EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

NARAN MCCLUNG , HEAD OF AZURE – MACQUARIE

CLOUD SERVICES

Also have some outcomes in mind with the various standards you might need to address upfront – whether they ’ re security or compliance related . If you ’ re not sure – CIS 1.3 or ISO 27001 are a good place to start for controls , and references like Microsoft ’ s Cloud Adoption framework will help with further context and methods .

At Macquarie Cloud Services , and when managing Azure services specifically , we start with the foundations like an expertly-designed landing zone . It ’ s also important to have a careful arrangement of services , with performance , security , operations , resilience and Disaster Recovery in mind , and to adhere to best practice .

If services are already live , we ’ ll hook up our ‘ Macquarie Lens ’ platform for a read-only and automated analysis of what ’ s in place today . Design can be a subjective exercise , so our Macquarie Lens insights will typically range from genuine risks as we find them suggestions for improvement .

A review of cost , compliance , governance and security will almost always help with

A review of cost , compliance , governance and security will almost always help with understanding and planning where to go next .

understanding and planning where to go next . This in turn reduces complexity .

Cost management and service optimization are super important , too , and popular of course . I haven ’ t met a customer yet that wasn ’ t motivated to pay Microsoft the least amount possible . In my experience , when customers feel as though they ’ re getting maximum value from their cloud platform , they ’ re much more likely to look to the same platform to solve future business problems – and this is a good thing !

The mere act of optimization gets you closer to your requirements and service architecture , and the discipline often evolves into transformational activities – like greater PaaS adoption or ‘ moving up the stack ’ as it ’ s known . This might sound difficult initially , however in our experience it ’ s well worth it . You ’ ll consolidate , tune and transform – and you ’ ll reduce complexity .

Lastly , don ’ t go it alone . Even if you ’ ve got excellent in-house skills , I suggest you seek an opinion from an experienced vendor in this space . I often shamelessly brag about adding more customers to Azure than any other partner nationally – and while I enjoy how this sounds , it ’ s the exposer to projects that ’ s of real benefit here . The sum total of our experience means we ’ ve likely solved the same or a similar problem before , and we love sharing what we ’ ve done and what we know .

Complexity shared is complexity reduced .

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