Why Choose XAM’s Azure Consultants as Your Cloud Migration Partner?

Today, migrating to the cloud has gone from an aspiration to an imperative as CEOs focus on resilience and security. Ultimately, the cloud offers value, insights, security, scalability and more that can’t be found with on-premises solutions. However, in spite of the desire to transform, many organisations still wish they were further ahead with their journey. They need help overcoming challenges, such as how to deal with legacy technologies, address security concerns and gain cloud-relevant skills. This is where Azure consultants come into play. By choosing a trusted cloud provider that puts privacy and security top of mind in every aspect of what they do, alongside a partner that can meet you wherever you are on your journey, you can reap the benefits that the cloud has to offer and grow your business with confidence. 

Why Migrate to the Cloud?

Cloud migration involves transferring legacy infrastructure and applications from on-premises data centres to the cloud. It is essentially the movement of digital assets and can offer some valuable business benefits:

• Cost Reduction – in the cloud, there is no need to purchase or maintain server equipment or worry about operational expenses. Instead, you only pay for the computing power that you actually use. 
• Scalability – with workloads in the cloud, it’s possible to quickly respond to demand and change capacity accordingly. What’s more, it’s all done automatically without the need to purchase equipment and install it and then deal with redundant resources afterwards. 
• Security – reliable cloud providers, such as Microsoft Azure, regularly upgrade their services and ensure they always align with industry standards and comply with regulations. With these measures in place, there is less risk of cyber attacks. 
• Reliability – cloud vendors have service level agreements that guarantee almost permanent uptime and hold some of the responsibility for backups and disaster recovery. In the cloud, there is a much lower risk of data loss. 
• Availability – with cloud computing, your teams can access applications from anywhere at any time. This facilitates flexible and remote working and makes the business much more able to adapt to customer needs and market trends. 

With everything that’s happened over the past few years, the transition from legacy software to cloud adoption has never been more logical. Cloud migration is a critical step to ensure business continuity and is an investment that delivers a great return. 

Types of Cloud Migration Strategy

There are several different types of cloud migration strategies suitable for different purposes and business needs, including: 

• Rehosting – as businesses grow, they can quickly run out of on-premise computing resources. Rehosting offers a scalable solution where an organisation can expand resources by lifting the environment, including virtual machines, applications and identity management to the cloud. However, no real changes are made to the overall network design. 
• Replatforming – in this instance, the environment is lifted to the cloud but is also optimised. This means there can be codebase changes and database changes. Application functionality remains the same but improvements can be made and the resources to run them are optimised. 
• Refactoring – this solution completely re-architects or redesigns the existing application infrastructure and sometimes the codebase too. This is the most in-depth cloud migration type and supports applications that can no longer scale or meet business needs. 

Of course, cloud migration also often involves retiring applications that are no longer mission-critical. Usually, another application will have the functionality to support the business, but it hasn’t been fully harnessed. Retiring is applicable for applications as well as technology such as servers, routers and other computing hardware. 

Why Choose Azure?

Once you’ve got your head around why you need to migrate to the cloud, it’s time to find a cloud provider. Unlike any other cloud service provider, Microsoft Azure offers computing, analytics, database, mobility solutions, networking and more, all with the highest level of security. What’s more, it delivers cost-effective solutions for developing web, mobile, IoT and enterprise applications. Whatever your strategy, Azure delivers:

• Simple Infrastructure Management – Microsoft Azure offers unrivalled Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) that enables you to outsource cloud computing services on a pay-as-you-go model. To simplify things, Microsoft manages everything from security to infrastructure upgrades and gives maximum flexibility in terms of cost. 
• Additional Services – while data storage is a critical part of Azure’s offering, there is so much more. The cloud computing service has over 600 products that can help you cater to rapidly changing business needs and manage your programs and applications more effectively. Think big data, predictive analysis, blockchain technology, IoT integration and more. 
• Flexible Expenditure – not only do you rid yourself of the expenses of maintaining a local server and dedicated IT team but with Azure you can choose the precise features you need. You can pay more to get more when you need it while saving on hardware purchases, energy, licences and more. 
• World-Class Security – data protection is a high priority for Microsoft, which is why Azure is such a trusted cloud platform. Your data is secured by advanced encryption, two-tier authentication, biometric readers, robust firewall technology and a global incident response team. 
• High Availability – as one of the leading cloud platforms, Azure has a huge global reach. It currently operates in more than 140 countries, meaning that your business is guaranteed a great experience wherever it’s located. 

With Microsoft Azure as your cloud migration platform, you can become more efficient, improve customer service and confidently grow your business. 

Our Azure Consultants Can Ease Your Migration Journey

If you are struggling with scalability, reliability, security or performance with your on-premises infrastructure, it is probably time to migrate to the cloud. However, it is a big task and you’ll want to make sure that you get it right. Migration challenges include loss of data, semantics risks, corruption and interference. However, all of these risks can be mitigated by following best practices. That’s why it pays to work with someone who has a proven track record of migrating with security, speed and confidence.

With Azure consultants working with you, you can not only migrate your workloads but you can modernise your business. The right team can help you to modernise your data, empower employees, deliver new insights and transform your business.