As of March 2022, not only is the cost of living at an all-time high at 5.9%, but energy prices are too, having increased by 54% a year. Inflation is at the highest rate since 1992 at 6.2%. This is expected to increase further to 7.4% later this year, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expecting inflation to remain elevated until 2023 peaking at around 8.4%. 

What does this mean for organisations across the UK? 

According to the NHS ERIC (Estates Return Information Collections (ERIC)) Report, within the 2020/21 financial year, energy consumption across NHS buildings had accounted for £652.7 million of their spending. Since then, wholesale gas prices have increased by a staggering 250% and electricity by 184%.  

Organisations must become proactive in their approach and strategy to reduce these costs and prepare for the subsequent impacts these savings could have on their services. 

According to Gartner’s Senior Director Analyst, Derek Stubbs, organisations should have multiple (extreme worse case) scenario plans in place to get ahead of the turn: ‘…looking ahead is the behaviour of winning companies, not just focusing in on where they find themselves today.’ 

This includes preparing for a greatly anticipated recession, which could be on the horizon. 

Where should we start? 

We understand that the biggest concern for CIOs today is price fluctuation. Businesses seek stability and consistency, which we believe will start with price certainty. 

It is now more important than ever for the SMBs and enterprises, within both the private and public sector, to look at their portfolios and infrastructures and untangle them. 

This will not only provide a visualisation of where money is going and how the organisation currently operates, but it also provides an opportunity to ask hard questions and identify what generates true value and aligns with organisational goals. 

What is the solution? 

Exit your data centres and make the innovative move to the cloud – and we are not saying that just because we’re cloud technology advocates.   

On-premise data centres consume more energy than the cloud for the same compute power, with 40% energy spent on heating or cooling, and ventilation and humidity management. This is inefficient, expensive, and damaging to the environment. 

Moving to the cloud means benefitting from providers’ multi-billion-dollar investments in efficient, economic, and environmentally responsible computing. 

But don’t take our word for it: Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study to examine the ROI organisations may realise by shifting from on-premises operations to Azure’s IaaS offering.  

The purpose of this study was to give readers a framework to evaluate the potential benefit of leveraging Azure IaaS for their organisations.  

What the study revealed

1. Organisations that migrated from on-premises DCs to Azure IaaS averaged a Net Profit Value (NPV) of $10.8 million and an ROI of 478%. 
2. Organisations avoided on-premises infrastructure costs of 90%, which were valued at a saving of $7.3 million. Servers were previously deployed on-site or hosted with a partner. Migrating servers that were previously deployed onsite or hosted with a partner to Azure reduced the cost for servers, databases, operating systems, and data centre space.
   
   
3. By migrating to Azure IaaS, FTEs who had previously supported data centre infrastructure were reallocated. Allowing organisations to avoid on-premises FTE costs of $3.0 million. 

By moving to Azure IaaS, organisations can see exactly how they operate, where money is being spent, the resources most utilised; as well as where money and resources are being wasted. Azure supports ongoing infrastructure optimisation and is a foundation stone for digital transformation. 

By prioritising cloud migration, organisations can reduce cost, optimise infrastructure, and achieve sustainability goals. 

The time is now for organisations across both the public and private sectors, to conduct a lift and shift migration from their on-premises, co-hosted data centres, and virtual machines (VMs) to cloud: Microsoft Azure IaaS. 

Why Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)?  

IaaS is the fastest and most economical way to migrate applications and workloads to the cloud. IaaS alleviates organisations of the large costs that accompany configuring and managing physical DCs. This, plus the pay-as-you-go subscription model(s), helps reduce both costs and maintenance overheads. 

What are the benefits of migrating to cloud? 

Organisations make the move from the use of on-premise and legacy systems to save money. But it doesn’t stop there. Organisations that migrate to cloud can completely redesign their infrastructure to effectively meet their unique needs and requirements. 

By embracing the cloud, organisations can not only remove excess server capacity but present themselves with the opportunity to work towards achieving their carbon neutral agendas and sustainability goals.  

More specifically, this can be achieved through the utilisation of cloud service provider (CSP) Microsoft Azure, which has previously affirmed its commitment to sustainability. At present, Azure has committed its focus to four key areas of environmental impact: carbon, water, waste, and ecosystems, with ongoing plans to reduce and remove their carbon footprint, shifting to a 100% supply of renewable energy by 2025.  

In fact, by migrating your infrastructures from on-premises to cloud, you can reduce your energy consumption significantly. Specifically speaking, migration to cloud can reduce carbon emissions by 59 million tonnes per year. 

When compared to on-premises data centres (DC), cloud delivers 93% energy efficiency and 98% lower carbon emissions. A past report funded by Google supports this further, indicating that by transitioning to cloud, energy use can be cut by 87%.  

How do we get there?  

You can start with either Shaping Cloud’s Azure Landing Zone 5-day Rapid Start or Shaping Cloud’s Migration from on-premise to Azure.

By opting for our 5-day Rapid Start, your organisation can quickly deploy your infrastructure to begin migrating, building, and optimising your data and resources in Azure. This service is designed to rapidly establish a solid foundation. We design the best solution based on your organisational needs and ensure it is fully aligned with Microsoft’s best practices.

By opting for our Migration from on-premise to Azure, you can focus on migrating a single application, server, database or infrastructure to Microsoft Azure and begin your journey to save money and become more sustainable. We understand that sometimes it’s hard to know where to start, so we can help you look at what applications, infrastructure and servers you want to migrate to Azure.

Whether your organisation is operating a complex enterprise scale portfolio, consisting of vast platforms & workloads, or is simply seeking to deploy their first application, our Azure Migration service can be tailored to you.

If you’re still not sure where to start or what solution is best for you, we can provide a Cloud Strategy. Here, we can assess your cloud needs, develop a business case and build a roadmap. 

Why choose Shaping Cloud? 

With our expert technologists, you can expect the latest tools including automation and DevOps to build out a Landing Zone in Azure that aligns with your needs now and into the future.  

We take pride in working with your teams to help understand your business drivers and ensure knowledge is transferred. This allows you to continue to build on what has been initially implemented independently with confidence.  

Whether your organisation is operating a complex enterprise-scale portfolio, consisting of vast platforms and workloads; or simply is seeking to deploy its first application, the Azure Landing Zone can be tailored to you. 

By choosing Shaping Cloud, you can expect us to work in partnership with you. You can expect to be involved in all key decisions around the configuration of the Landing Zone, ensuring that your governance and decision-making processes are satisfied. 

Get in touch at hello@shapingcloud.com, or book a call today.