional infrastructure requires IT staff taking time to procure new hardware/software, set it up, then test and implement it. In Azure, businesses can deploy mission-critical applications often without upfront costs and with minimal provisioning time, allowing IT staff to focus on more pressing activities and objectives.

• Reliability: For reliability, traditional infrastructures need to have redundancy requiring dual firewalls, ISP providers, power sources, etc., which gets expensive in time and money. With Azure, Microsoft provides the hardware and dedicated teams for implementation and maintenance. They’ve built in redundancy, from failover hardware to datacenters located worldwide. 

• Automation: A conventional infrastructure requires in-house IT personnel to monitor all systems and handle the day to day duties like patch management and maintaining threat protection. In Azure, this is all handled by Microsoft ensuring the infrastructure continues to run smoothly, and that required security measures are in place.

You can find a full list of Azure services on Microsoft’s site. 

Azure vs Traditional Infrastructure

The advantages of moving part or all of your company’s infrastructure to the cloud include increased flexibility, scalability, ease of management and cost savings. Successful infrastructure migrations to Azure require a lot of planning. If you’re looking to move to Azure, I outline all of the things you need to consider in this article. If you’d like to learn more or want help getting started, our engineers can help you throughout the process.

The post Microsoft Azure vs Traditional Infrastructure appeared first on CCB Technology.

In my former life as an IT manager, I had the same apprehensions and experienced firsthand the mixed emotions of considering a cloud-based solution. I was unsure about where our data would be residing or who might have access to it. There was something falsely reassuring thinking that if it was on-premise, it had to be secure!

Finally, like so many others, after years of staying on the ground with our infrastructure, we started to explore the benefits of cloud solutions and increased efficiencies they could provide our business. A huge impact that caused us to take a serious look at the cloud was realizing that if a disaster were to hit the office, all of our critical applications would still be functional with the right cloud solution in place.

As the number of cloud-based solutions grow every day, researching and comparing solutions can be time consuming, and in the IT world, time is a sacred commodity. Although I can’t make your final platform selections for you, I hope to provide you with insight into the advantages of cloud over on-prem options and the types of cloud solutions available to give you a foundation to work from.

Cloud vs. On-premise Infrastructures

Cloud solutions provide major benefits to both businesses and individuals over traditional infrastructure, including:

• Accessibility: With cloud solutions, users can access data anywhere on any device, providing collaboration across all aspects of a business. Writing this blog is a perfect example – I have my Microsoft Word file open on an iPad, MacBook Pro and Surface Book. All show progress in real time as I write, whereas without a Microsoft 365 subscription, I would have three different versions of my document between the devices.

• Cost Control: The cloud helps control costs through predictable subscriptions for enterprise-class infrastructure solutions, eliminating the heavy capital expenditure of an on-premise infrastructure. Additionally, pay-as-you-go models for some solutions mean you can add or subtract individual services and only pay for what you use.

• Scalability: Cloud solutions provide easy and often instantaneous scalability versus the cumbersome process of procuring hardware and software for a traditional infrastructure, which can take weeks or longer.

• Deployment: With cloud solutions, businesses can deploy mission-critical applications without any upfront costs and with minimal provisioning time, allowing IT staff to focus on more pressing activities and objectives. It can also help to reduce the time needed to get new applications and services to market.

• Reliability: Though a concern of most during the introduction of the cloud, technology advancements are making cloud solutions even more reliable and consistent than on-premise IT infrastructures. Most providers today offer Service Level Agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing close to 95% and higher uptime, and 24/7/365 availability.

• Security: This is a central focus for any cloud provider. Cloud solutions today provide greater security than on-prem counterparts because data is stored throughout multiple highly secured locations yet can be accessed no matter what happens. A very simple example is a user who loses a laptop. If it’s managed using a cloud solution, the company can remotely wipe any sensitive information and protect its most important asset – it’s data.

Cloud Solution Models

Now that you know some key benefits of cloud infrastructures, let’s look at the three types of cloud solutions to find out what’s right for you:

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS replaces traditional IT applications with a cloud model that is a software subscription provided by a third-party vendor. This is the most common cloud solution being utilized by businesses because it provides benefits to an organization such as the elimination of software updates, centralized management, and access through any device over the internet.

