Unescorted Cloud Migration – The First Azure Workload

I first heard the term “Unescorted Cloud Migration” from our VP of Enterprise Infrastructure, Ryan Benner. It instantly sparked a number of ideas and clicked several things in my mind around challenges I see customers having in adopting cloud solutions. This article is the first part of an ongoing series around different scenarios where Arraya can help customers avoid the pitfalls of an Unescorted Cloud Migration.

Today’s topic is Azure. Azure is Microsoft’s cloud platform, covering PaaS, IaaS and even SaaS in some cases through Azure Marketplace. It is a massive topic to cover with customers, which leads me to believe this is the reason a lot of customers are struggling with where to begin.

Azure is extremely easy to consume, but IT may not be the primary driver. As a result, you find business units and application developers expensing it on credit cards. When we are out talking to customers, it is usually IT coming to us to find out more about the solution because someone else brought it in first. This can certainly lead to some uncomfortable conversations around progress vs. security and IT’s control.

Having an application developer leverage Azure for non-production apps is a great entry point, but if a business unit has deployed something out there, you need a cloud strategy quickly before things get out of your control. Your first instinct may be to take extreme measures, such as shutting down the application, but by this point it is too late.

The second thing IT will do after realizing they can’t shut it down, is attempt to embrace it. Enter the Unescorted Cloud Migration!

You only start out on your cloud journey once. While it does evolve over time, you have one chance to get it right from the start. This is where a partner like Arraya can help. We’ve helped customers manage their cloud lifecycle right from the start so you can avoid the pitfalls of an Unescorted Cloud Migration and we have a new offering to help!

There are two workloads that we find resonate with customers and we’ve worked with Microsoft to design two quick-fire engagements to set them up for success while providing business value.

• Business Continuity/Disaster Recover – Many customers have struggled to keep DR as part of their strategy in the past few years. While DR has traditionally been complex and costly to implement, that is no longer the case with Azure. Through Azure Site Recovery, you can protect VMWare, Hyper-V or physical servers to either another location or right into Azure! Piloting with disaster recovery makes a lot of sense because you are testing and replicating workloads, not just moving up production data immediately. It also provides immediate safeguards and benefits in the event of a disaster.

• Dev/Test Workloads – Part of the reason virtualization was so prevalent in the 2000’s was the ability to instantly add development and test capacity to your infrastructure. This gets even easier with the cloud. By building a solid foundation on Azure Iaas, you can easily spin up (or have your developers) spin up resources to test out production workloads. The best part is that utilization and cost are now tied directly to projects, so IT and the business units can balance this against budgets and revenue.

Azure can be daunting. It is so broad that it is easy to get confused and figure out where to start. We believe one of these engagements will likely result in you taking your first steps on your cloud journey, or result in you taking control back of your environment. Reach out to us at mssales@arrayasolutions.com to schedule one of these engagements today and avoid an Unescorted Cloud Migration!