Cloud Direct celebrates another successful Microsoft Azure Expert MSP audit. With fewer than 100 Azure Expert MSP partners globally, and just a handful in the UK, this confirms Cloud Direct’s place as one of the UK’s leading Microsoft partners – and reassuring customers they are working with certified experts. Cloud Direct were one of the first to pass the audit in 2018, and have been leading the market ever since.

“Having been one of the first UK partners to undergo the audit and receive the Azure Expert MSP status in 2018, we are pleased to continue to pass the increasingly strict audit to retain the status and provide our customers with rock-star Microsoft Azure capabilities.” Brett Raynes, CEO, Cloud Direct.

The Microsoft Azure Expert MSP certification is Microsoft’s highest fidelity accolade.

The rigorous assessment looks at the skills and capabilities of Cloud Directs Azure consultants and support staff – focusing on infrastructure, applications and data management within Azure.  The audit also looks at the wider business structure to ensure Cloud Direct is built around continual improvement of its Azure managed services. This includes an audit of completed Azure projects and analysis of processes in hiring, training, finances, managed services, support, sales and customer on-boarding.

“Achieving and retaining the Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status is a huge achievement and one we take a lot of pride in. It allows us to deliver on our promise of providing ‘enterprise-class’ technology to the mid-market.

“We work tirelessly to ensure our managed services and automation for Microsoft Azure are world-class. This allows us to deliver high-velocity, high-impact Azure solutions to customers who don’t have the resources of a large enterprise organisation. Being able to do this with the highest level of recognition from Microsoft puts us in a unique position and one our mid-market customers truly appreciate and benefit from” Brett Raynes, CEO, Cloud Direct.

In this year’s audit, Cloud Direct was specifically noted for strengths across the business. The auditor’s report recognised:

• The breadth of technical skills across the widest customer base the auditor had experienced.
• Quality and consistency of design processes and documentation.
• The strategic commitment to training only seen in the best of breed service providers.
• Our integrated Provide™ Cloud Management Portal offering guided and advanced Azure service deployment, spend forecasting and a wide set of service health reporting capabilities.

Ready to work with an Azure Expert MSP? Get in contact.

Over the past five years, the way businesses use the cloud for their applications has changed dramatically – making it safe to say technology has transformed the way applications are made. With customers relying on SaaS solutions and cloud-based start-ups popping up left right and centre, it makes now a perfect time to migrate your application to the cloud. But where do you start?

Application Rationalization is the first step in your migration. Microsoft defines it as; the process of evaluating assets to determine the best way to migration or modernise each asset in the cloud. The best way to analyse your applications environment is by using what Gartner articulately coined as the five R’s of application modernisation – this will help you choose the best path for your migration.

So, when you’re looking to modernise application make sure you use the rationalization approach that fits your long-term strategy, motivations, and current state environment. Ready to explore the five R’s? Let’s jump in.

Rehost

Rehosting an application, more commonly known as a ‘lift and shift’, makes the least change to the architecture of the application. It is the simplest migration there is as it involves you moving your application from one environment to another. Rehosting your application is suitable for a legacy migration or if you have an IT team with limited cloud knowledge.

It’s best to rehost when you’re looking to move fast or on-prem is costing your business too much.

Refactor

Refactoring an application is when you refactor the code to open your ISV up to new business opportunities. This doesn’t mean making any major overhauls to the code, just updating a few bits here and there to optimise your application.

Once your application has been refactored, your ISV will have greater cloud efficiency, giving you access to better resources, speed, optimised costs and the ability to better manage your operations. Once your ISV has refactored your application you will be able to leverage Microsoft tools such as Azure SQL Database Managed Instances, Azure Container Services, Azure’ App Services, Azure Functions and Logic Apps.

It’s best to refactor when creating a custom application or you don’t want to create or maintain infrastructure.

Rearchitect

Before you can even start thinking about moving to the cloud, you need to make sure your application is cloud compatible. Rearchitecting an application is when you completely re-write your application to better fit in the cloud. This is usually the case for a legacy or ageing applications that aren’t compatible with the latest cloud providers.

