Enterprise Cloud Services

All You Need to Know Before Moving Applications to the Cloud

Bobby Varghese

Organizations lift and shift their workloads on the cloud because it is cheaper and quicker than other migration techniques, but that doesn’t mean it is always the best fit.

IT teams often face budget issues and time constraints, so they believe they have very little choices. Additionally, they’ll feel hurried to get the applications up and running by cloud providers eager to bill these new workloads. But there are significant disadvantages to a lift and shift approach when compared to application refactoring, also known as rearchitecting.

It may be cheaper up front to simply rehost your application and its data as is on the public cloud, but this approach could ultimately cost more than it would run a cloud-native app instead. There may also be performance issues caused by changes in the software architecture, missed software bugs and an inability to properly utilize cloud vendors’ native services for monitoring, security, and governance.

It is always best to refactor the workload as part of the migration, because the lift and shift approach may not always deliver the results and tuning doesn’t solve the problem. A migrated application may also benefit from refactoring when bills are unexpectedly high due to application or database inefficiencies or when security vulnerabilities arise because the application can’t integrate with native security systems, such as identity and access management tools.  

 

What is app-refactoring

App refactoring is the restructuring of existing computer code to improve its performance, readability, portability or code adherence without changing the code’s intended functions.

Refactoring is done to extend the apps’ usability and life cycle, improve support for multiple mobile platforms and extend their market reach through multiple app stores.

 

When and how do you refactor apps?

Organizations must consider several factors before they decide to refactor their apps — the most important of which is cost. If you can’t make your money back from refactoring applications, then it should not be attempted. There’s also a great variety of refactoring tools to choose from, and an application’s needs will vary depending on what programming languages and databases that app relies on. Generally speaking, however, the categories of tools include anything that assists in designing and developing microservices that utilize cloud-native APIs. Moreover, container development and Kubernetes deployment and operations are also a common way to refactor.

 

Organizations also have several ways to refactor their applications for the cloud.

A complete refactor is when more than 50% of the code is changed and the database is updated to utilize as many cloud-native features as required by the application. This strategy can improve performance, operations costs and IT teams’ ability to meet the needs of the business. However, the process could be too costly or complex, and it can introduce bugs.

Minimum viable refactoring prioritizes speed and efficiency, as it requires only slight changes to the application. Users who take this approach often incorporate cloud-native security, management and perhaps a public cloud database into their migrated workload.

Containerization refactoring is done when applications are moved into containers with minimal modifications. The applications exist within the container, which enables users to incorporate cloud-native features and improve portability. Costs and refactoring times continue to go down due to the popularity of containers and their growing ecosystems.

Read More about Dockers and Containers

Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Serverless computing is steered by the reaction to triggers and events happening in near-real-time–in the cloud. The code written by a developer is executed and only the precise amount of computing resources are taken to complete the task, no more, no less.

Read More about Serverless computing

Enterprises should bear in mind that most applications and data sets that can move to a public cloud require at least some refactoring and users should at least do minimum viable refactoring for most of the cloud-hosted application.  

 

Get in touch with us to find out what refactoring method works the best for your workload.

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Sysfore is a Gold Microsoft Azure and AWS partner with 8+ years of cloud consulting and managed service expertise. We have the privilege of executing the largest data center migration projects in India and have engaged with over 100+ customers on their cloud journey.

Cloud Migration: 6 Benefits of Cloud Managed Services

Bobby Varghese

Every business runs on information. Without proper cloud management, you are exposing your business to various threats and most importantly expensive downtime. Your Cloud migration strategy should take a holistic view of all the aspects involved in meeting the business and technical goals of your organization which includes Cloud Managed Services. This article talks about how you can manage cloud in an optimum manner to make the most out of it.

This is the 4th part of the Cloud Migration article series, read the other three articles right here.

Cloud Migration: Are You Cloud Ready?

Cloud Migration: Choosing a Cloud Service Partner

Cloud Migration: Strategies For A Successful Migration

 

What is Cloud Managed services?

Single-tenancy, multi-tenancy or a hybrid cloud environment, you need extensive cloud knowledge to support it. In many instances, the internal IT team don’t possess enough bandwidth, knowledge or resources to upskill on time to effectively maintain a cloud environment. A Cloud Managed Services provider will not only help you in managing your cloud security, computing, storage, network operations, application stacks but also provide technical support to automate and enhance your business operations.

As per the recent report by a CompTIA survey of over 400 businesses who utilize some sort of managed service, reported that

  1. 46% have reduced their budget by 25% or more
  2. 13% of the above cut IT spending by more than 50%
  3. 50% said they have cut annual costs by anywhere from 1% to 24%

Cloud managed services is all about entrusting your daily IT management for cloud-based services in safe hands so that you can stop worrying about threats to your information or expensive downtime and focus on running your business.

