Shaping Cloud are proud to announce our continued partnership with Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT) as we help support and guide them through their exciting migration to the cloud with Microsoft Azure.

Initially seeking to appoint a Partner to support the Trust’s development of a transformative strategy in early 2021, Shaping Cloud were engaged to undertake assessments of their on-premises datacentres (DC) and infrastructure and provide a comparison of cloud providers (AWS and Microsoft Azure) to help determine their best future state architecture and services.

Following discussions with the Trust, accompanied by our cloud engineers and technology experts, Shaping Cloud determined a Future State and Roadmap that ensures continued capability and functionality in alignment with the organisation, whilst further enabling and addressing important emerging drivers for change.

The strategy proposed, and subsequent assessment concluded with a decision-ready NHS Business Case that set out Microsoft Azure as the platform of choice, with the Azure VMWare Solution (AVS) selected for swift benefit.

As a result, Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT) made the executive decision to accelerate the implementation of the design with Microsoft and Shaping Cloud – a Microsoft Gold Partner with over 10 years of experience migrating to the hyper-scale cloud.

The proposed project sets out an Enterprise-scale Azure Landing Zone, ExpressRoute and AVS foundation, making use of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) within Azure DevOps and incorporating production-ready designs according to the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and NHS standards.

The Proposed Project and Solution

Shaping Cloud will be working closely with Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust to design, configure and deploy an Enterprise Scale Landing Zone that suits their context and requirements – including Azure Network Design, Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) Foundations Workshops, Azure Landing Zone and AVS Design and implementation.

Azure Network Design

Shaping Cloud will provide an Enterprise-scale hub and spoke network design for their Microsoft Azure tenancy with ExpressRoute and AVS connectivity. Shaping Cloud will conduct workshops to inform the design and support knowledge transfer to Calderdale and Huddersfield while liaising with the selected ExpressRoute circuit provider, Redcentric.

Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) Foundations Workshops

Throughout our Partnership, Shaping Cloud will also be conducting a series of workshops with Calderdale and Huddersfield to establish a design for the governance and security of Azure, including the following areas:

• Central Monitoring
• Cost Management
• Management Groups
• Subscriptions
• Policies and Identity

These workshops will enable further knowledge transfer to Calderdale and Huddersfield to understand these areas of control and enable them to start using these within the tenancy.

Azure Landing Zone and Azure VMware Solution (AVS) Design

During the design stages, we will provide the design for an enterprise-scale Landing Zone that meets the requirements of CHFT production and non-production workloads as per CHFT’s Cloud Strategy, taking into consideration the use of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and Azure VMware Solution (AVS).

We shall also provide the configuration of infrastructure as code (IaC) deployment scripts according to the agreed design, and deploy these into the CHFT Azure tenancy to establish a landing zone that is ready for production and non-production workloads.

Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust can expect good documentation throughout our Partnership, along with informed governance decisions, and knowledge handover. This will further allow the preparation of the CHFT stakeholders and staff for the migration and will promote understanding of the benefits of using Azure as a default for their needs going forward.

Shaping Cloud: Azure Landing Zone services

Our Azure Landing Zone services enable organisations to start their cloud migration journey with a well-designed foundation.

Our specialist team guides and supports you through each part of the journey, complimenting your capability and ensuring good knowledge transfer.

In alignment with the ‘Ready’ methodology of Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), Shaping Cloud guide, support, and provide technical expertise, whilst enhancing and upskilling our clients – encouraging our clients’ transformative journey and preparing them for their independence to take full control of their cloud environment and infrastructure when they wish to do so.

Our Azure landing zone services are designed to assess, plan, and set up your organisation’s landing zone. We will design the best solution based on your organisational needs and align it to Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework and your industry’s standards.

As part of our services, we also offer complementary services to ensure your organisation is Azure and CAF ready. This includes the following:

• Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) Quick Start A set of workshops with your key technical and governance stakeholders to establish a baseline approach and policies including Governance, Security, Identity, Cost Management, and Central Monitoring.
• Cloud Readiness Assessment We assess your current enterprise applications to determine their readiness for cloud and to identify remediations and preparations required ahead of migration.
• Cloud Migration Roadmap We set out a pragmatic and achievable roadmap of workload migrations, considering your constraints, opportunities, and priorities.

Ready to make the move? Find out more information on Shaping Cloud’s Azure Landing Zone Rapid Start solution on Microsoft Azure Marketplace including our latest offers, or contact us today at hello@shapingcloud.com and schedule a one-to-one meeting.