Ahead of the Microsoft Envision Ireland event on 10th November at The Convention Centre Dublin, experts from Ergo share best practices around cloud migrations, which you can explore at the Ergo stand on the day.
To be a Microsoft customer today is a very different experience to what it was a decade ago, a consequence of the relentless pace of technology and the ability of Microsoft and its partners to stay relevant to businesses who are going though massive periods of reinvention.
Our own journey at Ergo mirrors the way the market has changed, in large part because of the cloud transforming how IT services are delivered and consumed. A number of factors make a cloud migration successful, and one of the first is making sure the business buys into the cloud and it’s not just the IT department on a mission.
Next, you need proper planning and workload assessments to match cloud capabilities to the organisation’s strategy. Identify the infrastructure and services that will benefit most from the move, the applications that will need to be modernised, or the parts of a business that could be transformed by cloud native development, creating new processes from scratch.
Kevin Greene, Public Cloud Practice Lead and Microsoft MVP at Ergo warns against a simple ‘lift and shift’ approach:
“A mistake that some organisations make is to migrate legacy applications and processes without taking time to rejuvenate them with what the cloud has to offer. Essentially, they move their existing problems to another location. Never lift and shift without first considering transforming those workloads, otherwise, it’s a missed opportunity.”
When it comes to deployment, the development of repeatable processes and standardised templates has been a game changer. Each customer’s outcomes may be different but execution always relies on the same tried and trusted processes. Fully defined, and backed up by best practice with the right documentation, it eliminates human error and overdependency on a single IT person.
Anyone from the team with the same training and certifications can step in and get the job done. Ironically, making execution simpler in this way takes hard-earned expertise. Last year we earned Azure Expert MSP status, a rigorous undertaking that places Ergo among the elite of Microsoft partners. It means we are audited annually and have to demonstrate mastery of the codes, the processes and the repeatable templates.
Constantly upskilling employees is part of the Ergo way as we strive to keep moving forward, according to Kevin Greene.
“It’s an indicator of how far we have come since we became an early mover on cloud over a decade ago,” he said. “Today we have mature capabilities, not just for helping organisations migrate to the cloud but to continually improve and innovate in ways that were simply not possible in the old world of IT.”
A great example of how cloud can change things for the better happened in the pandemic. The move to Software-as-a-Service solutions like Teams and Microsoft 365 is well documented, but we also saw demand for Azure Cloud. With no-one in the office, organisations found themselves with a lot of idle hardware and little infrastructure to support employees working from home. Ergo responded with a hybrid work proposition that leverages the full range of Microsoft technologies, including Azure Virtual Desktop. It empowers employees to work the way they want, while maintaining business priorities around productivity and security.
Conversations around hybrid work continue, but there are also discussions around cloud optimisation strategies – organisations want value for money without compromising on performance. “We see it as our job to ensure they can have both,” said Greene, “and being able to deliver is a real differentiator for Ergo.”
An official sponsor of Microsoft Envision Ireland, come and meet the Ergo team at their stand at the event, where they will be showcasing their market-leading cloud and hybrid work solutions
