Optimus Information is thrilled to announce that they have been selected as 1 of 2 Microsoft Partners in Canada to earn the Azure Specialists for Independent Software Vendor (ISV) title. An Azure Specialist for ISVs is selected by Microsoft based on their proven expertise and ISV focused practice.
“We are honoured to be selected as an Azure Specialist for ISVs and be recognized for our cloud and software expertise. We thank Microsoft and our clients for continually putting their trust in us.”
– Pankaj Agarwal – Managing Partner & Founder of Optimus Information
We understand that migrating to Microsoft Azure and listing transactable offers in Microsoft’s Marketplace has several benefits but it’s not an easy task. This is why working with an experienced partner, like Optimus Information, is essential to migrate, optimize, and manage existing workloads to the cloud. We’ve helped a lot of SaaS companies, at different points on their cloud journey, save 10-15% of their operational costs or save 6 months on their innovation roadmap.
What does being an Azure Specialist for ISVs mean for our clients?
1. Receive expertise and knowledge on your infrastructure assessment and cloud migration roadmap.
As one of Microsoft Canada’s experienced Azure specialist partners, Optimus Information helps organizations migrate apps from on-premise to cloud keeping in mind scalability, security and with optimal performance.
2. Assistance with pilot and proof-of-concept (POC) migration to Azure leveraging free Azure Sponsorship credits.
Optimus can provide complimentary assessments and assistance with POCs to ensure a seamless cloud strategy and roadmap. We also leverage funding programs that help our clients save on their overall costs.
3. Onboarding support to get your application onto the Microsoft commercial marketplace
Optimus provides clients with guidance and an easy methodology for listing their transactable offers on Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
Unlike traditional technology consultants that take forever to understand your infrastructure – Optimus Information quickly provides guidance on how to start your migration, resources to accelerate, and expertise to overcome your challenges. We get you on the cloud faster and more cost-effectively so your team can focus on your core business.
Want to see how we can help you? Schedule a 20-min information call to discuss your cloud migration strategy at info@optimusinfo.com.
https://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/AS4ISV_square.png501501Optimus Informationhttps://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/optimusinfologo.pngOptimus Information2021-12-08 10:52:272021-12-08 10:52:27Optimus Information Selected as Azure Specialist for ISVs in Canada
Have you ever struggled with controlling and governing complex systems, with ever-changing management tools? Some parts of running an organization that relies on cloud environments can be really difficult. It’s becoming increasingly hard to manage new, complex environments with all their moving pieces. Azure Arc is a game changer for hybrid cloud. It delivers a multi-cloud and on-premises management platform. In this article, we’ll be going over the details of Azure Arc, how it works, and how it can help you. Keep reading to learn what Azure Arc is, the benefits of using it, and more resources to get you started.
What is Azure Arc
As previously mentioned, Azure Arc is a multi-cloud and on-premises management platform that consistently delivers high performance. It helps to consolidate all your data and systems into Azure Manager. Some key features that Azure Arc includes are implementing inventory, management, governance, and security across all servers as well as managing Kubernetes structures at a scale. It can also manage virtual machines and more as if they were running in Azure. As well as this, it supports servers running anywhere, on-premises and in any cloud. This can include Windows, Linux, and more. To learn more about the benefits of these key features and more, keep reading.
Azure Arc control plane diagram provided by Microsoft https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-arc/overview
Benefits
There are many benefits that demonstrate how Azure Arc is a game changer for hybrid cloud; however, in this article we’ll only cover a few of them.
One of the biggest upsides to using Azure Arc is that all resources associated/registered with Azure Arc send data to the main, cloud-based Azure Manager. This consolidates the information in a succinct and useful manner. Enterprises can guarantee compliance of resources registered with Azure Arc no matter where they are deployed. This leads to quick problem solving, and less time lost.
Azure Arc can also be used to take care of the smallest to most complex maintenance operations across all forms of the cloud. For example, it can help to manage security and governance and on the other hand, it can also manage updating the operating systems for your servers, a tedious task.
Customers also benefit from all the aforementioned key features of Azure. They can manage resources within or outside of Azure through one consolidated control plane.
To grasp the full extent of the power that Azure Arc provides, take a look at the resources in the next section. Learn the full list of benefits, how to take the next steps with Azure Arc, and some background information on Azure in general.
Resources
If you or your organization want to learn more about Azure Arc, check out the Azure Arc blog for recent updates and what they entail.
For more details about Azure Arc and how it might look as a part of your enterprise, this page from Microsoft Azure outlines the key features of Azure Arc and their uses in real world scenarios.
Interested in getting started on your Azure Arc journey and want to see how Azure Arc is a game changer for hybrid cloud? Look at this page that helps identify which Azure Arc plan works best for you.
Finally, for more background on Azure as a whole, check out some other articles from the Optimus Information blog such as the 5 benefits of cloud migration using Azure SQL or our common cloud adoption missteps series, the first of which is linked here.
Need help creating a cloud adoption roadmap? Reach out to us at info@optimusinfo.com for a complimentary assessment.
https://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/azure-arc-1.png315600Malika Agarwalhttps://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/optimusinfologo.pngMalika Agarwal2021-10-15 09:27:122021-10-15 12:09:11Why Azure Arc is a Game Changer for Hybrid Cloud
Welcome back to the final part of our 3-part Cloud Adoption Missteps series where we will be going over some of the errors and mistakes that take place during the governance and organization stages of the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. The first two parts of the series gave insight into earlier steps in the framework process, what they entail, and common cloud adoption missteps that can arise. To read an overview of what the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure is and some of the antipatterns that take place during the first 2 stages of the framework, click here. If you would like to check out the second part of the series, “Common Cloud Adoption Missteps Part 2: Adoption and Management Stages”, you can read it here.