The four key reasons why you may want to rearchitect your application are:

• Your application is cloud-compatible, but not cloud-native
• Improve your applications scale and agility
• Making it easier to adopt new cloud capabilities
• If you use a mix of technology stacks

Rebuild

Sometimes, applications aren’t worth further investment as they don’t meet the businesses current needs and are now unsupported or misalign with the current business process. If this is the case, then it’s best if your ISV rebuilt their application with a new code base that will align with a cloud-native approach. This typically involves your ISV leaving the old application and rebuilding it from new using the Azure Platform as a Services (PaaS) such as, Azure Functions, Logic Apps and Azure SQL Database.

So, if you’re planning to scale your application and futureproofing it using the latest cloud technologies then a rebuilding approach is right for you.

Replace

When building your application, you would have used the best technology and approach available at the time. But you know better than anyone that technology can get outdated quickly, particularly if it isn’t being maintained and keeping up with industry best practices.

It’s best to replace when you don’t want to invest in a development team to revive your application.

 

Five R’s of application modernisation

So, what approach will you take?

Before modernising your application, you should apply the 5 R’s to help you make the right decision about your application. If you want help figuring out the best migration for your application or are looking for a partner to migrate with, simply get in touch with our application experts.

 

Migrating your application to Azure will unlock new markets and revenue opportunities for your business. By having a SaaS application you will have the capabilities to help your business achieve fearless growth. Having your application in Azure allows you to build, market and sell your solutions efficiently. And we’re here to show you exactly how.

Having the ability to build things quicker enables you to streamline operations and therefore have the ability to sell more. Here’s what this could look like for your application.

Sell more than ever

That’s right. Migrating your application into Azure will enable you to reach millions of new customers. Your application being in the cloud will become more accessible and appealing to new markets across the world.

Microsoft has resources and programs available to help accelerate your time to market, demand generation and business growth, – such as the Azure Marketplace. By uploading your application to the Azure Marketplace you’re allowing customers in over 140 countries to start using your app. Enabling you to transform your businesses go-to-market strategy.

Finally, all of that money you’ve saved by moving to the Azure and increasing efficiency no longer needs to be passed onto your customer – making your services more affordable for them. It’s a win-win situation.

Build things quicker

Azure provides you with the building blocks you need to create a powerful application. You’ll be able to reap all the benefits of tools available in Azure, such as Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure DevOps and Azure App Service. Plus Microsoft are investing a huge amount of time and money to developing their application services. Over the past year they’ve added 1000+ capabilities to support your application, including more pre-built and custom AI features. By having access to the latest Azure tools available, you’ll be able to bring functionality to your application that competitors haven’t even thought of yet.

Microsoft and Keystone published a whitepaper on some research they’ve done into ISVs, The Shift to SaaS: A high-value opportunity for ISVs. During this research they discover: “All of the ISVs interviewed explained that the combination of continuous product development methodologies and greater visibility into customer usage through app data collection have led to improved product development cycles, saving up to one-third of the time required for a typical product release.” The Shift to SaaS: A high-value opportunity for ISVs, Keystone, June, 2017

With a cloud-based application there will be no hardware maintenance, allowing your IT team to concentrate on the development of your app. Meaning you’ll be able to keep up with changing markets, trends and competitors – all whilst saving costs.

Streamline your operations

Moving to a cloud-based application will enable your ISV to streamline your operations, which will open your business up to plenty of opportunities.

“ISVs (who switch to SaaS) reported a range of efficiency gains depending on the complexity of the application and the ongoing maintenance responsibilities, with an average of a 26% improvement in engineering efficiency.” The Shift to SaaS: A high-value opportunity for ISVs, Keystone, June, 2017

A SaaS-based model application reduces the time it takes to maintain the infrastructure as Microsoft will do this for you. Passing any infrastructure maintenance onto your provider, enables your IT team to focus on what really matters – improving and updating your application. And what’s best is you will automatically have access to any security and functionality updates – allowing your IT team to have access to the lastest tools available. Your customers will be able to benefit from this too through better functionality and app capabilities.

