Why migrate to Azure?
“Companies now have five requirements: securing the IS, simplifying technical management, increasing team flexibility, optimising costs and freeing up the company’s strengths”, explains Erwan Lancien. To address these challenges, business leaders and IT leaders are replacing older on-premise technologies with the more powerful, scalable and cost-effective cloud. +
However, a study by Strategy Group found that 57% of companies that migrated applications to the cloud had reintegrated their data or applications internally due to disappointing performance or rising costs. The fault is poorly prepared migration. Therefore, before mentioning the prerequisites, the strengths of this technology should be mentioned:
Cost optimization
Whether it is maintenance costs, or the installation of updates and patches on virtual or physical machines, managing a local server is very expensive. Not to mention the equipment that must be replaced in the event of obsolescence. The Azure cloud makes it possible to “shift these different responsibilities to Microsoft”, explains Erwan Lancien before adding that “the company thus has access to a powerful economic management tool, available 24/7 without having to recruit additional staff to maintain it. ”
Cloud profitability therefore appears to be immediate. Especially since the IAAS (infrastructure as a service) as hosted services, make it possible to adapt the infrastructure and costs to its current needs.
Reduced security risks
Security is a priority for all major players in the public cloud, including Microsoft Azure. Microsoft in particular has focused on this issue with the recent development of its Azure security centre. Also, the platform allows quick recovery after an incident and ensures that nothing disappears in the event of a failure thanks to automatic backups. Cloud computing services are indeed resistant to data loss because they store copies of it in several places.
In addition, the Azure cloud benefits from the same security tools as Office 365, such as Advanced Threat Protection. Elements that make it possible to control and manage the security of application environments while facilitating the use of DevOps thanks to Microsoft best practices.
Scalability, flexibility and performance
The Azure cloud enables rapid development thanks to simplified handling. This makes it easy to take advantage of the ‘cloud+Data+AI’ model and unlock new digital transformation scenarios. In the same way, it becomes easier to test new products on its infrastructure and then put it on the market.
What migration scenarios?
To properly prepare a cloud migration to Microsoft Azure, a precise migration plan must be drawn up. Different steps are to be considered, different choices are to be made. It is necessary to define a strategy, the scope, think about governance, build the architecture and prepare the ground while integrating the technical teams in the approach.
In this respect, the scenarios vary according to needs:
- Lift & shift: this strategy is the simplest. It consists of deploying the existing system identically in the Azure cloud. "We take and move without making changes," adds Erwan Lancien.
- Refactor: here, it is a question of moving the majority of the existing system to the same place, but leaving the management of certain services (particularly of the "database" type) to Microsoft Azure (we therefore use PaaS). .
- Rearchitect: this strategy consists of modifying part of the architecture to optimise it through micro-services 0and meeting scaling requirements for example.
- Rebuild: the latter aims to completely rewrite the code of an application using native Azure technologies. .
Bespoke migration
As Erwan Lancien says, “each migration project is unique and each company has its share of different constraints, ambitions and needs”. Talan has also developed a methodology that adapts to the customer ecosystem while benefiting from all the benefits of the Microsoft Azure cloud.
The migration then takes place in four stages:
- Analysis of the existing situation and construction of a desirable operational target
- Target Design
- Organisation of migration
- Migration and Optimization
“Our Azure migration service applies best practices through all the essential steps: a thorough assessment of your maturity in the Cloud, an audit of the infrastructure and applications in place, a feasibility study and eligibility of applications to be switched to the Cloud”, explains Erwan Lancien. This 360° approach makes it possible to combine the benefits of Microsoft Azure and to manage projects as a whole by integrating the governance, monitoring and DevOps parts.