The conclusion of the Cloud Adoption Missteps series will cover antipatterns in the governance and organization stages. We will share what goes on during these steps, common antipatterns, and some strategies to mitigate the antipatterns that may arise.
Governance Stage
Taking organizations to the cloud is a complex yet highly rewarding process as we’ve clearly outlined in the past. However, it’s important to note that constant cloud governance must take place to create a strong cloud governance foundation. To learn some of the governance methodologies for the cloud, read this guide from Microsoft.
There are 3 main antipatterns that take place during this stage in the Cloud Adoption Framework: misunderstanding responsibility, straying too far from the compliance framework requirements, and using custom compliance.
Misaligned Shared Responsibilities
Though the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure is well-defined and clearly laid out, it can still be difficult to recognize where your organization’s responsibilities end and your cloud service provider’s (CSP) begins. Oftentimes that line gets blurred and that’s when the problems begin. Whether it’s security concerns or non-compliant servers, it’s important to address those issues right away.
By building a “readiness plan”, you and your CSP can find that middle ground that works for everyone. A readiness plan focuses on capturing concerns, identifying gaps, and partnering with other teams to overcome this hurdle. For a more detailed look into what a readiness plan entails, check out Microsoft’s guide here.
Inaccurate Security Assumptions
It’s easy to assume that the move to the cloud is automatically a security upgrade, and that’s not necessarily wrong; however, it’s not a great idea to assume that out-of-the-box solutions provide security. Focusing on adhering to the compliance standards for Azure and using Azure portal ensures more stable security. Learn more about the Azure Security Centre here.
Custom Compliance or Governance Frameworks
The third and final antipattern that takes place during the governance stage is the use of a custom compliance or governance framework. Integrating these custom frameworks is very time consuming, especially when translating them to cloud settings. This will significantly slow down the cloud adoption process. Instead, rely on existing frameworks while making that transition to the cloud. It allows for ease, simplicity, and measurability of security settings. After making that transition is a good time to look at custom frameworks.
Organization Stage
The final stage in the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework is the organization stage. It looks at managing and organizing people (teams), structure, and the roles each person plays. Oftentimes, customers face cloud adoption missteps during the organizational stage due to a variety of aspects. The antipatterns that we will cover are 4 of the biggest missteps that often take place: utilizing IT as a cost centre, platform developing without approval, outsourcing core business functions, and hiring technical decision makers rather than cloud engineers. For more information on the organization stage in the cloud adoption framework, check out this overview by Microsoft.
Treating IT as a Cost Centre
When organizations or employees start to see IT as a cost centre rather than an enabler, pushing growth and success, there is reduced motivation in the long run. IT feels discouraged and along with that, management feels as though IT is slow and inefficient.
Rather than viewing IT as a cost centre, try and see it as an enabler. By viewing IT as an agent with operating expenses, transparency, accountability, and optimization as are all maximized.
Investing in New Technology Without Involving the Business
Different departments all have separate functions to focus on. So it’s easy to forget that there are other business units that could be affected by even the smallest decisions. For example, if IT fails to consider business units while making design and structural decisions, it can lead to platforms that aren’t optimized or properly functioning for the business units. This leads to frustration and poor/ineffective adoption of the new platforms.
Instead, involve business units in the decision-making process. This eliminates the risk that those teams will not be able to implement or adopt new platforms. It takes into account the preferences and needs of the business units and creates a more cohesive platform that works for everyone.
Outsourcing Core Business Functions
When running an organization, it’s easy to get caught up in outsourcing business functions to managed service providers (MSPs) and consulting partners. These partnerships can give way to a lot of exciting possibilities. However, it’s crucial to make sure that your company doesn’t become dependent on providers.
Keep critical design areas within your company, regarding subjects like risk, compliance, identity, and government. This ensures that your organization won’t become dependent on external providers, and instead will use them to speed up other important business processes.
Hiring Technical Decision Makers
Finally, the last cloud adoption misstep that we are focusing on in this series is the choice between hiring technical decision makers (TDMs) versus investing in cloud adoption engineers. TDMs are often a great way to get your cloud adoption framework up and running. However, a successful cloud adoption journey needs people with deep technical knowledge such as cloud engineers.
Because cloud engineers are crucial for creating successful landing zones and cloud automations, they can help you realize the true potential of cloud adoption and the benefits that it brings. TDMs can always be brought in for decision-making later in the process, but cloud engineers are the ones with rich engineering knowledge.
Conclusion
This article was the final part of a three-part series focusing on common cloud adoption missteps while using the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework. We hope that you gained a detailed overview of the many stages of the cloud adoption process and what they entail. As well as this, we hope that you are now aware of the antipatterns and cloud adoption missteps that can be easily remedied.
Many organizations find it beneficial to work with a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) when undergoing cloud adoption. Read our article on the benefits of using a CSP.
If you’re interested in having Optimus as your CSP, you can reach us at: info@optimusinfo.com
Welcome back to the Cloud Adoption Missteps series, for part two: focusing on the adoption and management stages. If you haven’t already checked out our first blog post in the series for the Planning and Strategy Phases, check it out here. It covers all the easily remedied errors that one can make when following the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure in the Adoption and Management Stages, and how to avoid them.
