a softchoice white paper the essential starter’s guide to microsoft azure … · harness the...

The Essential Starter’s Guide to Microsoft Azure for IT Leaders

A Softchoice White Paper

Connect with us today. 1.800.268.7638 | www.softchoice.com

Consumption of public cloud services has been growing for many years, with enterprises and smaller businesses alike shifting larger shares of their IT spend away from on-premises infrastructure and applications and into various cloud offerings. At the same time, many companies are also diversifying their mixes of cloud services and providers. The ongoing growth of hybrid IT deployments plus the increasing popularity of Microsoft Azure, in particular, underscore this trend.

Azure’s unique blend of services supports a wide range of use cases, including moving infrastructure and applications to the cloud via Azure Migrate, connecting existing on-premises networks via ExpressRoute and preserving business continuity with Azure Site Recovery, among other possibilities. Azure’s suitability for hybrid IT, its integration with Microsoft services and its overall versatility across its solution offerings has increased its popularity.

By 2019, over half of enterprises were using Azure, up from 45% in 2018. But choosing to adopt Azure is just the first step toward cloud transformation. Making the actual journey into Azure requires a multi-step process—one that includes detailed planning, careful evaluation of workloads and possible team upskilling—to ensure success. The exact steps involved will differ for first-time adopters of Azure and organizations with some Azure services already in place.

In this guide, we will walk you through the right sequence for each scenario, drawing on the expertise of what Softchoice experts have witnessed in their work with customers. Softchoice is a leading provider of managed services and IT solutions in North America, offering professional services, procurement and architecture excellence in all aspects of data center and cloud.

Overview: Making the Journey to Azure

“The ongoing growth of hybrid IT deployments plus the increasing popularity of Microsoft Azure, in particular, underscore this trend.”

T H E E S S E N T I A L S TA RT E R ’S G U I D E TO M I C R O S O F T A Z U R E FO R I T L E A D E R S01 www.softchoice.com

Step #1: Getting Started with Azure? Start Small.(If already in Azure, proceed to Step #2 below)A company moving into Azure for the first time should be able to answer fundamental questions, namely:

What business problems will Azure address in my organization?What new skills and considerations will it require?What outcomes are being aimed for in the Azure deployment?

Having clear answers to these questions will help guide the Azure migration and identify any gaps that need to be closed before it can realistically proceed. For example, if the second question above identifies the need for additional expertise in security or networking, it can save the organization the trouble of realizing that at a later stage, and enable them to enlist the assistance of an expert managed service provider early on.

Moreover, since Azure is a set of consumable services rather than a traditional IT product, the stakes are high for understanding exactly what each workload will require in terms of resources and management. Errors such as overprovisioning are common in initial cloud deployments.

However, they can be avoided by being able to define a workload’s costs properly in advance, rightsize its infrastructure in response and ultimately give teams experience they can apply in other migration scenarios. For first-time adopters, this process is easiest to follow with a relatively small workload.

“Since Azure is a set of consumable services rather than a traditional IT product, the stakes are high for understanding exactly what each workload will require in terms of resources and management.”


The Big Advantages of Starting Small

Starting small—with something realistically movable and not disruptive to critical operations, yet still representative of the larger IT environment—is a practical first step on the path toward Azure.

This “something” could be an application or production workload that is currently running on-prem and that would become more economical and scalable if placed in Azure, for instance, because it has highly variable levels of demand that would fit well into an OpEx model.

The start-small strategy enables adopters to gain significant experience, build cross-functional teams and develop general knowledge, processes and tools for the cloud, all without getting overwhelmed from the outset. To put the problem colloquially: First time-adopters don’t know what they don’t know, and that makes a phased approach with professional guidance essential.

The Softchoice Public Cloud Accelerator provides insight into core cloud concepts, so that adopters can accumulate the acumen they need for better decision-making later on.

The benefits of working your way up into Azure, instead of trying to take on complex projects right away and complete them all at once, are substantial. Cloud migrations face numerous risks, including technical failures and financial problems related to improper workload assessment. Over 60% of respondents to a Dimensional Research survey said cloud migrations were more difficult than expected, while more than half reported exceeding their budgets.

“Over 60% of respondents to a Dimensional Research survey said cloud migrations were more difficult than expected, while more than half reported exceeding their budgets.”