 

6 Benefits Of Cloud Managed Service Providers

    1. Cost Saving – Hiring a full-time IT department for a small to medium sized business is expensive and often unnecessary. You can control and reduce costly network maintenance, by outsourcing your cloud managed services. A cloud managed services provider like Sysfore technologies can help your organization save thousands of dollars each year on the cost of an in-house IT department.
    2. Subscription Plans – Optimize your IT support expenditure with fixed monthly service plans that are customized as per your requirements and budget.
      1. Scope based annual engagement model
      2. Incident-based engagement model
    3. Robust Infrastructure – Depending on the service agreement, a cloud managed services provider can scan and monitor the network for patch requirements, security and more. A CMS provider will also incorporate your current business practices with your network to coincide with your organizational goals.
    4. Centralized Network Services and Fast Response Times– All your applications and servers will be managed in a central data center. This allows you to build a centralized network where users can access centralized data including virtual services
    5. Data Safety – Secure your data across all cloud services and applications. In the event of a disaster, your business and operations can continue with minimal downtime
    6. Technical Expertise – When vendor specific issues arise, cloud managed service provider can take care of the issue without your intervention on the same. As a certified Microsoft Gold partner and AWS consulting partner, we understand the technicalities involved and can help you get back in business in no time.

Sysfore Ease – Service around the clock

As a Cloud service provider, our technicians come with years of experience and we are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Our experts constantly monitor your servers and systems and update them as required – of course without any further costs or request from you. All our services are monitored, and we ensure you get the best of our services your business demands.

We provide the following services that enable automation, brokerage, governance, and lifecycle management of cloud services.

cloud managed services

What differentiates us from other service providers is our inimitable skill of multi-cloud management. We understand cloud applications and the importance of security for your Infrastructure.

cloud migration: cloud managed services

Get Sysfore Cloud Managed Services For Your Enterprise

Sysfore, A Microsoft Cloud solution provider and a Gold Partner, uses leading network, technology, and service expertise to deliver our service anytime, virtually anywhere, quickly and efficiently. We have helped over 80 small enterprises and 30 mid-sized enterprises across the globe for a successful cloud migration in the past 8 years. Contact one of our experts today and we will help you find the perfect solution for your business. Write to us at info@sysfore.com or give us a call at +91 (80) 4110 5555.

What you need to know about Azure Reserved Instances

Ajith George

What is Azure Reserved Virtual Machine?

Azure Reserved Instances is a model of operating virtual instances which have been chartered on Microsoft Azure’s Public IaaS cloud for dedicated use on a one-year or three-year basis. It is for those enterprises that rely predominantly on Microsoft Azure as a cloud platform and permanently operating a part of their workloads on Azure.

For customers with relatively predictable workloads and resource requirements, Azure RI can help budget and plan months or even years in advance.

 

Cost Benefits

Reserved Instance offers customers a discount of up to 72% as compared to Microsoft’s standard pay as you go VM pricing mode.

Wait, there is more!

After Microsoft made instance size flexibility for Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances public, your reserved instance purchasing and management has become even simpler by applying reservation discounts to different virtual machine (VM) sizes within the same VM group.

With instance size flexibility, you don’t have to deploy the exact same VM size to get the benefit of your purchased Azure Reserved Instances (RI) as other VM sizes within the same VM group also get the RI discount.

Azure Reserved Instances

                                                                                                                             Source: Microsoft

Instance size flexibility simplified

If you have purchased 1 Azure Reserved Instance for a D2s_v3 VM, then the following VM Instances could be covered through your reserved instance purchase if they are in the same region:

  • 1 Standard_D2S_v3
  • 1/2 Standard_D4s_v3
  • 1/4 Standard_D8s_v3
  • 1/8 Standard_D16s_v3
  • 1/16 Standard_D32s_v3
  • 1/32 Standard_D64s_v3

A VM regardless of its Operating system, be it Windows Server, Linux, RHEL, e.t.c, can benefit to the infrastructure cost when Instance size flexibility is applied on the Azure reserved Instance.

 

How to buy Reserved VM Instances

First, RI based on a VM type should be purchased (take a look at this guide on Azure Families for more information). Microsoft or a CSP will then look at your account or subscription for a VM of the same family. If available, it will apply your RI credit to that VM.

If you buy an RI for a VM family that you are not currently running, the credit will not be applied and you will not be able to take advantage of it for that billing period.

RIs can be purchased for use across an Azure account or a subscription. If you buy an RI for an Azure account, the discount it gives you can be applied to any VM in any subscription on that account. If you buy an RI for a subscription, it can only be applied to VMs in that subscription.

 

Exchanging or canceling your Reserved VM instances

So what to do when you don’t need the Reserved VM anymore?

Microsoft offers the ability to exchange or cancel RIs. Cancellation will incur an early termination fee of 12% (of the upfront cost) and will allow you to exchange your RI for a different type.

You could make significant cost-savings if you are prepared to pay upfront for an RI. While RIs will not replace on-demand instances, we’re likely to see companies now investing in a mixture of Virtual Machine payment models to suit their needs; using RIs for predictable workloads and on-demand instances as they are needed.

For more information on the discount provided by Reserved Virtual Machines, take a look at Microsoft’s documentation

 

Sysfore, A Microsoft Cloud solution provider and a Gold Partner, uses leading network, technology, and service expertise to deliver our service anytime, virtually anywhere, quickly and efficiently. We have helped over 80 small enterprises and 30 mid-sized enterprises across the globe for a successful cloud migration in the past 8 years. Contact one of our experts today and we will help you find the perfect solution for your business. Write to us at info@sysfore.com or give us a call at +91 (80) 4110 5555.