Infrastructure
Cloud migration and DevOps
Quick answer
Moving to the cloud is mostly a planning problem wearing a technical costume. We map what you have, decide what is worth moving as-is and what should be rebuilt, run the cutover out of hours, then look after what we built.
What the work covers
- Assessment. An inventory of what you are running, what depends on what, and what it currently costs. This is where most surprises surface, and it is cheaper to find them here than mid-migration.
- Migration plan. Which systems lift and shift, which get re-platformed, which should be retired. A rollback plan for each, because the question is not whether something will go wrong but what you do when it does.
- Execution. Cutover scheduled around your business, usually overnight or at a weekend, with a tested way back.
- Managed operations. Monitoring, alerting, backups that are actually restored and tested, and patching. Infrastructure as code so the setup is reproducible rather than living in one person's head.
- Cost control. Right-sizing after the move, when you can see real usage instead of guessing. Cloud bills usually fall meaningfully at this stage.
AWS, Azure or Google Cloud
We work across all three and have no incentive to push one. The choice usually comes down to what your team already knows, what your existing licensing makes cheaper, and where the specific services you need are strongest. If you are heavily invested in Microsoft licensing, Azure is often the pragmatic answer whatever the benchmarks say.
Data residency and UK GDPR
Where your data physically sits matters, both legally and for procurement. We set region constraints explicitly rather than accepting defaults, document where everything lives, and make sure the answer is in writing for when a client or auditor asks. For healthcare, care and financial services this is usually a gating question.
Honest limits
Not everything should move. Systems with heavy, steady, predictable load are sometimes cheaper to run on dedicated hardware, and a migration that raises your monthly bill without improving anything is a bad trade. If that is what the assessment shows, we will say so before you have spent anything on the move itself.
Common questions
How much downtime will a cloud migration cause?
For most small and mid-sized systems, a planned cutover of a few hours overnight or at a weekend, with a tested rollback if it does not go cleanly. Some migrations can be done with effectively no downtime by running both environments in parallel and switching traffic gradually, though that costs more. The plan states which approach applies to each system before work begins.
Will moving to the cloud reduce our costs?
Often, but not always, and anyone who promises it will is guessing. Cloud usually wins where load varies, where you would otherwise buy hardware for peak demand, or where you are paying for a server room. It often loses where load is heavy, steady and predictable. The assessment gives you a real comparison against what you pay now.
Which cloud provider should we choose?
Usually whichever your team already understands, unless there is a specific service that only one provider does well. Existing Microsoft licensing often makes Azure cheaper in practice. We have no reseller relationship with any of them, so the recommendation is based on your situation rather than our margin.