Microsoft invests over $1 billion every year in cybersecurity to ensure your cloud-based application is secure, so you don’t have to. They provide your ISV with compliance framework that aligns vendors to country specific data management regulations – meaning you don’t have to worry about complex and changing regulations. Microsoft has the resources to help you keep innovating without using up your whole team. Allowing you to excel your application without burning your team out.

Ready to harness the power of Azure?

These are just a few of the benefits your application could see from migrating to Azure. If you want to talk to one of our Azure Experts to find out how you can leverage your application in the cloud, then simply get in touch.

 

Deciding on the right office suite for your business can be challenging. There are ultimately two key players to choose between – Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

From the early 2000s, Microsoft dominated the world of productivity, until 2006 when Google came along and launched their suite of products. Since then Microsoft and Google have been the biggest rivals in the productivity space.

To help you decide which of these two office suite giants is best suited to your business, we put Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace side-by-side to see how they compare. Whilst on the surface they seem to be very similar in terms of functionality, once you scratch the surface there are some very different features that could sway your decision.

At a glance…

	Microsoft 365	Google Workspace
Deployment	Cloud and hybrid	Cloud
Offline access	Yes	Limited to certain applications
Real time collaboration	Yes	Yes
Desktop application access	Most plans	No
Online application access	Yes	Yes
Storage	From 50GB email and 1TB of drive storage per user	From 30GB combined email and drive storage per user

At a glance, the two products look similar, don’t they? But let’s take a deeper dive into the key differences between the solutions.

 

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 was launched in 2011 to help “bring together” Microsoft’s existing productivity tools such as Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook into an “always up-to-date cloud service”. Recently,  Microsoft announced new licence changes, making Microsoft 365 the new Office 365, which now has over 200 million monthly active users world-wide.

Cloud storage

Migrating to Microsoft 365 takes your business into the cloud. And when moving into the cloud you want to ensure you have enough space to store all your businesses data. All Microsoft 365 business plans come with 1TB of OneDrive storage and 50GB of email storage per user, with the ability to buy more if needed.

Alongside their cloud storage, Microsoft offers hybrid solutions.

Applications

Microsoft 365 is an application powerhouse with some of the leading productivity tools to help your business achieve fearless growth.

Office applications:

• Word: Take your writing to the next level with the ability to collaborate with anyone from anywhere in real-time.
• Excel: Gain control of your data. You can view and edit a spreadsheet in real-time from any location, providing you with a better picture of your data.
• PowerPoint: Bring your A-game to your next presentation with PowerPoint. Have the ability to co-author with other presenters to present with confidence.
• SharePoint: Simply share and manage your organisation’s content in one place for seamless collaboration.
• OneDrive: Take your files with you. OneDrive allows you to save your files in the cloud so you can share and collaborate with employees from any device.

Communication tools:

• Outlook: Have a centralised application with a unified view of your email, calendar, contacts, and files. Keeping you more organised than ever before.
• Teams: Teams allows you to chat, meet, call, and collaborate in a centralised and secure system. On any device. No matter where you are. Find out how Teams compares to Google Hangouts.
• Yammer: Improve and enhance employee engagement on a professional social media platform. Start keeping your employees informed, aligned, and moving forward.

Security

Microsoft invests over $1 billion into their products’ security every year. Security is at the forefront of Microsoft’s mind, to ensure that your business is secure when using their products.

