Data and Infrastructure Optimization Assessment

Transitioning to the cloud, while essential, can be a confusing and frustrating process.

We can help you determine which server workloads and applications to move now with an Infrastructure Optimization Assessment. We’ll gather real-time data on your environment, discuss how infrastructure changes can support your overall business strategy, and recommend which workloads to move first.

This is ideal for customers who are concerned about:

• Where to begin their cloud journey
• Aligning their cloud and business strategies
• Transition costs of legacy infrastructure
• Redesign of on-premise applications

This Data and Infrastructure Optimization Engagement is designed to provide you with an end-to-end analysis and mapping of your entire IT estate, considering your current deployment, usage, processes, and data. The analysis will be the basis for the evaluation of your overall infrastructure in relation to your on-premise environments and cloud-strategy, help you to optimize your current application and server workloads while providing insights on the business and technology benefits to moving additional workloads to the cloud. The analysis will also lead to the ability to provide recommendations to optimize policies and procedures to facilitate your digital transformation strategy and implementation.

SoHo will collect the data and perform a complete discovery and inventory to outline all Microsoft product deployments and usage. We use both Microsoft and third-party tools, as well as other sources to capture all relevant data.

Input required from the customer

Based on the scope of the project, SoHo will use one or more automated discovery tools to collect input from your IT estate that will be the basis for establishing the areas of cloud capabilities to include:

1. A comprehensive assessment of your existing IT infrastructure and environment, including on-premises, cloud, and available outsourced installations for all affiliate’s locations and/or divisions
2. Includes protocols for accessing the network and corporate network connectivity to external networks
3. Includes any IT monitoring tools that you might use
4. Complete and confirmed list of affiliates
5. A complete inventory of relevant performance data and utilization such as CPU, network, RAM, disk and storage

Session 1 – Discovery and Define

Gather accurate data from your IT environment.

This will include real-time details on your environment, such as:

• • Customer’s Active Directory (AD) domain(s) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and/or workgroups
  • Records from existing network performance/security monitoring and management tools
  • Network management frameworks
  • Virtual machine performance monitoring
  • Customer Human Resources (HR) records
  • Security sources (anti-virus)
  • Device Management
  • Virtual environment topologies

Additional software assets running on the host besides the virtual machines, such as

• On-premises Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business and similar system deployments to understand what functionality will be needed in Office 365
• Windows Server and SQL Server versions to identify if those versions are supported in Azure
• Azure virtual machine performance metrics to assess system utilization and anticipated resource needs, including Azure Virtual Machines capacity, estimated monthly usage, network use (GB), storage use (GB), CPU utilization (%), memory utilization (MB) disk I/O utilization (IOPS) and network utilization –

• In/Out (MB/s)
• Applications or services already running in the Cloud
• Office 365 and Azure system requirements to assist in mapping existing infrastructure to what will be needed to move to the Cloud

Session 2 – Plan and Decide

The data collected during the Infrastructure Optimization Assessment must be analyzed, reviewed with the customer and the Engagement Manager, and agreed upon as an accurate point-in-time reflection of your current deployment position this data, along with the additional customer inputs, will provide a basis for the development of a solid Infrastructure Optimization Assessment Customer proposal. Based on the inputs and data collection, the partner will complete the following required analysis:

1. Analysis on deployment data including available Microsoft investment entitlements and insights into the benefits of optimization (e.g. SA, upgrades, downgrades, promotions, etc.).
2. As necessary, collect and review data from stakeholder interviews and questionnaires, noting any information that was either unavailable or challenging for the customer to gather.
3. Review of current cloud environment mapped to optimized environment based on your goals, including an assessment of capabilities and barriers to move to Office 365, Dynamics 365, or Azure.
4. Review of existing SQL Workloads (OLTP, OLAP, etc.) to better determine which server edition to assign to that workload
5. Review of usage and adoption scenarios to determine final optimization recommendations for you
6. Assessment of all business and technology requirements necessary to meet your identified challenges set out in the LOE
7. Review data to align business strategy and objectives
8. Identify prioritized solutions

Session 3 – Migrate (Act)

Based on the results of the discovery planning an action plan is created to cover:

• Prioritize workloads for move to Azure with a road map
• Understand migration investment and benefits
• Pricing and cost of ownership of moving to Azure (Optimal TCO Calculations are based on actual utilization and performance).
• Assessment of your policies and procedures.

Session 4 – Optimize

Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based) goals to help you measure your progress.

This will

• Track and achieve milestones of the defined roadmap
• Establish a utilization baseline for assessing progress
  over time
• Understand the Microsoft Incentive Plan of Cloud migrations

By the end of this assessment you will  understand how to move your infrastructure and data to the cloud in a way that is predictable and with no surprise outcome, to align the business and IT goals of your organization.

Code: MS Vouchers Valid