In this article, we’ll be focussing on a different part of the cloud adoption framework timeline, the adoption and management stages. We’ll go over the antipatterns during both of these situations and how the cloud adoption missteps can be avoided. For more detailed information on what the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure entails and why antipatterns are blockers for success, please refer to the aforementioned article linked above.
Common Cloud Adoption Missteps During the Adoption Stage:
The adoption stage of the Cloud Adoption Framework focuses primarily on cloud migration and what it means. Cloud migrations are the different approaches through which workloads can be moved to the cloud. For more details on cloud migration for workloads, you can check out Microsoft’s Azure Migration Guide Overview. There are four antipatterns that can occur during the Adoption Stage that we will be discussing: a lack of guardrails, a lack of assessments, forced architecture, and the use of a single subscription.
Trying to Innovate Without Guardrails
When organizations are first trying to migrate their workloads to the cloud, it can be seemingly simple. It often feels as though there’s a lot of flexibility, which is great. But the majority of the time, when those workloads need to have increased productivity or need to store data, progress will drastically slow. This is where the idea of implementing security and compliance guardrails is highly effective. Guardrails ensure that workloads follow security and compliance regulations. Checking the guardrails with IT is an important step, especially for hybrid workloads. For more information on Azure’s “landing zones” for guardrails, click here.
Attempting to Migrate Without Extensive Assessments
In order to plan accurately for a migration or modernization project, there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. Without thorough planning, organizations risk creating a lot of unexpected downtime or missed potential due to not thinking the architecture or other aspects through.
There are a few ways to get around this antipattern. For larger-scale projects, it’s crucial to undergo a thorough infrastructure assessment before the migration process begins. Modernization projects require the identification of coding antipatterns and technical debts. On the other hand, for innovation-based projects, check out this Azure guide for innovative solutions here. Finally, for large projects or workloads that need architecture change, it may be a good idea to undergo an architectural design session.
Using a “One Size Fits All” Approach to Architecture
On the topic of architecture, one of the easiest mistakes to make is dictating your architecture. Assuming that one architecture approach will fit all of your workloads is a grave error. Instead of fixating on one architectural style, for example a microservice architecture approach, undergo an extensive assessment so your decisions can be rooted in data. Choosing an architectural approach just because other organizations are using it and it’s successful for them, doesn’t guarantee favourable outcomes for your own projects.
Trying to Migrate with One Subscription
Finally, trying to utilize only one subscription for all of your organization’s workloads leads to problematically designed landscapes. Then your organization is at risk for running into subscription limits, which would require time-consuming architecture adjustments. The solution is to use segmentation. Separating different tasks for various environments minimizes the chances of hitting subscription limits. Using a segmentation strategy in this situation is key; this article from Microsoft outlines what that could look like. Check it out here.
Common Cloud Adoption Missteps During the Management Stage:
We now move on to the next step of the Cloud Adoption Framework: the management stage. As aforementioned, yes, it is crucial to take care of cloud adoption and remedy those antipatterns, but it is just as important to maintain the operation of your digital assets in order to ensure smooth sailing. Not having a plan to follow in terms of managing cloud solutions, all that progress can slowly fade. There is one main antipattern during the management stage: fixating on IT tool chains.
Neglect of Business Outcomes
It is so easy to get caught up in the ease that modern IT tools create, and the relief that it gives to team members by taking care of small tiresome tasks. And while it is beneficial to take advantage of the positives that new IT tooling has, it’s also important to measure exactly how much each tool chain is helping. The way to do this is by ensuring that your technology and business goals align. By having leaders from each of these areas come together and unanimously create business/technology goals, it’s much more clear as to whether those expectations are being met. Measuring success through business outcomes means that your organization is constantly focused on increased growth.
What’s Next?
This article was the second part of a four-part series focusing on common cloud adoption missteps while using the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. Stay tuned for our next article which focuses on cloud adoption antipatterns for the next stage of the framework.
Many organizations find it beneficial to work with a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) when undergoing cloud adoption. Read our article on the benefits of using a CSP.
If you’re interested in having Optimus as your CSP, you can reach us at: info@optimusinfo.com
Microsoft Canada recognizes Optimus Information as winner of the 2021 Regional Cloud Solution Provider – Azure Impact Award
Vancouver, BC, Canada — July 15, 2021 – Optimus Information Inc. is proud to announce it has won the 2021 Microsoft Canada Regional Cloud Solution Provider – Azure Impact Award. These annual Canadian awards recognize Microsoft partners that have focused on bettering the lives of Canadians and demonstrated excellence in sales, marketing, skilling, innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.
Pankaj Agarwal, Managing Partner of Optimus Information said, “Optimus Information is honoured to be recognized by Microsoft. We are grateful for the opportunity to team up with Microsoft to help our clients on their cloud adoption journey.”
Microsoft Canada presented these awards in 27 categories on July 15, 2021 as part of Microsoft’s second virtual Inspire conference. Winners were selected based on the outstanding work the companies provided to their customers and community.
“We are pleased to recognize Optimus Information as this year’s recipient of the Regional Cloud Solution Provider – Azure Impact Award,” said Suzanne Gagliese, Vice President, Global Partner Solutions, Microsoft Canada. “Amid a challenging year, our partners have demonstrated dedication to innovation and customer excellence by leveraging cutting-edge solutions to solve complex business challenges and overcome disruption.”