Some of the security features you can take advantage of are:

• Advanced Threat Protection (ATP): Guard your employees from any attack designed to compromise your business information. ATP will provide you with; attachment scanning, AI analysis to identify and remove threatening messages and automatic link scanning on any emails to ensure it’s not part of a phishing attack.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): DLP will automatically identify any sensitive information (for example credit card details, security numbers and passport number) to prevent sharing this information with anyone outside your organisation.
• Multi Factor Authentication (MFA): Enabling MFA requires employees to provide multiple forms of certification to prove their identity when signing into their account. MFA means your employees accounts are 9% less likely to be compromised.
• Microsoft 365 security centre: The security centre enables you to monitor and manage all identities, data, devices, apps and infrastructure all in one place.
• Intune: Manage your devices and applications with ease with an integrated endpoint management platform. With Intune you can automate deployment, provisioning, policy management, app delivery and updates.
• Secure Score: Microsoft’s Secure Score allows you to improve your businesses security posture through intelligent insights and guidance. Read our Beginners Guide to Microsoft’s Secure Score here.

Price

When creating the Microsoft 365 solutions, Microsoft created subscriptions that would be suitable for everyone. In this they considered the cost when creating pricing to ensure they were affordable. Meaning you’ll get more bang for your buck.

Plan	Cost per user per month
Microsoft 365 Business Basic	£3.80
Microsoft 365 Business Standard	£9.40
Microsoft 365 Business Premium	£15.10
Microsoft 365 F3	£7.50
Microsoft 365 E3	£28.10
Microsoft 365 E5	£48.10

 

Google Workspace

Google Workspace has now passed 2 billion users, but only 5 million of those are reaping the benefits of the paid platform.

Cloud storage

Googles cloud storage starts off much lower on their Starter plan at 30GB but dramatically jumps up to unlimited on the Enterprise plan – as does Microsoft 365 with their enterprise plans). So, it depends on the sort of storage your business needs.

Applications

The applications Google have included in Google Workspace are very similar to the ones Microsoft include in their subscriptions.

Connect

Google Workspace allows you to connect with other employees with ease. Within the solution you’ll have access to:

• Gmail: Gmail is a secure and smart inbox, allowing you to do more with your inbox.
• Calendar: Better manage your time and plan with the calendar function
• Google Hangouts: Google Hangouts is a platform that allows you to seamlessly video call and message with other employees. Find out how Google Hangouts compares to Microsoft Teams.
• Google Drive: Store all of your Google Docs, Sheets and Slides all in one place that allows you to easily share them with your wider team.

Create

Google Workspace prides itself on allowing businesses to create whatever you need to get the job done. You’ll have access to three key solutions to help you be productive:

• Docs: Google Docs is a cloud-native word processing application that allows you to collaborate with other employees in real time.
• Sheets: This is Googles version of Microsoft Excel and allows you to manage and organise all your data in an online spreadsheet.
• Slides: Google Slides enables you to create slide decks in the cloud.

Security

Security is at the heart of any decision when looking into new software. And Google have the basics in place across all pricing plans with two-step verification, Group-based policy controls, Advanced and Protection Programme and Endpoint management. All of this will provide you with the basic security features you need to start keeping your business secure – but many businesses want something more than that. And the higher Google Workspace plan you’re on, the more security features you’ll have access to – for example Vault and Data Loss Protection.

Price

Google has created four clear pricing plans to make it easy for businesses to select the one right for them. Whilst there is a clear difference between the plans the key difference is the amount of storage you have and the features you have access to.

Plans	Cost per user per month
Business Starter	£4.60
Business Standard	£9.20
Business Plus	£13.80
Enterprise	No standard pricing

 

What’s the right office solution for me?

For us there’s a clear winner. And that’s Microsoft 365 – thanks to its security capabilities and variety of plans to suite any business of any size.

Cloud storage: This is the bread and butter of a cloud productivity suite. You need to have enough storage in order for your data to be securely saved. Microsoft offers a generous amount of storage with the ability to add more if and when needed, but Google allows you to go that extra mile and will allow you to have unlimited storage if needed.

Security: No one gets security like Microsoft does. With their huge yearly investment into security, its safe to say they’re in the best position to keep you secure. Whilst Google has fantastic security tools available, some of which are very similar to the ones in Microsoft 365, Microsoft storms ahead with their comprehensive security solutions.

