We’ll deliver a migration path to the cloud, consulting on your key applications and workflows and design a solution to suit.
We aggregate a number of cloud providers in a model that operates seamlessly to the end user.
We can:
- extend the functionality of your existing IT infrastructure
- completely remove your on-premise server infrastructure
- provide collaboration technologies and remote working
- ringfence your IT with a range of security offerings
- scale up and down your IT as needs require, even down to an hourly basis
- host your voice infrastructure
Scalability
We are heavily cloud-focused and will lean heavily on Microsoft Azure, Sharepoint, InTune and Azure AD in your IT strategy. The solutions we implement in small 10-15-user scenarios are based on the same principles as enterprises of multiple times this size, with scalability at the heart of this. Many customers on our Azure-based environments actually use this scalability on a weekly basis according to user demands and cost requirements, and our ongoing monitoring allows us to predict usage trends, potential cost savings and options for future performance improvement.
Manageability
Cloud-based infrastructure frees you from the ties of on-premise hardware and allows your IT to be managed truly from any location. With this comes a vast range of toolsets and portals at your disposal. New users can be provisioned from straightforward portals, server resources easily scaled up and down, monitoring portals showing status of backups, server uptimes, security alerts and much more – allowing your IT provider to be more responsive and to be empowered with more resource.
Security
A properly managed cloud environment is multiple times more secure than a typical on-premise setup, with an array of technologies aiding this.
- Restrict access to your Azure environment by IP address range(s).
- Email and file encryption – utilise Azure Information Protection to guarantee that a sensitive file cannot be read by any other than certain parties – even if emailed to the wrong recipient or copied off your IT environment onto removable storage.
- Protect desktop/laptop/email logins with 2-factor authentication via either text message or authenticator app.
- Logging of email or cloud service sign-ins and be alerted of suspicious usage patterns or geographic locations.
- Remotely enforce disk encryption on all mobile/desktop/laptop client devices without the need for VPN’s or third party add-ons. Alert designated staff members or end users when client devices fall out of this scope and block access to company data if so required.
With the correct implementation, such features as these can exist in a functional IT environment without getting in the way of productivity. Much of this forms part of our standard roll-out in cloud-only and hybrid environments, to standards that have been proven to pass ISO 27001 security compliance.
Predictability
The cloud offers better predictability of IT operational costs. With simplified per-user or per-endpoint per-month billing, and upgrades to products included in this rolling fee, this abstracts away a lot of the past concerns of migration planning, licensing renewals and the servicing costs associated.
Hosting your servers in the cloud achieves the same benefits. The up-front hardware and licensing costs are replaced with a monthly subscription to a service that is predictable, but if required, scalable. This removes the costs of power consumption, backup media, warranty renewals, hardware replacements, and most importantly, a future migration project to replace that hardware in the next cycle.
In cases where cloud is not the preferred choice, either from personal preference, budget, or the type of application involved, we call on 20 years’ experience in the on-premise space. We continue to deploy and support a range of fully on-premise solutions and hybrid environments with an element of cloud. We are flexible enough to work with any requirements and can deliver a mix of solutions to fit.