Step #2: Taking the Next Step with Azure: Make a Plan.Both first-time adopters and existing Azure users must focus on workload assessments to sustain their cloud momentum. After all, not every workload is suitable for the public cloud, and selecting the wrong ones can put pressure on an organization’s IT operations and finances. A detailed, systematic plan, based on real visibility into infrastructures and dependencies, is necessary for identifying and moving the right workloads to Azure.

In making a plan for how to assess workloads, prioritize the following criteria:

Performance: What kind of network throughput and disk I/O does the workload need? Does its performance vary or is it mostly static? Performance will affect how a workload is optimized for the cloud or whether it gets moved at all.

Optimized Workload Design: Workload optimization is different in the cloud. You’re no longer building out extensive data center assets on a multiyear timeline with room for growth to recoup the investment, but rather optimizing for on-demand consumption by including only the resources an app needs.

Business Impact: Will the workload’s movement affect business continuity, e.g. by altering the behavior of a line-of-business application? This consideration is why small, lower-impact workloads are the ideal starting points for first-time cloud migrations.

Security, Compliance and Data Sovereignty: Related to the above, each workload may have unique impacts on the organization’s security and compliance efforts. Where a workload is located and how it is protected must be top priorities during planning.

“Both first-time adopters and existing Azure users must focus on workload assessments to sustain their cloud momentum.”


Application Profiles and Migration Options

From there, the plan should flow into building application profiles for the candidate workloads that reflect these examinations, along with information about their infrastructures, dependencies, OSes, and all associated risks and roadblocks. By constructing app profiles and understanding interdependencies, it becomes more straightforward to determine eventual workload placement and achieve the desired performance for each application.

After assessing workloads for Azure migration, some of them may not need to be moved, perhaps because they do not fit a cloud consumption model, or have simply been deprecated.

For Azure-viable workloads, several approaches are possible, based on their performance, design and business impact, plus the budget available for the migration effort:

RehostingI.E., a simple lift-and-shift with relatively few modifications along the way.

ReplatformingA more extensive modification to better harness the power of automation and cloud APIs

RearchitectingA complete redesign, possibly to a cloud-native framework.

In addition to multiple options for migrating workloads into Azure, customers may also take advantage of different purchasing plans for Azure services, which offer flexibility in how these solutions are paid for and managed.

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)Through CSP, Azure customers can harness the power of a strategic partner that owns the entire lifecycle and relationship. Softchoice also offers enrollment in Keystone Essential Managed Services for Azure when buying via CSP.

Enterprise Agreement (EA)The EA route is common among enterprises with EAs already in place for other Microsoft. Usage discounts are available for a multi-year contractual commitment, plus the EA portal streamlines subscription management.

Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA)This entirely digital option allows for straightforward purchasing with a one-time agreement to terms. MCA is suitable for organizations of all sizes.

Softchoice Workload Assessment is available to help you move forward with confidence by building application profiles and understanding each app’s dependencies before it is migrated into Azure.


Expanding Into Azure With Help From a Data Warehouse or Lake

Let’s get a bit more granular for a moment, to see what specific changes can be involved when moving a workload.

No matter how a workload is migrated to Azure, some modifications to its databases may be necessary, either upfront or in the more distant future.

Accordingly, it is a good idea to evaluate, consolidate and normalize the relevant data sources as necessary, to ensure proper levels of performance and manageable costs.

Since information may be stored across multiple systems in redundant entries, normalization of this data in a data warehouse would shrink the amount of required disk space, creating a single source of truth and helping support faster SQL queries.

Alternatively, a data lake could be useful for funneling relational and nonrelational data into one place and extracting insights from it via machine learning. Azure offers both data warehouses and data lakes, and implementing these solutions can help in the migration as a whole.

“No matter how a workload is migrated to Azure, some modifications to its databases may be necessary, either upfront or in the more distant future.”


“The diverse mix of applications in a hybrid IT setup can create challenges in ensuring consistent management, security and financial sustainability.”

Step #3: Modernizing Your Environment: Build the Right Architecture.Moving into Azure is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Your in-house environment does not disappear entirely in most cases, nor is Azure likely to be the only cloud service you use. Indeed, hybrid IT architectures have become much more prevalent over time, with Azure a common component within them.

At the same time, the diverse mix of applications in a hybrid IT setup can create challenges in ensuring consistent management, security and financial sustainability. Inconsistencies across clouds and a lack of skills to get everything working as desired were among the top difficulties cited in a VMware survey of IT decision-makers supporting traditional as well as cloud-native apps.

