The Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop specialisation demonstrates Prosperity24/7’s deep knowledge, extensive experience, and proven success in planning and deploying Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop for their clients. This specialisation distinguishes Prosperity24/7 from its competitors and, as a recognised Microsoft specialist, enables Prosperity24/7 to access go-to-market solutions on behalf of clients undertaking Azure migrations, providing them with expertise and financial assistance. This allows organisations to use the full breadth of Microsoft AVD to build transformative, secure virtual desktop solutions at scale, enabling them to be more efficient and productive.

For Microsoft Partners to achieve the specialisation, they need to go through a rigorous process including training team members to a high standard achieving certain Microsoft qualifications, compiling extensive evidence of expertise and examples of complex technical deployments as well as undergoing a comprehensive audit by Microsoft.

David Keiller, Microsoft Azure Business Manager from Prosperity’s distribution partner TD Synnex said, “Achieving a specialism in Azure Virtual Desktop is a fantastic achievement for Prosperity 24/7, it demonstrates a deep understanding of the solution and  excellence in design, implementation, delivery and training to facilitate successful projects for AVD. It also puts Prosperity 24/7 in a select group of specialised partners who can unlock the full suite of additional benefits from Microsoft which really does make all the difference, It’s been a pleasure working with the team to support them with their journey to specialisation.”

Jake Foster, Chief Technology Officer at Prosperity 24/7, was delighted by the result. “Prosperity is one of only a handful of cloud  service providers to achieve this specialisation across the UK and Europe and the first in the Channel Islands. This accomplishment reflects the tremendous amount of hard work, attention to detail, dedication and expertise demonstrated by the team.  The auditor was impressed by the team’s exceptional work and their commitment to the process.”

Jake expressed his gratitude to the cloud team for consistently delivering solutions to clients at an exceptional standard. He highlighted their hard work and collaboration with Microsoft during the audit process.

“This qualification makes us leaders in providing critical infrastructure for any organisation that is serious about modernising their working environment to enable growth and productivity. Prosperity continues to develop technology solutions that work the way that people work, solving everyday business challenges, so we can all prosper.”

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Citrix, the global cloud computing and virtualization technology company, establishes strategic partnerships like Prosperity’s to enhance services and support for those clients looking to develop their digital workspace technology.

The Platinum status is Citrix’s highest designation.  It highlights Prosperity’s deep understanding of Citrix solutions and ability to deliver exceptional value to its customers.  Prosperity can therefore, offer their clients the highest level of expertise and support for Citrix solutions. Whether it’s virtualization, networking, or cloud computing, Prosperity 24/7 has the knowledge and experience to transform businesses with Citrix especially when leveraging Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop technology.

“We are thrilled to have achieved Platinum status as a Citrix Partner,” said Lee Pirouet, Director at Prosperity 24/7. “This recognition is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, and our commitment to delivering the best possible solutions to our customers. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Citrix to help our clients achieve their business goals.”

Lee added, “Citrix’s people-centric approach to technology is very much aligned with our own.  In order for our clients to achieve their business goals, Citrix have radically simplified computing and taken online collaboration and desktop computing to a whole new level.”

For an example of how this partnership works, take a look at our case study.

https://prosperity247.com/case-studies/jtc-group-and-citrix-stronger-together/

Get in touch if you want to discuss your Citrix licenses and strategy for the best way forward for your business.

The post Prosperity 24/7 becomes the Channel Islands first Citrix Platinum Partner appeared first on Prosperity 247.

So what happens now?

Assuming you have constructed a business plan, defined motivations, considered business outcomes/financial implications, and have the backing of the business, you need to get the wheels in motion and initiate the project. We find that many organisations at this point do not have the required experience for a cloud migration and start to ask questions such as:

• How do we get started?
• What does a cloud migration involve?
• What components that we need to consider?
• What is it going to cost?

The answer to the first question is that the process starts now. The sooner you can prepare for a cloud migration, the better your chance of ensuring a successful migration. No matter the size of your organisation or Information Technology environment, you have some important decisions to make. By gaining the insights you need to make those decisions early in the journey, you will stand a much better chance of delivering a successful outcome.

Discovery

The first part of the process is the initial discovery. During this phase, the entire environment should be reviewed and documented. Use tools such as Azure Migrate to evaluate each application’s architecture, dependencies, and resource utilisation.

Focus on the application landscape and ensure all applications are documented and reviewed.

A well-constructed discovery allows you to understand the applications deployed within your organisation, evaluate their usage, and potentially reduce the number of applications used and the associated costs.

The devil is in the detail, and spending sufficient time to explore the application landscape will reap benefits in the later parts of the project. Application interaction and process flow will dictate migration strategies and long-term deployment goals. Understanding and documenting these are vital at this stage of the journey.

Now it’s time to engage the IT and business teams who use these services. By bringing these teams into the process as soon as possible, you can ensure they can offer migration guidance, feedback, and support.