Optimus is a leading technology consulting company providing professional and managed services in cloud migration and management, DevOps, application development and modernization, data analytics, and testing. We leverage our Microsoft gold competencies, advanced specialization for application modernization, and our global delivery model to help our customers achieve their digital transformation goals. Visit us at www.optimusinfo.com.
Organizations typically invest considerably to procure or develop custom applications that support critical business operations. Unfortunately, when these applications go out of date, replacing them with newer applications is often not an option due to the amount of dependency these generate over time. However, these legacy applications can be updated and reconfigured to work seamlessly with modern platforms that are more efficient than legacy monolithic frameworks.
Migrating legacy applications to the cloud offers more comprehensive benefits such as platform flexibility, application scalability, robust security, and cross-platform compatibility. This article delves into the benefits of Legacy Application Modernization, related challenges and common approaches to migrating a legacy desktop application to the cloud.
Introduction to Legacy Application Modernization
Legacy applications require considerable investment to maintain competitiveness. More so, legacy applications follow a tightly coupled, monolithic architecture – that are susceptible to emerging security threats, are immutable and offer less scalability. As business dynamics keep changing, organizations relying on legacy applications must adopt consumer behaviour and embrace efficient models that enable holistic competence.
Legacy Application Modernization is a digital transformation strategy that repurposes existing software to make it compatible with modern devices and applications. Such applications can be rebuilt by rewriting the source code, augmenting the application or plugging the existing code and dependencies into a modern platform.
Key Reasons to Modernize Legacy Applications
With legacy app modernization, organizations can advance their systems to stay competitive, pivot with changing consumer needs, and adopt advanced technology for efficiency. The following are some of the key reasons organizations embrace app modernization:
Business Factors
Maintaining ageing applications costs more, so modernizing legacy apps lead to reduced operational costs.
Modernizing helps organizations gain a competitive advantage using systems with enhanced performance and agility.
Modernized Legacy Applications boost efficiency and innovation since they are highly scalable, allowing for flexible deployment platforms and automation.
Improved customer satisfaction as modernized applications meets modern performance and user experience standards.
Technical Factors
Straightforward API integration with other software and third-party tools.
Modernization keeps applications secure from ever-evolving security threats.
Enhanced application performance with reduced security risks and reliable processes.
Enables adoption of efficient operating models and frameworks such as DevOps.
Challenges of Legacy App Modernization
While embracing app modernization, organizations face several challenges. Some of these include:
Resistance to change by employees/business stakeholders
Inadequate requisite skills for migration and post-migration phases
High initial costs
Complex to replicate user-friendly systems
Lack of clarity on the right cloud model to choose
Inflexibility and incompatibility with external APIs and tools.
These challenges remain critical factors for an organization’s hesitation to app modernization. However, with thoughtful planning and coordinated execution, the benefits of achieving operational efficiency surpass the challenges in the longer run.
Approaches to Migrate a Legacy App to the Cloud
While the best strategy for transitioning to the cloud varies with the organization’s requirements, there are common approaches that can ensure a successful modernization.
Assess and Audit the Existing Tech Stack
Organizations must diligently assess the existing system’s performance and how effective it is for business processes. Doing so requires a comprehensive audit of related applications and infrastructure to establish whether the system is worth upgrading, and eventually helping to form the basis of the migration approach. Audit & Assessment also helps teams identify which software or infrastructure no longer adds value to the business, thereby helping to streamline migration efforts and costs.
Some important aspects to audit include:
Architecture– An assessment of the application’s high-level architecture and components to identify bottlenecks that determine the most appropriate migration strategy.
Code – A comprehensive audit of the source code to detect code errors, vulnerability, and compatibility with the new platform.
UI/UX – Assessing user interfaces, supported operations and processes to ensure user experiences are seamlessly migrated over and remain unchanged.
Choosing the Right Migration Approach
One key consideration before planning a cloud migration is to decide the right approach to adopt. Existing workloads, expected load, and projected business requirements are often common factors in determining the right strategy. Depending on the business case, organizations may follow one of the two approaches:
Big Bang
This strategy typically refers to a lift-and-shift approach where the entire application is re-hosted to the cloud in a single milestone. As a quick option, this approach allows the legacy platform to be decommissioned, while the organization’s entire workloads are deployed to the cloud in a single move. The Big Bang approach offers a shorter implementation time and is considered perfect for organizations that utilize smaller, non-complex workloads.
Phased
The phased strategy refers to an approach in which the application workloads are shifted to the cloud in multiple, small milestones implemented over a period of time. This approach is considered suitable for large migration projects where it takes time to train the staff and for organizations that consist of multiple business units. Besides this, a phased approach offers additional benefits such as easier change management and a lower risk of failed migration.
More details on various cloud transformation strategies, including Rehosting, Replatforming, and Refactoring can be found here.
Forming the Right Team
As operating an application on a cloud-native ecosystem requires niche skills that are mostly different from an on-prem setup, organizations must plan to onboard the right team of experts who ensure legacy-to-cloud transitions are seamless. This can be done by reskilling its existing staff, hiring new resources or outsourcing to an external party to manage the transition as well as the BAU phase. Such experts are responsible for identifying components of the workload that require to be migrated and the challenges they may encounter.
A commonly known strategy as part of the migration is to invoke the Agile model to ensure the transformation is comprehensive and highly collaborative. With the right Agile team structure, organizations can efficiently address emerging customer expectations and achieve operational excellence.