Examples of these services include Microsoft 365, Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Services, WatchGuard Cloud, Dropbox and Salesforce. When I was just entering the cloud, these were solutions that greatly reduced the time and energy I was spending on installing and upgrading software.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides the foundation for cloud IT infrastructures. This model is all about IT operations and typically provides access to network features, data storage space, and computers, while allowing the highest level of management control and flexibility.

Google, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure are third-party sources for IaaS, providing the ability to only pay for what you use – basically like renting the resource. That means if you’re coming into a slower season of business, you can power down three of the five web servers running and pay accordingly.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS allows organizations to build, run and manage customized applications without the need or worry associated with on-premise infrastructures, making it easier for developers to create efficiencies as a part of the application development process. Among the benefits of PaaS are a reduction in overhead and an increase in the speed of development and deployment. Microsoft Azure would fall into this category as well.

Here’s a good resource if you want a deeper dive into the types of cloud models.

Know What to Look For in a Cloud Solution

When considering a cloud solution for your organization, these are important factors you should know:

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

SLAs outline the service expectations and responsibilities between your company and a cloud supplier. It should state the metrics used for measurement and any penalties if the services don’t meet those expectations. These agreements are for both party’s protection and necessary to build a successful relationship.

High availability is important and is expressed as a percentage of uptime in a given year, or the “number of nines”. (Note that maintenance windows for patching, deploying new systems, etc. are not considered downtime.) I have seen a few providers that promise “five nines”, equating to downtime of only 5 minutes and 15 seconds per year, and fail to meet that goal. You will need to decide what is acceptable for your organization to continue to operate. Discuss this with a potential provider and then get it in writing.

Redundancy

Redundancy or high availability in cloud computing means that multiple copies of your data exist or systems that can be accessed if your cloud solution fails. When talking with a cloud solution provider about their redundancy or disaster recovery plan, make sure to ask:

• How redundant are your data centers regarding power, ISPs and other resources?
• What happens when server solution ‘A’ is installed or goes down?
• How are the backend systems set up (i.e.: web or SQL servers)? Are they clustered?
• What happens if the site where the solution is hosted goes down? Will the cloud solution still be available?
• What automation is in place to make sure my systems remain operational when a disaster happens at a primary site?

Hidden Costs

Even when a vendor provides a quote, there may be hidden costs you should look out for. I learned this the hard way in my previous role when I received the first invoice for our new cloud solution – something that was hard to explain to the executive team! Learn from my mistake and be sure to review the quote’s fine print carefully and ask thorough questions.

How I Learned to Love the Cloud

When I was an IT manager at my previous company, the data we worked with daily was very sensitive (containing PII) and securing it was the highest priority for me, my team, and the success of our company. Part of my hesitation to move to the cloud was due to the data breaches I seemed to be hearing about in the news every other day. It seemed impossible to decide which pieces we could migrate without compromising our security.

As the business grew, my direction and mindset needed to change regarding cloud solutions. We needed to be able to scale rapidly, collaborate efficiently and have access anywhere at any time. We finally chose to migrate to Microsoft 365 from an on-prem Exchange environment. I was initially blinded to its benefits because of my security fears and wanted to retain total control like I could with our on-premise servers.

However, as we began using Microsoft 365, I quickly started to see the organizational benefits: teams collaborating efficiently in groups, simultaneous sharing and editing of documents, and meetings that no longer required being in the same building. It’s as if my eyes had been opened to a whole new world.

Yes, we still needed to protect sensitive data, but the cloud allowed us to quickly expand our resources at a much lower cost than what we could implement in our on-premise infrastructure. Most importantly, it allowed me to sleep better at night knowing if a disaster hit, we’d still be functional for our clients. I learned to keep my feet on the ground and love the cloud.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CLOUD?

Want to know how your business can benefit from cloud solutions? We’d love to discuss your needs and help you roadmap your migration. Let us help.

The post How I Learned to Love the Cloud & Why You Should appeared first on CCB Technology.