Price: Microsoft have created a variety of pricing plans to help suite every business. Whilst Google have created four strong pricing plans, Microsoft wins us over with their vast range of plans suited for everyone.

Office applications: In terms of features, applications and tools, there’s not much in it. From the surface they come with variations of the same tools, but within the tools the functionality is quite different. Did you know, if you’re using Google Workspace you need basic office applications, such as Excel and Word, in order to collaborate with third-parties – meaning you could be paying twice if you go for Google over Microsoft.

 

Get in touch

So do you want to find out more around what solution would be best for your business? Get in touch with our experts to find a plan that’s best suited for your business needs.

For the eighth year in a row, Cloud Direct has achieved G-Cloud status.

We’re excited to announce we’ve added nine new cloud solutions to our G-Cloud 12 offering, the UK government’s Digital Marketplace, plus our expert cloud consultancy and managed support services.

The Digital Marketplace is a government-regulated tool for public sector organisations and agencies to find specialist providers for technical digital projects. With almost a decade of experience as one of the earliest adopters of G-Cloud, our 21 technologies, consultancy and support services have been expertly designed to support organisations such as local government, health/education/emergency services, defence and not-for-profit organisations.

Here is the full list of cloud services available from Cloud Direct on G-Cloud 12, under our legal name On Direct Business Services Limited:

Technologies

Azure Migration Service
Azure Landing Zone & Platform Foundation Deployment
Azure CSP Transfer and Optimisation
Windows Virtual Desktop Deployment
Microsoft 365 & Office 365 Migration
Security and Compliance Kickstart
Teams Voice Migration
Skype for Business Upgrade
Teams in-a-Box Deployment
Backup for Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive
Citrix-on-Azure
Disaster Recovery as a Service via Azure Site Recovery
Managed Backup
Cloud Anti-virus

Consultancy

Azure Scale-Up Assessment
Cloud Migration Assessment

Support

Azure Managed Service and Support
Azure Sentinel Monitoring and Alerting Service
Microsoft 365 & Office 365 Managed Service
Desktop Support
Server Support

Brett Raynes, CEO of Cloud Direct, says:

“We work with several government organisations who enjoy the increased level of security and accreditation G-Cloud 12 awards us. Our business and the services we provide are all about enabling transformation and as we expect to grow, we plan to increase our customer base amongst public sector organisations. The stringent G-Cloud framework shows our continued commitment to providing first-class service and support to our clients.”

54% of IT professionals believe that remote working is a greater risk to their business. But it doesn’t have to be when you have the right solution in place.

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) allows you to quickly deploy applications and desktops to enable secure remote working. But it does so much more than that. Azure Virtual Desktop offers:

• Simplified management
• Multi-session Windows 10
• Optimisations for Microsoft 365 applications
• Enterprise support for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environments.

Deploying AVD is a key enabler to rolling out an effective remote working solution. Employees will have the ability to access any desktop and application from any device, in any location.  But there’s more to Azure Virtual Desktop than creating a remote working environment. Lets dive into three of the key benefits of deploying AVD.

 

1. Reduce costs

Virtual Desktops can slash expenses from the get-go with minimal costs if the server is already up and running. You can also forget about any expensive hardware that requires the specific software and licences. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s additional savings to be made later down the line too. You’ll be able to streamline any upgrades, reducing the time IT spend repeating the same upgrade across different devices. Plus, you’ll have the ability to use existing Windows and Microsoft 365 licences to access Azure Virtual Desktop.

With the money saved from WVD, your business will be able to reinvest to enhance business operations and your future IT strategy.

 

2. Advanced Security

Moving your company’s data into a Azure Virtual Desktop will remove the risk of having any hardware tampered with, lost, or stolen.

WVD is built on the same security as Microsoft Azure. So, you’ll be able to reap all the benefits of identity management, backup, database security and more. Not to forget that Microsoft invests over $1 billion in security every year, has over 3,500 security experts dedicated to enhancing your security and Azure has more compliance certifications than any over cloud service provider. Meaning you have access to the latest and greatest security tools available.

