Who this is for
This service is for organisations that want to move existing systems to the cloud, build new applications on it, or get better control of a cloud set-up they already have. Common starting points include servers reaching end of life, applications that struggle at busy times, deployments that depend on manual steps, cloud bills nobody can explain, and backups that have never been tested.
It is also for teams that are not sure the cloud is right for a particular workload. Sometimes the honest answer is that a system should stay where it is, and we will say so.
How we approach a project
- Assess. We inventory applications, data, dependencies, current costs and constraints such as compliance or data residency. We talk to the people who run and use the systems, because spreadsheets miss things.
- Plan. For each workload we recommend an approach, a target architecture and an order of work. We estimate both the one-off effort and the ongoing running cost.
- Build the foundation. Accounts, identity, networking, logging, budgets and baseline security policies are set up first, as code. Everything else sits on this.
- Migrate or build in waves. We start with a lower-risk workload to prove the approach, then move on. Each wave has a test plan, a cut-over plan and a rollback plan.
- Operate and improve. After go-live we watch performance, errors and spend, tune what needs it and hand over operations to your team or continue under a support arrangement.
Decisions we help you make
Lift-and-shift, re-platform or re-architect
- Lift-and-shift (rehost) moves an application largely unchanged onto cloud virtual machines. It is the quickest route out of a data centre but captures little of the cloud’s benefit, and costs can be higher than expected if servers are not right-sized.
- Re-platform makes targeted changes, such as moving a self-managed database to a managed database service, without rewriting the application. This often gives a good balance of effort and benefit.
- Re-architect redesigns the application to use cloud-native services. It costs most up front and makes sense when the application is central to your business and needs to scale or change frequently.
Different workloads in the same organisation often deserve different answers.
Managed services or self-managed
Managed databases, queues, container platforms and serverless functions shift patching and much of the operational work to the provider. In return you accept less control and some dependence on that provider. We weigh this against your team’s skills and capacity, because a self-managed system nobody has time to maintain is a risk.
Which provider, and how many
The major public cloud providers each publish well-architected guidance built around similar concerns. The AWS Well-Architected Framework has six pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimisation and sustainability. The Azure Well-Architected Framework uses five: reliability, security, cost optimisation, operational excellence and performance efficiency. We use these as review checklists whichever provider you choose. Using several providers can make sense for specific reasons, but it adds complexity, so we only recommend it when the benefit is clear.
Cost control
We tag resources by application and environment, set budgets with alerts, schedule non-production environments to shut down when unused, right-size after watching real usage and consider commitment-based discounts only once usage is predictable. Cost is reviewed regularly, not just at launch.
Backups and disaster recovery
We start with two questions: how long can each system be unavailable, and how much recent data can you afford to lose? The answers set the backup frequency, where copies are kept and whether a standby environment is needed. A backup is only trusted once a restore has been tested, so restores are part of the plan.
Infrastructure as code
Defining infrastructure in code means environments can be reviewed like application code, recreated after a failure and kept consistent between test and production. Teams commonly choose between provider-specific tools and cross-provider tools. We choose based on whether you are likely to stay on one provider and what your team can maintain.
Security and quality built in
- Shared responsibility. Cloud providers describe security as shared. AWS, for example, explains in its shared responsibility model that the provider protects the infrastructure underneath its services, while the customer is responsible for what they put in the cloud, such as guest operating systems, data, encryption choices and access permissions. We make sure your side of that line is clearly owned.
- Access. Single sign-on where possible, multi-factor authentication, least-privilege roles, no long-lived shared keys, and separate accounts or projects for production and non-production.
- Data protection. Encryption in transit and at rest, secrets held in a managed secrets service, and logs that record who changed what. If you process personal data of people in India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is relevant. It extends to processing outside India when it relates to offering goods or services to people in India, and it requires reasonable security safeguards to prevent personal data breaches. Its provisions are being brought into force in phases under a 13 November 2025 notification. We factor data location and safeguards into the design and work with your legal advisers on specific obligations.
- Change control. Infrastructure changes go through code review and pipelines, not ad-hoc console edits, so there is a record and an undo path.
- Observability. Metrics, logs and alerts focused on what users experience, routed to people who can act on them.
What we need from you to start
- A list of the systems in scope, or access to someone who knows them well.
- Current hosting details, recent bills and any known pain points.
- Your constraints: compliance requirements, data residency, maintenance windows and acceptable downtime.
- A decision-maker for architecture and cost trade-offs.
- Cloud accounts in your organisation’s name, or agreement to create them, with access roles granted to us for the duration of the work.
- Contacts for any third parties involved, such as software vendors or your current hosting provider.
If you do not have all of this yet, the assessment is where we gather it together. Contact us to discuss your cloud plans.