John Easter
Senior Technical Consultant, Northdoor
30 August 2017
Using Microsoft Azure To Ease The Challenges Of An Office Move
Moving offices poses a number challenges for organisations, in particular the extensive planning and resources needed to successfully migrate existing server infrastructures to the new premises.
New premises traditionally require large computer rooms with sufficient power and air conditioning. Downtime of key systems and services is inevitable and there is a large degree of risk involved as you become reliant on backups and your Disaster Recovery plan which may need to be called upon. Typically, hard drives will fail and servers which haven’t been turned off in years will suddenly not boot when you need them the most. Data is your business and will need to be moved from one premise to another securely if you continue to run physical systems in your office. Moving your systems and data into a secure cloud environment such as Microsoft Azure can remove the risk and cost associated with an office move as well as reducing the long term running costs of your IT systems.
One of the running costs of infrastructure which is often overlooked is the amount of power required to run on-premise servers. As servers get more powerful with faster processors and larger disks, the heat output from these systems accumulates and larger air condition units are then required, adding further to costs and office fit out.
IBM have estimated a cost of $333 per year for a single server in power alone. At a time where businesses are regularly called upon to demonstrate Carbon Neutrality, adding a new server will almost certainly increase your footprint.
If your systems are running in Azure your employees can work throughout the office move by connecting directly into the cloud to access your systems. The office can be configured and tested ahead of time with a new Internet connection so that users move across knowing that they will be able to access the systems.
Not only can moving your infrastructure and system services into the Azure cloud address the challenges of an office move but it will also provide you with a compliant, secure and flexible infrastructure. Microsoft Azure has more security and compliance certifications than any other cloud provider: The Trusted Cloud.
The Azure cloud provides the flexibility to start up new servers within seconds as well as the ability to power off non-essential machines during quiet periods through Automation, saving significant running costs.
Benefits of migrating to an Azure based cloud infrastructure:
- Reduced IT reliance and planning required for an office move
- Inbuilt DR and data backup
- Lowered Power consumption
- Reclaim Office Space
- Flexible IT infrastructure
- Mobile workforce
- Secure and compliant infrastructure
To find out more about our Microsoft Azure consultancy services, contact us today.
About the author
John Easter is a Senior Technical Consultant at Northdoor with over 17 years’ experience in the IT industry. He works with technologies such as Server Virtualisation, Storage, Networking and Cloud Computing as part of the Managed Services team.