 

3. Flexibility & Productivity

Increasing business productivity is an overarching objective of most businesses. Which brings us onto our last benefit of using Azure Virtual Desktop. Increased productivity.

WVD allows your IT to become more agile when desktops are hosted virtually. Employees will have the ability to access windows and applications from any device, regardless of their location. Allowing you to create a flexible and modern workplace. Azure Virtual Desktop seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 and Teams to enhance your employees productivity within the Microsoft Ecosystem.

In recent years, over 80% of businesses rely on employees to use personal devices for at least one app – hence the rise in the BYOD policy. A flexible workplace is a productive workplace.

Plus, it’s an added disaster recovery protocol. If a disaster ever hits, employees will be able to maintain productivity levels with the flexible workplace you’ve created.

 

But the benefits don’t stop there.

The benefits of deploying Azure Virtual Desktop are endless. Deploying WVD provides you with the flexibility you need to help grow your business in the cloud. Are you ready to take the plunge? Get in contact with our experts to discover more about the power of Azure Virtual Desktop.

 

 

 

Azure holds plenty of opportunities for ISV’s but these don’t come easily – it takes expertise and hard work to make them a reality. This is where an Azure Expert MSP comes in. To help ISVs migrate and innovate applications in Azure, accelerating growth, with solutions that are designed to provide you with the tools, knowledge and experience you need to approach Azure with confidence.

Get closer to Microsoft

Exploit an Azure Expert MSP’s close relationship with Microsoft to gain access to the latest Azure resources and tooling, particularly the Azure Marketplace.

Match your expertise with proven credentials 

You’re the expert of your application, so work with infrastructure experts for the perfect match. Provide reassurance to end-users and your business stakeholders by having your infrastructure verified by a Microsoft accredited Azure Expert MSP.

Grow your customer base

Keep ahead of customer demand by shortening development cycles and take advantage of an MSPs expert Azure Dev Ops. Attract more customers by developing new products and entering new markets.

End-to-end process

Take advantage of services built for ISV’s around the 5 R’s of application modernisation with a proven process of workshop, assessment, application modernisation and migration.

Optimal performance

Optimise security, performance and cost by working with an expert partner who understands both infrastructure and applications.

Ongoing support

Managed support so you can concentrate on innovating your application and not worry about the infrastructure.

 

Ready to work with an Azure Expert?

So you like what you see. Get in contact with our experts to find out how we can support your ISV with Azure.

Matt Leach, one of our expert Azure Consultants, has penned this blog all about the growing IT trend for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and how your cloud environment could benefit from this open-source container-orchestration system.

But before we skip to the good the bit we need to jump back and explain a bit more about where Kubernetes came from and how it works.

First off, what is containerisation?

Containerisation in brief terms is a method of splitting up a machine into multiple layers which are all isolated. Containers allow for a portable approach for application development and offer increased flexibility. Whether it’s important for your business to be able to take your application to any cloud hosting provider, or maybe you would like to use different services such as Kubernetes, Docker, Azure Web App for Containers – containers offer this flexibility and portability. Lastly, containerisation provides a method of moving away from monolithic application architectures and allows you to move to a microservice-based application architecture, which in return, allows you to modernise your web applications.

Why should you use containerisation?

If you imagine your application as it currently stands, it is likely that you are hosting it on virtual machines. If you have 3 applications, you may be running it on 3 virtual machines. The same applies if you have a large application environment that may be running tens if not hundreds of applications. You will need a lot of virtual machines to host these applications. The downfall of hosting all these virtual machines is the fact that someone needs to patch and maintain all of these machines. If you are using Windows virtual machines, you will also need to license all these virtual machines.

This is where containers thrive. Whether you’re running Docker, Kubernetes, AKS as your container orchestration tool, you can run multiple containers on a cluster containing as little as one virtual machine. Of course, we recommend you think about high availability and performance when planning how many virtual machines you need, however, if you’re running hundreds of applications, you will definitely see the benefit of running them (if compatible) on containers as opposed to individual virtual machines.