Building a suitable modern architecture will typically requires making substantial changes to multiple types of infrastructures and services:

Data CenterLegacy data centers are often highly siloed, both in how their infrastructure is set up and how they are managed. This combination of aging technologies and heavily manual processes is not scalable to a cloud paradigm, in which applications and services need to be rapidly delivered on-demand to users across multiple locations and devices.

Modernizing the data center is possible by implementing more automation, in addition to support for specific Azure services and technologies such as microservices and containers.


Microservices and ContainersCreating and managing applications is more straightforward with the use of microservices and containers. Microservices are basically small puzzle pieces of software, which can be put together to build a larger app. Since they are independent and small-scale, they can be updated as needed to extend the functionality of an application—a key benefit in fast-moving cloud delivery models. Similarly, containers let applications be ported across environments with few or no changes, enabling more consistency in hybrid IT architecture.

NetworkingRealizing optimal performance from an application in Azure requires a globally available, reliable, high-bandwidth network. Proper cloud solution design that can take advantage of services such as global Azure DNS, the Azure VNet virtual network, secure web frontends via Azure Application Gateway, content delivery networks, anti-DDoS protection and a fast, secure private network connection via ExpressRoute.

SD-WANSD-WANs facilitate better cloud app delivery. The SD-WAN architecture extends a data center network into the cloud through the addition of different modes of network transport beyond MPLS, along with a more distributed security model that replaces the traditional tromboning of traffic through a central location. All of this adds up to superior performance and control of cloud-bound traffic.

SecurityCloud security is a constant concern due to the volume and variety of threats targeting cloud service providers (CSPs), not to mention the reliance of customers on CSPs to keep their data, applications and infrastructure safe. Securing a hybrid IT deployment requires specific skills and tools, which a managed service provider and CSP can help with, respectively. Softchoice can provide support at every step of Azure migration, ensuring that your workloads are protected by the multiple layers of security available with Azure itself.

“Creating and managing applications is more straightforward with the use of microservices and containers.”


Step #4: Automating and Managing: Ensure Continuous Improvement and Development.Once the right architecture in place, the work of automating and improving day-to-day operations in Azure still goes on. Indeed, continuous management is pivotal to ensuring proper governance, security and cost-effectiveness, and to mitigating the risks of going over budget and being underprepared for sudden changes. Softchoice will set your organization up for such long-term success through our managed services, which also work well in tandem with methodologies such as DevOps.

DevOps and Managing Your Azure Environment

The relative amount of responsibility a cloud customer will bear for this upkeep will depend on the cloud service model select-ed, i.e. IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, with IaaS entailing the highest level of customer effort and SaaS the least. In all cases, it is im-portant to develop the right expertise and mindset to manage cloud-centric operations, and to set up people, processes, and tools that help track consumption and establish accountability for all workloads.

DevOps is a popular methodology for aligning the skills and culture of an organization’s technical teams with the specific opportunities and challenges presented by Azure.More specifically, DevOps can deliver:

Caret-right Superior application quality and implementation velocity, through improved communication/collaboration and the usage of specific features like Azure Resource Manager templates.

Caret-right Cross-functional teams that are well-equipped to handle cloud migrations and manage workloads in accordance with best practices for security and performance.

Caret-right More sustainable IT costs, due to releasing on time, capitalizing on openings in the market as they arise and avoiding downtime.

Caret-right Greater automation through continuous integration/delivery, which leads to fewer errors or delays while helping the organization be more responsive to change.

“Once the right architecture in place, the work of automating and improving day-to-day operations in Azure still goes on. ”


Establishing Accountability and Tracking Consumption

Implementing proper governance procedures and tooling also contributes to clearer understanding of the organization’s overall cloud consumption, and how it might be improved. Since teams are in closer communication and making more extensive use of Azure’s capabilities, they can see potential areas of risk, for example a set of resources that has not been rightsized for current usage levels, or a vulnerability to a key endpoint for which the customer is responsible.

Tracking consumption is key, since cloud usage patterns differ from those for traditional IT infrastructure and can change rapidly due to demand spikes. Detailed dashboards like the Softchoice Cloud Insights Dashboard allow for granular insight into how cloud resources are being utilized, and into who is accountable for what.

Establishing accountability is useful for security purposes, too, for instance for seeing which personnel have the ability to spin up new workloads and the data they have access to as well. Overall, better visibility translates into superior control of the architecture, including the power to improve it as business requirements evolve and new opportunities emerge.

