Is Azure IaaS a fit for your business? An insider’s view
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), in other words, “Serverless Computing,” is a notable change in the IT industry. You do not need to own physical server boxes in your office to run, manage your mission-critical applications, store data, take backups, and set up VPN connections for remote access. Instead, it is all now configurable through a web browser session.
If you are keen on modernizing your IT, then shifting to the IaaS model is the best way to keep up with the trends in digital information. Azure, one of the leading cloud providers without a doubt, provides all essential cloud-based IT computing resources to enable an organization with digital capabilities.
From talking to many prospects primarily in the AEC industry with an employee size between 10 to 200, we understand there are initiatives to adapt to the cloud. The primary interests are migrating application management to an offsite or cloud-enabled environment with storage, backup, and disaster recovery. Nevertheless, there are also concerns about whether Azure is the right choice.
This article shares our views on Azure from our experience assisting clients and discusses a few use case scenarios that will help you decide.
Why consider Azure for your IT transformation?
Azure provides cloud-enabled Infrastructure as a service to fulfill primary requirements such as high-performance computing, reliability, security, storage, backup, and recovery. Also, you get to manage unpredictable demand and growing storage requirements.
In addition, it helps in simplifying the planning and management of backup or recovery systems.
Zero upfront investment for servers: With IaaS, you move from capital expenditure to operating monthly expenses. Purchasing servers or hardware equipment to set up or renew maintenance are the past. By subscribing to Microsoft Azure, you can start building a cloud environment.
Costs: A commonly asked question during a conversation with prospects is “what will be the cost”? It is a fair question to ask. To understand how much it would cost for your requirement, try using Azure calculator, an online tool that provides an estimate depending on your input requirements. If you have the current costs for managing Infrastructure, it will help you compare.
Paying for usage only, what more can you ask? Be it a virtual server, storage, backup, you are better off with this model vs. investing capital and then allocating a budget for periodical maintenance and renewals.
Azure provides a usage-based breakup on all computing resources, which can help you understand the spread of costs across line items. With the analytics, you could decide what to tweak or remove. For assistance in doing a cost model, get help from a Microsoft Partner or give us a call; we could guide you.
State of the Art Technology: Azure data centers are more sophisticated and spread globally. There are regions and zones giving customers choices to select and configure. It enables storing data in single or multiple areas for recovery. The functions and features are competitive and can be a no-match compared to other cloud services.
Scalable: An essential aspect of IT management is scaling up on a need basis. A good example would be a change in server configuration to support the growing workload, storage increases, and backup. Alternatively, you could downsize configurations.
Remote Capabilities: Every business in today’s scenario needs to have a remote working capability. Azure provides diverse options to achieve remote capabilities, and you could run your business empowering anywhere access to your staff and external collaborators.
How to determine if it is a fit?
Test drive it. Azure provides options to test drive and feel its functionalities, features, connectivity, security, and overall compute resource management.
Build a minimum environment based on your test plan for starters and use it for hours, days, weeks, or months. Then, evaluate your experience and make notes of your findings on what works and what does not. In general, if anything that you find is not suitable, it could be due to a lack of knowledge or expertise.
If the test drive is satisfactory, work with your IT team or a Microsoft CSP partner, draft a migration plan and shift your workloads. But, again, there are options to optimize fitting your budget.
We have assisted clients ranging from 5 user businesses to 1000+ enterprises. Azure provides transparency on usage, costs and AECCloud manages the client environment providing access and support.
As an Insider
Microsoft Azure is a fit for those who would like to move away from physical server management.
Our clients can vouch for the efficiency and productivity they can achieve through the cloud and our support.
Here are a few businesses use cases so you will understand what size of business is benefiting.
Specialty Contractor, NY
Users 10 to 15
2 Servers; Applications - Quick bid, Quantum, QuickBooks, and Revit
Backup, remote capabilities, and on-call support
With a single server in the office and storage disks with max capacity, the controller playing an IT role found it challenging to manage. In addition, they had an IT person visiting on a call basis to break-fix. After migrating to Azure, they pay just one monthly fee to utilize computing resources plus managed services.
General Contractor/Construction Manager, NY
35 Users
4 Servers; Applications – Sage 100, Bluebeam, Document Locator, Prolog, and a few others.
Backup, remote capabilities, and on-call support
The firm has no internal IT team. However, AECCloud has been their managed service for more than ten years.
During the pandemic lockdown, our clients were running as usual, and there was no hassle connecting remotely to work.
Since Microsoft eco system is partner driven, clients/customers are free to choose who they would like to work with and associate a partner of their choice in the Azure portal.
The switch from physical equipment management to web based serverless computing is already a trend. Small-medium businesses to enterprises are taking advantage of Azure benefits and simplifying their IT. If you have thought about Azure or considering choosing, ask yourself why Azure would not fit your needs?