PEI just held our 7th Annual Customer event, and the topic was all about getting started with Azure Cloud Services. We’ve found that the vast majority of our customers aren’t sure where to start when it comes to their first Cloud Services workloads.
Part of our presentation was to outline a number of examples. I believe our call to action at the end of the presentation was also helpful. Here are a few steps that can help steer your Azure adoption.
- Come up with a Digital Transformation master plan for your organization. You can find out more about becoming a digital business by going to this site: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/digital-transformation. PEI can also help you with a personal plan for your organization.
- Identify areas where you can gain some experience with Azure. Good starting points can include:
- Backup
- Remote Desktop Services
- Disaster Recovery
- Active Directory
- Any End-of-Life equipment or Large Contract Renewal
- Conduct a Cost/Benefit or Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Analysis to see if these workloads are financially feasible. PEI has a very comprehensive TCO calculator and provides a complementary analysis to anyone that needs help.
- Take advantage of funding programs. PEI has access to a number of funding programs that can greatly reduce or eliminate the cost of deployment planning and architecture/design for specific Azure workloads.
- Engage People! Our team at PEI is trained and ready to help. Take advantage of those that have already done. There’s no reason to “reinvent the wheel”!
Azure isn’t difficult. It’s just a little different. The economics can be fantastic and a real game-changer for business. You just have to be a little curious.
Tim Krueger, PEI