An Agile team structure primarily includes the following roles:
Product Manager
Program Manager/Scrum Master
Software Architect
Software Developers (Frontend/Backend)
DevOps Engineer
User Experience Designer
Quality Assurance Lead
Appropriate Financial Planning
Organizations must be wary of the associated costs of cloud migration. This typically involves an upfront lump sum for the shift and ongoing expenses during cloud usage. When budgeting for a cloud-based modernization, the migration program should identify financial projections of pre-migration, migration and post-migration phases. With appropriate budgeting, organizations unlock the comprehensive benefits of cloud migration as it helps teams allocate the right amounts of resources for configuration and deployment.
Choosing the Cloud Service
When migrating to the cloud, it is essential to pragmatically choose the right cloud service out of the following three models:
IaaS
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) lets organizations acquire infrastructure resources such as storage, networks, processors and servers on-demand when required. Organizations only pay for the infrastructure they use for their workloads, which can be scaled to handle changes in resource demand.
With Platform-as-a-Service, cloud providers manage the hardware and operating systems that allow organizations to focus on developing codes and automating deployment pipelines. This improves efficiency as it eliminates tedious capacity planning, resource procurement and software maintenance.
In Software-as-a-Service, the software vendors develop applications to be offered over the web. With SaaS models, organizations only need to plan, develop and maintain the application for end-use, rather than maintaining the underlying infrastructure or related platform.
Legacy applications are traditionally run on-premises, that rely on slow, monolithic frameworks. As a result, legacy applications cannot keep up with the agility and performance requirements of modern devices. As organizations transition to the cloud to enable digital transformation and modernize applications, they must be mindful of the challenges and the right approach while doing so. The right migration strategy, however, depends on the type of application, budget and business needs.
To know more on how Optimus can help you modernize your legacy applications, contact us here.
For organizations that rely on legacy technology, the cost of maintaining outdated software inhibits innovation and slows down the digital transformation process. Since business operations generate dependency on these legacy systems while accumulating enormous data over the years, such systems are hard to scale and complex to replace.
Migrating their legacy applications to an efficient technology ecosystem, organizations undertake app modernization as one of the key stages of their digital transformation journey. With modernization, organizations embrace efficient technology, tools and approaches, including Cloud, DevOps, and Microservices. These collectively enable organizations to become more lean, agile, and adaptable.
A common approach to app modernization is transitioning the legacy application off the on-prem servers and rehosting/re-platforming it to a cloud platform. A Platform as a Service (PaaS) platform is one such cloud-based model that allows organizations to benefit from a pre-configured platform of essential infrastructure resources.
In this article, we dive into the use-cases of a PaaS model, and the benefits of modernizing applications with Azure PaaS.
Modernizing Legacy Apps With Azure PaaS
A legacy on-prem framework requires enormous efforts towards provisioning and ongoing maintenance of the underlying infrastructure. In addition to this, managing a platform in-house gets immensely complex with frequent changes in compliance policies and security landscape. For mission-critical applications, ensuring a load-balanced service with distributed traffic additionally requires niche skills as well as considerable financial commitments.
To help with this, Microsoft offers an HTTP-based Azure PaaS Service (commonly referred to as App Service) for hosting web applications, REST APIs, and mobile application backends on Windows or Linux-based environments.
With App Service, there are no administrative efforts to maintain the base infrastructure where the applications run. This provides an efficient approach to deploy an application on the cloud without worrying about provisioning, configuring, or scaling the platform.
Azure uses an efficient Service Fabric to ensure that each application in the plan keeps running and that resources can be scaled up or down as needed. Each App Service runs on a virtual machine in a Microsoft Datacenter. By allowing users to easily set the maximum instances of VMs on which they want to run their applications, the Service Fabric then replicates the application across multiple VMs, keeps them running, and balances load across them.
Some features of Azure App Service include:
Support for Multiple Programming Languages and Frameworks: Organizations can deploy applications built on a wide variety of frameworks, including .Net Core, NodeJS, Java, PHP, Python, or Ruby. Azure App Service also supports Powershell and other executable scripts as background services.
Serverless Code Using Azure Functions: Rather than deploying applications that explicitly require extensive provisioning or management of infrastructure, organizations can run serverless code snippets at a fraction of the compute time cost.
App Containerization: Organizations can deploy applications in containers and leverage efficient architectures such as Microservices for enhanced scalability and performance.
DevOps Support: Azure allows to set up testing, staging, and production environments with continuous integration and deployment pipelines in line with DevOps practices.
Provides CORS support for APIs. Also supports secured authentication, push notification, and offline data sync for mobile apps.
In-App SQL databases for storing app data.
Benefits of Azure App Service
Organizations can benefit from modernizing applications with Azure PaaS in the following ways:
High Scalability: Azure allows organizations to scale their applications up or out. With the easy to use Azure Portal, users can set up auto-scale settings based on CPU, memory, and disk utilization levels to support additional application load or stress. Additionally, the Per-App scaling feature allows organizations to allocate and set resources for mission-critical applications selectively.
High Availability: Azure’s App Service SLAs guarantee high availability using the optimum resources. This benefits an organization by leveraging the ability to host its applications across multiple regions through Microsoft’s extensive global datacenter infrastructure.
Analytics and Actionable Insights: The Azure portal provides insightful analytics on an application’s health and performance levels. Organizations can also obtain details on the app’s response times, CPU, memory, and disk utilization levels for identifying incident root cause or performance optimization.