Where does Kubernetes come into this?

Kubernetes is an open-source system to allow containerised applications to be deployed into a controlled environment – as all of us tech enthusiasts call a cluster. Kubernetes was originally developed and designed by Google, however, in 2015 it was released as an open-source project for the wider community to contribute towards. If you’ve heard of Docker before, it’s a very similar concept to that.

Welcome, Azure Kubernetes Service!

In 2018 Microsoft released AKS as a managed Kubernetes offering. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Cloud Direct welcomed AKS with open arms. AKS brought more simplicity to the product for customers. Allowing them to spend more time developing their applications – for greater business benefit – instead of having to manage various aspects of Kubernetes that could break at any time. At a high level the following components are required for a Kubernetes cluster:

• Kube-controller manager
• Cloud-controller manager
• Kube API server
• Etcd
• Kube-scheduler
• Kubernetes nodes (including kube-proxy and kubelet)

With AKS, Microsoft have assumed the day-to-day responsibilities of Kubernetes, removing a lot of the previous management pain, allowing customers to just look after the most important parts of their business. This leaves customers only needing to managing the following:

• Virtual nodes – These are virtual machines that run within your Kubernetes cluster to host the containers/pods.
• Containers/Pods – These run on the nodes within your cluster. These are running your applications that are containerised.
• Container Images – These are your applications that have been containerised to work within containers.

The burning question – How much does AKS cost?

The good news – AKS service itself is free! You are only required to pay for the virtual machines that your applications run on. With the flexibility AKS provides, you can take advantage of autoscaling. Maybe you only have applications that run for several months out of the year as opposed to all year round. Then you can scale your cluster down to zero virtual machines if required which means you don’t pay a penny. Alternatively, maybe you have an application that runs at high demand towards the end of the month, but then it’s quiet for the first 3 weeks of the month. Autoscaling will scale out your cluster to as many virtual machines as you need it too. You can of course configure this to ensure there is a limit, so you don’t get a nasty surprise when your bill comes through.

Let Microsoft handle demand for your application, so you can concentrate on the business benefits your application offers.

Why choose AKS rather than migrating as virtual machines?

You may be wondering why you would use AKS and containers rather than migrating virtual machines. There are cases where virtual machines would be a better fit, this of course depends on the application you’re looking to migrate or modernise. However, most of the time, web applications are a great start to look at containerising. The following benefits come with using containers as opposed to using virtual machines:

• Cost – Only pay for what you require. Maybe you have certain parts of the month where the demand for your application is higher – let Microsoft autoscaling do the work to ensure you are only using the resources that your application needs.
• Isolation – Applications running containers in AKS can be completely isolated from each other, unless of course you need them to communicate with each other.
• Flexibility – You can run your applications on Linux, Windows, or both!
• Less patching – With less virtual machines, comes less maintenance. Allow your engineers to be creative in other areas that will increase the benefits to your business.
• Zero downtime upgrades – Rolling upgrades to your applications happen seamlessly with no down time. When you upgrade your application image and push to a container registry, AKS will deploy your application next to your current application. When AKS decides your containers are healthy, it will softly shut down your old version of the container and users will use the newly patched application. No more rebooting virtual machines after upgrades!
• Support for Microservices – Microservices are a great candidate for containers and AKS. Run each one of your services in a different pod. This will allow you to patch each service at a time as opposed to taking down the whole application. If you need to connect to a database such as SQL, you can integrate AKS with Azure SQL PaaS services, or choose to run your database in your AKS cluster – the choice is yours.

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you to understand Kubernetes and containerisation a little more. Kubernetes is gaining traction rapidly and the customers we have helped to move, are already reaping the benefits that AKS offers.

Hear Matt talk more about Azure Kubernetes Service, application migration best-practice and the tools available to securely scale in Azure in our upcoming webinar on Thursday 6^th August – Azure Security: Applications & Data.

Can’t watch live? Not a problem. All registrants will receive a recording of the webinar.

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