Cloud services
The cloud is a means, not a destination.
Moving to the cloud should make something specific better: cost, access, resilience or growth. If nobody can name which one, the move is being made because it is what people do. We would rather work out the answer with you first.
The invoice this prevents
You moved everything to the cloud and the bill went up.
It was supposed to save money. Instead the monthly cost is higher than the server it replaced, one application runs noticeably slower than it used to, and the thing everybody actually wanted, which was working properly from home, still does not quite work.
That outcome is common and it is avoidable. It happens when the question was “how do we move to the cloud” rather than “what are we trying to fix, and is the cloud the cheapest way to fix it”. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the honest answer is a new server and better remote access, and we will say so.
Start here
What are you actually trying to fix?
Almost every worthwhile cloud project traces back to one of these. Naming yours makes the rest of the decisions straightforward.
People cannot work from where they need to
Files only reachable from the office, a remote setup that drops, a system that needs someone to be physically at a desk. Usually the real driver, even when the conversation starts somewhere else.
The server is near the end of its life
It works, and it is five or six years old, and replacing it is a large cheque. This is the moment to ask whether it needs replacing at all, or only partly.
One failure would stop everything
Everything depends on one machine, in one room, on one internet connection. Cloud is one answer to that. It is not the only one, and it is not automatically the cheapest.
You are growing, or about to change shape
New sites, seasonal staff, an acquisition, or a move to hybrid working. Buying hardware against a forecast is how businesses end up with too much or too little.
The unfashionable bit
Not everything should move, and hybrid is usually the answer.
Some workloads are genuinely cheaper and better in the cloud: email, files, collaboration, backup copies, anything your people need from outside the office. Others are not. A heavily used line-of-business application, a large design or video workload, or a system tied to equipment on your premises can cost more and perform worse once it is somewhere else.
Most businesses land on a mix, and that is a legitimate destination rather than a halfway house. The goal is that each system sits where it works best, not that a box gets ticked.
- Email and files, almost always cloud
- Heavy applications, it depends
- Equipment-tied systems, usually local
- Backups, in both places
What we do
From the first question to the day after the move.
Before anything moves
- A readiness assessment of what you actually run
- Real costs modelled over three years, not month one
- An honest recommendation, including staying put
- Which systems move, which stay, and why
The move itself
- Staged, so a problem affects one group rather than everyone
- Scheduled around your business, including evenings and weekends
- A way back, at every stage
- Staff told what changes before it changes
Where things can live
- Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
- Private and hybrid environments
- Hosted servers and virtual desktops
- Canadian-hosted options where your obligations require it
Security on top
- Multi-factor and conditional access, set up properly
- Email protection and filtering
- Monitoring, so somebody notices before you do
- Access reviewed, so leavers actually lose it
Keeping it sane
- Licences reviewed, so you stop paying for empty seats
- Storage growth watched before it becomes a surprise
- New features assessed rather than switched on blindly
- A yearly look at whether the arrangement still fits
Protecting it
- Backup of cloud data, which the provider does not do for you
- Local and off-site copies both
- Tested restores, on a schedule
- More on backup & recovery →
Included, not extra
Running your cloud is part of managed and co-managed IT.
The migration is a project with a start and a finish. What happens afterwards is not, and it is where most of the value and most of the waste sit. For fully managed and co-managed clients, the afterwards is part of the agreement rather than a separate arrangement.
That means licences reviewed so you stop paying for people who left, storage growth watched before it becomes a bill, security settings maintained as the platforms change underneath you, and backup of your cloud data because the provider is not doing it. Cloud platforms change every few weeks. Somebody has to be reading those notes, and it should not be you.
- Licences reviewed yearly
- Security settings maintained
- Storage watched, not discovered
- Cloud data backed up properly
Questions we get asked
The things owners actually want to know.
Pulled from the central library, tagged for this page. All questions and answers →
Related
Often taken alongside this.
Ask us whether you should move.
Half an hour, no charge, and a genuine answer. We have told people not to move before, and we will tell you if that is where the numbers land.
Would rather write?
Send this and we will reply, usually the same business day. No call unless you want one.
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