Robust Security: App Service provides authentication support through Azure Active Directory, Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Microsoft accounts. Additionally, organizations can control network access of their apps by setting up a priority list of deny/allow IP addresses while benefitting from Azure Virtual Network subnets.
Multi-Platform Support: App Service supports different languages and frameworks for app development and deployment, thus allowing for various industry and application-type use cases.
Popular PaaS Use-Cases
While there are numerous successful use-cases of the PaaS model, the following are some of the most common domains that benefit from it:
Datawarehouse/Business Intelligence
Using cloud-based PaaS offerings, organizations can locate insights, generate patterns and predict results to improve business decisions such as forecasting, product design, and investment profits. Due to a number of PaaS-enabled benefits, more and more organizations securely set up and manage data storage such as databases, data warehouses, and data lakes using popular PaaS platforms such as Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Application Hosting
A PaaS model is often considered as an enabler to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. As a result, for businesses that offer SaaS-based application offerings, PaaS offers an immediate, quick to launch platform of cloud services to deploy, host, run and manage cloud-based applications, APIs, and mobile backends.
IoT
The versatility provided by PaaS platforms shown in the range of languages, frameworks, and tools supported allows for IoT deployments and integrations. By supporting to efficiently deploy applications on the edge, organizations can benefit from modernizing applications with Azure PaaS, focusing on an IoT framework.
Summary
Legacy applications are usually monolithic, expensive to manage and difficult to scale. Outdated software makes it challenging to adapt to new business requirements and hinders an organization’s digital transformation. Adopting a pragmatic approach to app modernization using PaaS platforms provides ways for organizations to refactor these applications for high efficiency. It also helps organizations to take advantage of cloud benefits like economies of scale and scalability.
Azure’s App Service by Microsoft is a cloud-based PaaS offering that provides a fully managed platform that offers auto-scaling, in-app SQL databases, high availability, and robust security to modernize and deploy modern applications. With a growing pattern of emerging technologies such as IoT, Stateful Applications, and Event Stream Processing, the computing paradigm is now at a completely different level than it used to be. This is why it’s critical for businesses to focus on the core application development and its growth, rather than spending efforts on redundant tasks of managing underlying platforms.
To know more about how Optimus can help you migrate your legacy apps to a PaaS model, contact us today.
There are many roadblocks along your journey to digital transformation. Following the guidance from the Cloud Adoption Framework closely is essential when undergoing your cloud migration. While the Cloud Adoption Framework helps make cloud adoption easier, there are still several missteps that can lead you astray. In this article, we’ll briefly review the Cloud Adoption Framework, the main missteps made during the strategy and planning phases, and we’ll also provide some quick remedies to easily avoid these mistakes.
A Review of The Cloud Adoption Framework
Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure was developed as the One Microsoft cloud adoption approach. It consolidates advice and guidelines from Microsoft professionals and customers throughout the industry into one best practices guide. It shares the full lifecycle framework with detailed tips and information. If you want to learn more about the Cloud Adoption Framework, check out our previous article on the topic here.
In this article, we’ll be going over cloud adoption antipatterns. Antipatterns are missteps that occur during the cloud adoption process, usually in the design, planning, or implementation stages. They are often blockers that prevent organizations from reaching goals and achieving innovation. Next, we’ll cover common cloud adoption missteps that occur in the planning and strategy phases and how to avoid them.
Cloud Adoption Framework diagram provided by Microsoft.
Common Cloud Adoption Missteps During the Strategy Phase
The strategy phase of the Cloud Adoption Framework looks at documenting business strategies and outcomes from your organization so that key stakeholders and your team members have a clearer picture of what’s going on. Two main antipatterns can take place during this stage of cloud adoption: inadequate motivation and misaligned motivation.
Inadequate Motivation
When an organization adopts the cloud without clear or well-defined goals in mind beforehand, many issues often follow. It’s hard to measure project performance without predetermined indicators of success. If a company announces cloud-led strategies without thinking through what that actually entails, it doesn’t truly give them the benefits of cloud adoption.
Organizations can avoid this simple mistake by defining their goals and KPIs before embarking on their cloud adoption journey. In doing this, measures of success become more clear and project success also becomes replicable.
Misaligned Motivation
Sometimes cloud adoption plans can fail when motivations are misaligned or not properly communicated within a company. For example, if a business sees a benefit in a specific cloud adoption strategy but does not share that with the rest of the organization, other departments have a more difficult time onboarding these strategies and implementing them.
This issue can be mitigated by clearly outlining and sharing reasons for specific cloud adoption strategies with the entire company. It creates a cohesive environment within the organization that allows for those strategies to be built upon successfully and with ease.
Common Cloud Adoption Missteps During the Planning Phase
The planning phase of the Cloud Adoption Framework looks at taking the goals formulated during the strategy phase and turning them into a tangible plan. This cloud adoption plan can then guide teams to stick to the strategies they came up with previously, as well as helps to prioritize cloud adoption motivations. There are three main antipatterns that often take place during this stage: wrong operating model, wrong service model, and replacement instead of modernization.
Wrong Operating Model
In choosing the wrong operating model issues such as misunderstandings, extra pressures on the IT department, and more can ensue. This is due in part to the fact that the operating model is not lining up with the company’s priorities and goals as defined in the strategy stage.