“Tracking consumption is key, since cloud usage patterns differ from those for traditional IT infrastructure and can change rapidly due to demand spikes.”


How to Take the Next Steps With Your Azure DeploymentWhether your organization has never used Azure before now or is instead expanding its use of Azure services, Softchoice can guide it through a successful migration to the right architecture, culminating in continuous operational improvement. Let’s look at four of our primary offerings for new and current Azure users. For each one, getting started is as simple as booking a simple online consultation.

Softchoice Public Cloud Accelerator“Where do I start with Azure?”

The Softchoice Public Cloud Accelerator is designed to answer this question and help your organization build its momentum in the cloud.

Our Public Cloud Accelerator offers full workload migration along with expert training so that you can identify and close gaps, avoid configuration errors and control costs en route to success in Azure. We will make it easier for you to stay within budget, migrate right the first time and build on success over time.

Public Cloud Accelerator Deliverable Benefits for Your Azure Environment

Cloud Training WorkshopLearn best practices for Azure, and receive ongoing

mentorship and technical support to overcome cloud-related

skills gaps.

Expert-Designed Azure ArchitectureGet a secure, stable foundation for your Azure migrations,

avoiding the failures that commonly affect other cloud

transitions.

Continuous Cost and Performance OptimizationLeverage expert advice on how to control costs, improve

performance and plan subsequent cloud strategy.

Experienced TeamTap into the knowledge of the Softchoice team, which has

completed over 500 migrations for companies of all sizes.


Softchoice Workload Assessment

Plan with confidence by taking advantage of the Softchoice Workload Assessment. Migrating into Azure is often a complex undertaking, requiring precise attention to everything from expected usage and costs to possible security complications. Our Workload Assessment offering helps you simplify the process and close the cloud planning gap by giving you access to all necessary insights.

Workload Assessment Deliverable Benefits for Your Azure Environment

Expert RecommendationsIdentify risks (e.g., costs), requirements and opportunities for each migration to have a clear strategy in place from the start.

Application Profiles and DependenciesSee the specific characteristics of each application, grasp what dependencies are required and ensure proper performance.

Resource RightsizingPrevent overprovisioning, see the real costs of migration and decommission unneeded resources if already running workloads in Azure

Keystone Managed Cloud Services

With Keystone Managed Cloud Services, your organization has access to the technical skills, processes and platforms necessary for scalable and effective management of your cloud environments. Our team offers around-the-clock support and unlimited mentorship to ensure your Azure workloads are high-performance, secure and economical. Our Azure CSP offering includes Keystone services with built-in managed services and support.

Cloud Managed Services Deliverable Benefits for Your Azure Environment

Technical Support And Professional MentorshipLearn operational best practices, develop cloud expertise and

resolve issues with help from 24/7 live answer support.

Proactive Consumption MonitoringSave money, optimize costs and establish accountability by

tracking consumption in our dashboard.

Standardized, Automated Workload DeploymentsImplement new cloud features, ensure proper identity

and access management and eliminate error-prone

manual processes.


Softchoice Cloud Migration Services

Gain peace of mind for your Azure migration, through our end-to-end cloud implementation and management services. Our team will transfer its deep Azure knowledge to your organization and set it up for predictable results post-migration, thanks to proven methodologies that minimize risk.

Cloud Migration Services Deliverable Benefits for Your Azure Environment

Knowledge Transfer and MentorshipAcquire the technical expertise to manage and support your Azure environment over the long term.

Workload-Centric Approach to MigrationMigrate workload by workload, to ensure the business value of the cloud migration. using reference architectures to ensure consistency, security, and savings.

Data-Driven AssessmentsAlign business and technical requirements via a process that includes stakeholder interviews and careful evaluations of cloud options.

Connect with us today. 1.800.268.7638 | www.softchoice.com

About SoftchoiceSoftchoice is a trusted provider of technology solutions and services across North America. With a deep bench of Microsoft experts, we are also a leading Enterprise Agreement reseller in the United States and Canada, delivering the expertise and tools that help customers ensure the best experience in Azure, all the way from initial planning through the ongoing management and maintenance of large-scale business cloud deployments. From our accelerator programs to our cloud management dashboards, we offer everything you need to be successful in Azure.

a softchoice white paper the essential starter’s guide to microsoft azure … · harness the...

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