You will now be able to model costs and confirm migration strategies accurately.

Migration strategy

Awesome! You have taken the time, engaged the project team and completed a thorough discovery process. You now know what’s in your environment, what the interdependencies are, what will be easy to migrate and what will be hard to migrate. Now you can decide how you will migrate each application. Using this knowledge, you can outline a plan for migrating each application in the portfolio and in what order.

Get this done early  – Advanced planning and confirming the migration strategy is essential to give you time to prepare the application landscape and lay down the foundations for the migration.

The migration plan will be dictated by decisions made when you complete the discovery and must be aligned with your organisation’s cloud strategy. It doesn’t have to be a one fits all approach, and the migration strategy can be adapted and customised for individual applications.

The complexity of migrating existing applications varies. Start with an easy application with a low impact on the organisation.  This is a common approach, which provides a chance to work through the migration steps, iron out any issues and gain confidence in the process and platform.

Gartner outlined the 5R’s of rationalisation migration strategies, which most major Cloud platform providers have adopted. These strategies can be a guideline to help you plan your migration. They are not steadfast rules. Every organisation has its unique blend of constraints, budget issues, politics, culture, and market pressures that will guide its decision-making process.

The five Rs of rationalisation describe the most common options:

• Rehost – Better known as lift and shift. This approach will migrate the platform in its current state. This is one of the most common approaches as it is quick and straightforward. We have found that applications are often easier to re-architect once they are already running in the cloud.
• Refactor / Re-architect – This approach uses the platform as a service (PaaS) component in the cloud platform without changing the core architecture of the application. For instance, you could use PaaS database instances by migrating to a database-as-a-service platform.
• Replace – Move to another application. A cloud migration offers a great opportunity to modernise and rejuvenate the applications used within your organisation. Sometimes software as a service (SaaS) applications can provide all the necessary functionality. In these scenarios, a workload can be scheduled for future replacement.
• Retire – We’ve found that as much as 20% of an enterprise IT portfolio is not providing benefits and can be turned off. These savings can boost the business case, direct your team’s precious time and attention to what staff use, and lessen the surface area you must secure.
• Retain – This commonly means revisit or do nothing for now. You should only migrate what is right for the business. There are many reasons why an application might not be migrated at any given time and can be left as is to be addressed later.

These are just some steps involved when embarking on a cloud migration project. There are no concrete rules to follow, as no two businesses are alike. Each organisation will follow a slightly different migration process base on their vision, goals, and defined outcomes.

You will meet roadblocks, delays, and unforeseen issues in your journey to the cloud. In our experience, getting the initial planning with a solid discovery and predefined migration strategy is the key to a successful cloud migration.

If you’re thinking about making the move to the cloud, get in touch.

The post Cloud Nine or Cloud Chaos? Preparing for Cloud Migration! appeared first on Prosperity 247.

Hosted by Prosperity 24/7’s Head of Cloud, Marcus Bailey and Technical Solutions Director, Lee Pirouet, this Round Table event is open to IT professionals and business leaders. Attendees will get the chance to listen to industry experts who will share their experiences, insights and best practices of Azure migration.  Then have the chance to participate in an open and informal discussion.

Through interactive discussions and practical examples, we aim to equip attendees with the knowledge and tools necessary to navigate the migration process successfully.

Discussion Topics

1. Planning for a Successful Migration: Strategies, considerations, and best practices for a smooth transition to Azure.
2. Azure Services Overview: Exploring the diverse range of services and solutions offered by Microsoft Azure.
3. Security and Compliance in the Cloud: Addressing data protection, privacy, and regulatory compliance in Azure.
4. Migration Challenges and Solutions: Identifying common hurdles and effective strategies to overcome them.
5. Optimising Performance and Cost: Techniques for optimising resources, managing costs, and improving overall performance in Azure.
6. Real-World Case Studies: Learn from industry leaders who have successfully migrated to Azure and achieved significant business outcomes.

Location:  ‘Space’ Prosperity 24/7’s Headquarters

Dates:  There is a choice of sessions on the following days:

• Tuesday 18th July from 09:00 to 10:30 and 12:30 to 14:00
• Wednesday 19th July from 09:00 to 10:30 and 12:30 to 14:00
• Thursday 20th July from 09:00 to 10:30 and 12:30 to 14:00

The post Great Minds Series: Migration to Azure – Unlocking the Power of the Cloud appeared first on Prosperity 247.

At the forefront of this surge is the uptake in use of SaaS (Software as a Service) products.

Businesses are recognising the merits of SaaS and moving critical business systems to SaaS based deployments. SaaS platforms such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce and Google Workspace are providing turnkey deployments at low prices, which enable organisations to provide the modern working environment and transform the way organisations work.

At the heart of all of this is the organisation’s data. Arguably it’s most important asset and protection of it should be at the forefront of all decisions. Assuming organisational data is secure because it is on a SaaS platform is a risk that no business can afford to take.