One way to mitigate this issue is by comparing models with your current operating plan before switching over. By analyzing the pros and cons of each model and weighing the benefits, it will be much easier to find the right fit. To learn more about comparing cloud operation models, read this guide from Microsoft.
Wrong Service Model
It’s important to properly look at and understand the differences between a PaaS and IaaS service model. Some may assume that a PaaS service model is more cost-efficient but that’s not always the case, and making this assumption can sometimes lead to product delivery delays, unexpected cost increases, and more.
The best way to avoid this issue is to minimize disruption to your business at the beginning of the cloud adoption process. Using IaaS and gradually adopting a PaaS model will allow for less disruption and will also give your team some time to gain cloud adoption skills.
Replacement Instead of Modernization
Replacing large and complex products or application environments is a decision that shouldn’t be made lightly. Yes, it’s true that working in old, complex architecture landscapes is far from ideal and can lead to delays and issues. But completely replacing these systems is often very costly and involves many risks.
Instead, looking at modernization as an option is a better alternative. Small, persistent changes to your systems can often have a bigger and safer impact than completely switching your software. As well as this, it’s often quicker and usually much cost-efficient.
What’s Next?
This blog article is the first of a four-part series focussing on common cloud adoption missteps. Follow along with us to learn about some common errors in the next stages of the cloud adoption framework.
Many organizations find it beneficial to work with a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) when undergoing cloud adoption. Read our article on the benefits of using a CSP here.
If you’re interested in having Optimus as your CSP, you can reach us at this email: info@optimusinfo.com
https://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Common_Cloud_Adoption_Missteps_1-1.png37314496Malika Agarwalhttps://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/optimusinfologo.pngMalika Agarwal2021-06-21 09:21:052021-09-08 04:12:42Common Cloud Adoption Missteps during the Strategy and Planning Phase
Optimus Information is pleased to announce that they have earned the Modernization of Web Apps to Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization, a validation of a solution partner’s deep knowledge, extensive experience and proven expertise in migrating and modernizing production web application workloads, and managing app services in Azure.
Optimus Information is proud to be among the small group of Canadian Microsoft partners that have met the stringent criteria around customer success and staff skilling, as well as pass a third-party audit of their web workload deployment and management practices, including their ability to implement Azure App Service, are able to earn the Modernization of Web Apps in Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization.
“We are thrilled to have earned this advanced specialization. It is reflective of the calibre of our global team, proven Azure experience, and continued partnership with Microsoft Canada.”
– Pankaj Agarwal – Managing Partner & Founder of Optimus Information
As companies look to modernize their applications and take full advantage of the benefits of the cloud, they are looking for a partner with advanced skills to assess, plan, and modernize the web app to the cloud.
To learn more about how Optimus can help you modernize your applications for the cloud, please contact us at info@optimusinfo.com
https://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/advanced_specialization_495x400-2.jpg400495Optimus Informationhttps://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/optimusinfologo.pngOptimus Information2021-06-11 11:11:372021-06-11 14:11:45Optimus has Earned the Modernization of Web Apps to Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization
In the modern world of emerging technologies, organizations that rely on legacy systems can start to lose competitive advantage and experience a decline in customer experience. A popular driver for cloud migration is the rising need to achieve enhanced performance and operational efficiency alongside achieving robust security and data protection. Other reasons for migrating include the cost savings, scalability, reliability, availability, and flexibility the cloud offers.
However, migrating to the cloud requires thorough analysis and planning to take advantage of the benefits listed above. A clear-cut strategy for migrating enables organizations to avoid hidden challenges and extra costs that might accrue over time because of a half-hazard migration.
Additionally, not carefully defining organizational needs and project scope in advance can result in performance issues and low return on investment, defeating the purpose of migration. This article discusses how to get your cloud migration right to avoid these issues.
Choosing the Right Approach to Migration
When planning a cloud migration, one key consideration is deciding the right approach to adopt. Different methods are more suitable for specific workloads, and the nature of the existing content management system plays a fundamental role in determining which one will work best.
Big-Bang
This approach to cloud migration involves a switch from the legacy or on-premises setup to the cloud in a single operation. The process essentially is a part of a large program that often is carried in a single migration window involving a predetermined downtime. Such an approach eliminates the need to run the two systems (on-prem as well as cloud) simultaneously during or after the migration sprint.
For organizations with systems that do not operate 24/7 or have less complex migration workloads, Big-Bang is often considered as the suitable cloud migration approach.
On the other hand, for organizations that have business-critical or complex applications, Big-Bang poses a high risk to cloud migration as any issues that arise during the migration process can extend the system downtime and have a negative impact on business operations.
Phased
A phased approach tackles the migration of workloads from an onsite environment to the cloud in a clearly defined incremental manner. Bit by bit, modules, subsystems, or volumes of the source system are migrated to the target environment. Each increment or update of the target system undergoes testing to identify and resolve bugs before the next occurs.
The result of a phased approach is eventually an extended migration period. The implication for the longer migration timeframe is the increased cost of migration, effort, and potential loss in business, if not planned well. However, the risks associated with this staggered method are minimal.
Selecting the Right Technical Strategy
While every organization may opt for a specific use-case or migration strategy, the following are some of the general technical strategies to apply during a cloud migration process:
Single or Mulit-Cloud
When migrating to the cloud, organizations must decide whether they want to choose a single cloud provider and optimize their application for that cloud platform or run it across multiple vendor platforms. With a multi-cloud deployment, organizations have three options to choose from based on their specific requirement. These are:
Different applications in different cloud platforms,
Split a single application across multiple providers, or
Build a cloud-agnostic application entirely.
