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Posted 9th October 2023
The figures for cloud adoption over the last five years are genuinely astonishing. A new ‘as a service’ generation of operational digital technology has developed from software, to platforms and infrastructure and all the way to individual functions of business applications. In 2023 it’s also estimated that around 62% of SME workloads are now hosted in the cloud. Indeed, data shows that 98% of global companies now use at least one element of cloud computing for their day to day processes.
As a trusted and established Managed Service Provider for our partners, we know exactly how important it is to feel confident that you are navigating this new Cloud Age in the most beneficial and cost efficient way for your organisation.
It’s easy to see why Microsoft Azure holds such a strong position in the cloud service provider market. It offers unrivalled power for organisations of all sizes in improved productivity, increased efficiency and enhanced flexibility. The ability to simply build, deploy and maintain workloads and applications with secure data storage brings huge advantages across all industries. Read more on reasons to move to Azure.
At BCN, we are experts in the successful architecture and management of Azure environments for our partners. We also understand the challenges that are involved for the most effective maintenance and support to guarantee that Azure consistently delivers the most value.
Our experience has shown that without an effective strategy of monitoring and management, costs for Azure solutions can escalate pretty quickly. This is most commonly seen when an organisation is tasked with managing their environment in-house, without the required experience and resources. Fortunately, our very own BCN Managed Azure team is here to help you learn about some of the major pitfalls and how a managed service provider can help you avoid them.
The open power and flexibility of Azure means that environments and databases can be spun up instantly to begin working. However, this also means that they will be incurring additional costs for your Azure solution immediately too. Of course, there are notifications and a guiding UX within Azure to inform that this is the case, but if the user is working on an unfamiliar platform without the necessary experience then this can be misunderstood. All managed service providers have horror stories about clients asking why their costs have risen dramatically only for the audit logs to say that their team has been busy creating additional databases without an eye on the bigger picture or bottom line.
The only surefire way to prevent this happening is to block it at source. Creating a comprehensive access control and permission policy alongside an expert managed service provider is the best way to assure the best environment governance. At BCN, we implement the highest standard of Azure environment governance from the very beginning. We set bespoke restrictions, permissions and notifications that will keep any nasty billing surprises away while guaranteeing that your solution is always tailored towards your ultimate business goals.
Perhaps the most common mistake when adopting an Azure environment is not creating a full understanding of your existing infrastructure vs what your current and future requirements really are. A simple lift and shift migration directly into Azure without a comprehensive review creates an uncertain foundation for the future of your operations. Particularly when clients are looking to replace end of life infrastructure as a drive towards digital transformation & cloud solutions, it’s easy to look at the new operational expenditure costs and compare them to capital expenditure of on-premise platforms & software. This can lead to a confusing version of how your entire company actually works with attention given in all the wrong places.
The truth is that rightsizing is the only definitive way of getting the most valuable infrastructure from your investment in the cloud. The BCN Managed Azure Services team conducts full performance auditing to create reviews of what capabilities you need, how to build them in an optimised way and understand when you need them the most. This ongoing application of product specific expertise aligned with the bespoke requirements of client environments and goals is the most stable, powerful and flexible way of operating. With BCN, these insights & analytics are always ongoing to monitor any new patterns, trends or requirements that your Azure solution will attend to and improve with.
Staying on top of the costs associated with any Azure solution requires dedicated planning, budgeting and management informed by regular reviews of the activity in your environment. Creating the correct policies and permissions from the outset creates a stable foundation to build from but budget thresholds and monitoring have to be approached in a similar way. This may seem a simple task that can be delegated to non specific company departments or roles , but that can represent a clear and costly danger. Some statistics suggest that a whopping 30% of cloud spend is wasted by companies each year that amounts to billions of unnecessary pounds spent.
There is now a whole new area of expertise, knowledge and experience in Cloud Economics that a managed service provider is able to apply to stop this happening to you. It involves augmenting your understanding of how your organisation works with professional consultation to identify spikes in elements such as compute power or storage requirements. A vigilant and holistic view of your Azure solution is key, but knowing how to react to the data and findings is vital. BCN Managed Azure Services is the perfect way to outsource this capability by liberating your own resources and placing the responsibility to trusted partners with guaranteed SLA cover.
The BCN Managed Azure Service delivers peace of mind and the highest quality customer relationship in response to every issue you may encounter for your Azure solution. It’s constantly monitored and assessed by our team of experts in a bespoke way to guarantee you can access the innovative benefits available from any updates and new features. Additionally, it also offers a simple route to compliance with the ever changing world of regulation & security issues.
As with all elements of digital transformation, having the right technology partner at your side always makes the journey simpler to understand and easier to undertake. At BCN, we pride ourselves on offering more than the traditional service provider and client model. All of our partners benefit from open and professional communication with the highest levels of knowledge and service available to them for their solutions. We strive to become an integral part of your teams and an overall asset to your organisation.
Learn more about our Managed Azure Service here.
