Gone are the days where the cloud is referenced as “becoming” an essential stepping stone in companies’ digital transformation journey. The time is already here—and it’s no longer an option. Cloud technologies are currently at the center of the digital transformation revolution, and companies that have not adopted a cloud mentality are being left behind in yesterday’s digital stone age.

The on-prem predicament

As companies embrace a true digital transformation mindset, their traditional on-premises IT becomes a burden as costs and restrictions continue to rise. This creates pressure to reduce or even eliminate the legacy on-premises IT, and to move existing applications and services to the cloud.

The cloud helps companies connect their people, processes and data in new, innovative methods that embrace a modernized mindset and propel companies on a path of unprecedented growth. Embracing the cloud is not just the easiest, cheapest or fastest way to drive digital transformation—it is the only way. For many businesses, the first step on this journey is to migrate their existing applications to the cloud.

Why Azure?

Microsoft’s cloud computing platform enables companies to build, deploy, scale and manage servers, services and applications across a global network of data centers. Once integrated, Azure gives businesses the freedom to manage and deploy custom web apps using the development tools and frameworks they are most comfortable with. Companies are migrating their legacy on-premises workloads to Azure to fast-track their digital transformation and experience these additional benefits in their cloud environment:

  1. High availability and scalability: Where traditional on-premises infrastructure can take weeks or even months to deploy, Azure offers near-instant provisioning of resources. Organizations can take advantage of this flexibility by using agile software development methodologies and continuous integration. Azure’s products and services span the cloud, are interoperable and open-source, and can be utilized at any scale to bring speed, flexibility and simplicity to your cloud strategy.
  2. Smart cloud costs: Cloud computing offers significant potential cost savings over on-premises infrastructure, enabling organizations to move IT spending from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx). Since the fixed costs associated with shared infrastructure are avoided, the cloud also provides much greater visibility into the true cost of individual applications.
  3. Security: With Azure, you also gain the high-quality security measures Microsoft maintains across their platforms and services. All data stored on Azure is protected by Microsoft’s advanced encryption system, and Azure’s built-in security processes and tools help maintain the privacy, integrity and availability of sensitive business information. Through its multi-layered security model, Microsoft helps companies ward off data breaches, malware, DDoS attacks and other advancing cyberthreats.

Get your migration roadmap

Different organizations have different objectives and priorities for their move to Azure. For example, some may be strongly motivated by the new and efficient scenarios the cloud enables, whereas others may be migrating to reduce costs or increase agility. Due to the inherent complexities and different business objectives that come with a cloud migration, companies often turn to trusted partners to help with the move. Sirius’ established cloud migration services take the complexity out of cloud. Our team of cloud specialists works with you every step of the way to accelerate your migration while minimizing disruption to the business. We guide you through the process with a foundational, three-step method to Azure:

  1. Assess: Sirius’ team of certified cloud experts inspects workloads and identifies which ones are ideal for a move to Azure. The assess phase also determines which tools should be leveraged to optimize the Azure workload architecture, and provides monthly cost estimates for running those workloads in the Azure cloud.
  2. Migrate: The migration phase is when the suggestions in the assessment plan are put into place. Sirius will analyze the client’s specific business environment, identify data and applications that can benefit most from a move to Azure, and then build a robust migration roadmap.
  3. Optimize: In the optimization phase, Sirius will use Azure security and management resources to secure and monitor the cloud applications in Azure. This is also the time to look for opportunities to optimize spending where possible, and leverage optional Sirius services to expertly modernize and professionally manage hosted infrastructure and applications.

You’re not alone on your cloud journey

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to migrating workloads to the cloud. Sirius is dedicated to helping clients successfully navigate their cloud and modernization transformation journey. Reinvent your business efficiency and IT cost optimization with a customized Azure cloud migration strategy built specifically for your unique business needs and goals. Visit our Cloud Solutions page or contact us today for more information on how you can benefit from cloud.