Maintain Robust KPIs & Performace Baselines
Set up additional cloud-related KPIs and baselines to compare the performance of migrated workloads with predetermined expectations. Doing this enables teams to identify problems within the application and verify the migration status in terms of success and completeness.
Identify Key Components to Migrate
Identify connections and dependencies between key components. Doing so enables teams to select critical components to migrate and prioritize their migration. Some common examples include Datawarehouse and ERP applications that are critical to an organization’s day-to-day operations.
Prepare a Data Migration Plan
Data migration is an intricate yet integral part of the migration process. This is because migrating the data ultimately affects the performance of related applications and can potentially impact the overall business operations directly. As a result, it is essential to choose the right data migration strategy that is best suited for an organization’s workloads and migration before beginning the process. As a best practice, it is also recommended that Data Migration is considered as a separate project that oversees a seamless migration to support the holistic on-prem to cloud migration.
Refractor
While there are a number of cloud migration strategies to choose from, one of the most followed strategies is to modify an organization’s existing application architecture to modernize it to retrofit cloud capacities and features efficiently and effectively.
Plan Resource Allocation
Cloud allows for dynamic resource allocation to benefit fully from the cost savings it provides. However, as teams migrate to the cloud, they outline a strategy to determine how they will leverage this cloud capability in distributing resources for their applications. As an efficient strategy, organizations must include resource allocation as part of the larger goal that goes beyond the migration project for an improved bottom-line.
Choosing the Right Azure Sizing
In addition to selecting a migration approach and deciding the technical strategies, organizations must decide the optimum cloud computing model to adopt. Some of these include – Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service. Of the three, IaaS is known to provide the highest level of flexibility by allowing businesses to deploy applications in fully customizable virtual machines.
Additionally, evaluating existing and planned workloads allows organizations to identify resources such as CPU, memory, storage, and network to provision and optimize for their services. Azure provides different categories of virtual machines that are suitable for certain types of workloads. These include:
General Purpose
The general-purpose Azure virtual machine is designed for workloads with a balanced CPU to memory ratio. That means, they are not CPU-intensive, do not perform a considerable amount of disk reads and writes, and have minimal network traffic demands. They are best suited for development, testing, or small low-traffic server applications.
Compute Optimized
A compute-optimized Azure VM is designed for use cases that require a high CPU to memory ratio. Workloads that demand a lot of processing power can take advantage of the optimized compute power for these virtual machines. Examples of services like these include gaming and data analysis applications. It is also ideal for medium-traffic web servers and application servers.
Memory-Optimized
Azure’s memory-optimized VMs have a high memory to CPU ratio. They are designed for memory-intensive workloads. They are best suited for database servers and in-memory application cache setups.
Storage Optimized
Storage-optimized VMs are suitable for workloads with a high frequency and amount of disk read and write operations. These types of workloads include large databases and high-velocity data storage applications like data warehouses.
GPU
Azure’s GPU VMs powered by Nvidia GPUs are designed for handling workloads that involve extensive graphics processing and CPU-intensive machine learning processes.
High-Performance Compute
High-performance VMs are designed for specialized use cases that cannot be handled by GPU VMs. These workloads are highly compute-intensive and the VMs are optimized and configured to operate as nodes in a High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. Examples of such workloads include applications handling DNA modelling and developing neural networks in artificial intelligence.
Additional details of Azure Sizing can be found here:
Organizations should run both legacy and target systems during the migration period to avoid an interruption in service or operations that could have cost implications.
2. Shift Left for Security
Integrating security early on in the software development lifecycle is necessary for a successful migration. Doing this safeguards the deployment pipelines from external actors with malicious intent during the migration process.
3. Embrace Container and Microservices
Containers provide a way to package applications together with their dependencies so that they are environment agnostic. Refactoring applications as microservices deployed containers allows organizations to release bits of an application in isolation, especially in a staggered or phased migration approach. Additionally, businesses can improve traceability and reliability when issues arise.
4. Enhance Operational Efficiency with DevOps
Embracing DevOps practices such as setting up a CI/CD pipeline enable businesses to monitor applications, log system activities, proactively raise alerts for current and potential issues, and provide faster incident resolution. A well-implemented CI/CD pipeline extensively uses automation to handle these processes seamlessly and aids an efficient cloud migration.
5. Consistent Learning & Feedback
Migrating to the cloud is not a one-off activity. It is an iterative learning process that involves identifying where improvements need to be made and applying the required changes. It is also necessary to provide an efficient feedback loop during the migration process that ensures that an organization’s employees and users are aware of the migration.
Conclusion
Modernizing applications by leveraging the powers of the cloud can provide benefits such as availability, cost savings, reliability, and scalability for businesses. However, choosing a suitable approach and the right technical strategy to migrate their workloads to the cloud are two of the most crucial factors to get your cloud migration right. Organizations can leverage the tips, suggestions, and options identified in this article for a suitable and efficient migration to the cloud. While doing so, it must be noted that there is no one size fits all, and thereby every organization must follow the right approach that suits their purpose.
To know more on how Optimus can help your organization with a seamless Cloud migration, contact us today.
https://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Getting-your-cloud-migration-right.png14331420Optimus Informationhttps://www.optimusinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/optimusinfologo.pngOptimus Information2021-05-25 14:39:152021-05-25 14:39:15How to Get Your Cloud Migration Right