Its vital that an organisation has an effective backup strategy in place.

Why you need to backup cloud data

SaaS platforms provide many benefits to an organisation and it can be easy to assume that they provide full data protection. However, SaaS platforms follow a shared data responsibility model. SaaS providers will take care of the application uptime and availability BUT, the responsibility to protect the data is with the customer.

Take Microsoft 365 as an example. It is one of the widest used SaaS based platforms. The built-in features do give data resiliency and help prevent data loss, however there is not yet a true backup feature in the product set. Microsoft provides recommendations to customers on how to protect data and clearly advises customers to use a separate backup product to protect data.

For those of you that like exploring Microsoft documentation, review the links below:

Microsoft Services Agreement  Recover from a ransomware attack – Office 365 | Microsoft Learn

What should I be worried about

There are several factors that could result in data loss or disruption. The team at Prosperity 24/7 have listed our top reasons to consider a cloud backup:

1. Human error: The most probable cause of data loss can come from humans interacting with data. It is easy to mistakenly delete a document, user account or repository.
2. Security threats: The bad guys are out there, and they want your data, threats such as ransomware are becoming increasingly common and can have a monumental impact on an organisation.
3. Retention policies: SaaS based applications such as Microsoft 365 do provide features that can ensure data is retained and restrict deletions. However, the functionality is limited and they do not provide backup in its true form.
4. Compliance retention: Many organisations have legal and compliance requirements to retain data. Whilst this can be achieved in most SaaS based applications, to be truly compliant and mitigate risk and separate backup should be taken.
5. Ease of sharing through instant message: Instant messaging services such as MS Teams chat are fast becoming the most common communication medium. Important files and instructions are now being sent by chat and organisations need to ensure that chat data is secure and backed up with full history.
6. Prolonged outages: Although unlikely, your data is being looked after by someone else and it is important to have a plan B should there be a prolonged service disruption.

Dos and Don’ts of protecting your data and build resiliency

Whatever SaaS platform you are using, it is your data that is stored in the cloud, and it is vital that the appropriate measures have been taken to protect that data.

1. Do have a separate dedicated cloud back up – Take full control of your data protection by using a separate dedicated cloud backup service to safeguard your data. Having a dedicated robust solution in place will ensure your organisation can continue to benefit from the use of SaaS platforms, whilst ensuring data is secure, highly available and most importantly within your control.
2. Do your research – Choose wisely, not all backup solutions are created equally. When it comes to finding the right backup solution for your data, take time and consider your requirements. Analyse the products available by looking at the features such as restore processes, storage locations, management portals and job visibility.
3. Don’t put your eggs in one basket – Using a different provider for the backup solution allows an organisation to separate the data from the platform provider. It is tempting to utilise an inbuilt backup feature within the platform, however Monoculture, or putting all your (data) eggs in the one basket, is a design decision we advise against.

We believe that your data is more powerful when fully protected. We want our customers to use SaaS platforms to innovate and to drive their business, while at the same time ensuring their data is protected and within their control.

Our expert team of data and cloud consultants are always available to discuss any aspect of cloud security, backup, and end to end protection of data stored in the cloud.  Drop us a line at cloud@prosperity247.com

The post Cloudy with a chance of data loss appeared first on Prosperity 247.

Join us on Wednesday 19 October to find out how to create a safe and successful modern workplace.

Who is this event suitable for:

CIO, CTO, IT Managers, Business Decision Makers
Hosted by: Marcus Bailey, Head of Cloud
Where: Celestial Hall, The Royal Yacht Hotel
Date & Time: Wednesday 19 October 2022 from 08:30am to 12:30pm

Agenda:

08:30 – 09:00 – networking breakfast

Session 1: What is the modern workplace?

Speakers from Prosperity 24/7 and Citrix will discuss the modern workplace and explore the technologies that enable a secure and flexible working environment.

09:00 – 09:05 – Introduction – Jake Foster
09:05 – 09:35 – Facilitating the modern mobile workforce – Marcus Bailey
09:35 – 10:05 – Working in the modern workplace – Geraldine Evans
10:05 – 10:35 – Deliver an Optimised Modern Workspace with Citrix Cloud – Stuart Parkington, Citrix
10:35 – 10:45 – Coffee break

Session 2: Networking for the modern office

Speakers from Prosperity 24/7, JT Global and Techdata will discuss how to build a secure, productive hybrid workplace with modern network and communication technologies.

10:45 – 10:50 – Welcome back – Jake Foster
10:50 – 11:20 – Tapping into the full potential of Microsoft Teams with JT SIP Integration – Sunny Ajanaku & Mike Masterson, JT Global
11:20 – 11:50 – Digitising the workplace using Microsoft Teams Rooms – Tom Ballard, Tech Data
11:50 – 12:20 – The Future of Work is Hybrid – Rob Taylor & Simon Watkins
12:20 – 12:30 Q&A & Close – Jake Foster

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