7 reasons to trust your Azure cloud strategy to an Expert MSP

Running your business in the cloud enables faster times to market and allows you to innovate with fewer risks. In today’s economic climate, cloud architecture is a competitive differentiator, but businesses may never realise its full benefits without the right expertise.

That’s because the technology landscape has evolved significantly – especially over the past year. And, because of its scalability, repeatability, and elasticity, cloud computing infrastructure needs a new level of service management – an expert level.

Moving to Microsoft Azure can provide significant scalability, flexibility, and cost savings. However, even the most competent IT teams may be intimidated by migrations.

In this article, we unpack seven reasons to partner with a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP to design, implement, and manage your cloud deployments.

But first, what is an Azure Expert MSP?

Unlike traditional MSPs that focus on the people and processes involved with the customer lifecycle, Azure Expert MSPs place a substantially higher focus on automation and DevOps. Rather than focusing on workloads, they focus on the business outcomes enabled by their customers’ apps and solutions. As a result, end-user value is created through business value metrics, service level agreements (SLAs), resiliency, and continuous optimisation.

“Azure Expert MSPs enable and support hyper-scale cloud implementations. They are subjected to rigorous and independent technical certification to satisfy Microsoft’s partner requirements. This includes demonstrating their expertise and commitment across the entire cloud lifecycle,” says Willem Malan, CTO at BUI.

This means that when you see the Azure Expert MSP badge, you can be confident that you’re dealing with only the most capable and high-fidelity service providers.

Engaging with an Azure Expert MSP has a variety of benefits. Here are just a few:

1. Product knowledge 

Over 200 products and services are available on the Azure platform, and Microsoft is constantly adding and upgrading its offerings. Without the proper knowledge and expertise, it can be difficult to know which services are best for your business, what to change, and when to upgrade.

“An Expert MSP can help identify the right solutions for your business to support the outcomes you want to achieve. They are your best bets for advice, support, and management of mission-critical apps, data centres, and other infrastructure deployed in private, public, or hybrid cloud environments,” says Malan.

2. Repeatable, highly automated solutions 

An Azure Expert MSP transitions you from a static ‘Design, Build, Operate’ cycle to a dynamic ‘Design, Optimise, Transform’ cycle. They build solutions around an agile, customer-driven design that combines consultancy, migration, and management and supports hyperscale cloud projects.

BUI can guide you in the best solutions to support your digital transformation efforts while creating high-performance environments across the entire customer cloud engagement lifecycle.

3. Immediate return in high-impact areas

With Microsoft Azure, there’s no need to completely re-architect your infrastructure or to retrofit your existing tools. An Expert MSP can guide you in getting immediate value and return on investment (ROI) from low-cost or free Azure-native tools.

“This is a smart option for risk-averse, highly regulated businesses that aren’t yet ready to shift everything to the cloud. With the guidance of an Expert MSP, you can access high-end services for free for a limited time, allowing you to ‘try before you buy’,” says Malan.

4. Zero-downtime migration and maintenance

Many businesses underestimate the cost and effort of maintaining cloud infrastructure. Managing security patching, backups, and break-fixes is time-consuming and requires specialist skills and knowledge.

In offloading your cloud migration and management to an Expert MSP, you’ll be guided through the right processes for transitioning to Azure with little to no downtime. As your expert partner, BUI develops and executes your cloud migration in small, focused iterations that give immediate, scalable results at every stage of your digital transformation journey.

5. Security and compliance expertise

Microsoft employs over 3,500 global cybersecurity experts and invests over $1 billion a year in security, a sum that few businesses can match. However, if you run your business in Azure, you benefit from these and other investments by default.

Microsoft Azure also boasts the most extensive compliance portfolio out of all the cloud service providers, with more than 90 offerings and pre-audited templates. Combined with BUI’s security and compliance expertise, your architecture is guaranteed to meet specific standards to pass an audit.

6. Cost savings

Azure is delivered as a pay-per-use model, but did you know that it also offers tools to help you manage your cloud spend, as well as flexible buying and pricing options? An Azure Expert MSP can tailor a package to meet your needs and budget while serving as a single point of contact for billing and technical queries.

What’s more, in outsourcing to the experts, you eliminate the need for expensive in-house Azure skills and the associated cost of hiring, training, certifying, and retaining specialist talent.

7. Superior support

An Azure Expert MSP can design and deploy a cloud solution that’s custom-fit to your needs, starting with a cloud readiness assessment – a critical part of the cloud journey. BUI can guide you through best practice cloud migration planning, strategy, and execution. We also ensure a smooth data migration and assist with re-platforming apps to run in the cloud with little to no downtime.

“BUI has invested in advanced tools to track system application level performance, proactively manage and solve issues, report on the health of your Azure deployment, and identify needed changes,” says Malan

Our cloud enablement services and operations and state-of-the-art tooling enable margin expansion at scale and drive application innovation through:

  • End-to-end lifecycle management throughout all engagement phases, and
  • Skillsets across NetOps and SecOps, architecting cloud solutions and technical professional consulting.

Trust the experts 

“The right cloud architecture, tailored to your company’s specific needs, challenges, and desired outcomes is vital to the success of your digital transformation. You’ll want the most proficient outsourced managed service provider to help you thrive in a cloud-first, mobile-first future,” says Malan.

BUI is the first South Africa based Microsoft Partner that has achieved Microsoft Azure Expert MSP certification. It was also the first in Africa to be certified as an Expert MSP. BUI’s focus is to be ahead of our competitors and align closely with the Microsoft vision and ecosystem when it comes to our Microsoft focused teams and solutions.

Our people-centric culture drives excellence into our teams to ensure the best possible outcomes for our customers. We therefore not only partner with Microsoft but also our clients to bring them the best Azure skills, expertise, and demonstrated ability to get the most value from their cloud migration and digital transformation journeys.