For years, moving workloads from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud was the main topic of cloud conversations, and service providers competed on how quickly and cheaply they could lift and shift your data. As a result, many companies went all-in on cloud, moving too much data and too many applications there. Without real-time visibility into their cloud spending or effective cost optimization strategies, they end up spending wastefully. Meanwhile, teams are stuck firefighting instead of moving the organization forward.

To optimize your environment, you need to instead start with the right strategic foundation.

This should include:

• Cloud Strategy and Envisioning Workshops, to align IT and organizational stakeholders by clarifying what they really need from the cloud. These workshops ensure that objectives such as cost control, robust security, compliance, and AI readiness will be built into the plan from the start.
• The Azure Well-architected Framework Review is a cornerstone of this strategic foundation. This is a standard review that evaluates your architecture against five critical pillars — security, cost, reliability, performance efficiency, and operational excellence — so that stakeholders can be confident that their architecture will deliver value over time.
• A Cloud Economic and TCO Analysis translates the cloud strategy into numbers. By comparing current costs to projections, IT leaders can make value-driven decisions and demonstrate ROI to the organization.

By setting up secure, scalable, and well-governed Azure environments before migrating workloads, you ensure that core platform services and strong governance are in place before you begin to move data to Azure. This is what an Azure Landing Zone enables. It’s a pre-built environment that facilitates smoother and more efficient modernization by providing a controlled and structured pathway to Azure.

Most organizations aren’t moving everything to the public cloud, and many are considering repatriation of some workloads to optimize costs and performance. A recent IDC survey found that 80% of IT leaders are planning to move some of their compute and storage back on-premises within the next year. With Azure Local, organizations can enjoy consistent management and governance across the public cloud (Azure) and their on-premises environment, whether that’s in the data center or at the edge, so that everything works together in a single, seamless and secure operational environment.

Leveraging automation in complex migration projects is essential because it enables speed and precision, so the organization can be confident that critical apps will keep running, and operations won’t be disrupted. When you take advantage of Azure Migrate tools and use a phased migration approach, your workloads can be moved into Azure with minimal disruption. This is particularly valuable in high-stakes projects, such as migrating core applications to Azure or executing a data center consolidation or full exit strategy.

This may well be the most critical phase of the cloud adoption journey, and it’s one that migration-focused stakeholders tend to overlook. During this phase, your partner should work with you to ensure that the architecture truly aligns with your organization’s needs.

Applications might be modernized to take advantage of cloud-native agility and efficiencies. Workloads might be redistributed between the public cloud, private cloud, and edge environments, especially as the organization begins to implement FinOps practices and cost monitoring to ensure that every dollar spent is driving value. Idle resources can be decommissioned, overprovisioned workloads right-sized, and hybrid strategies recalibrated to balance costs and performance.

AI readiness should also be a key consideration when optimizing the environment. AI workloads consume enormous amounts of storage and compute, and because of this, require distinctive networking and security strategies. Microsoft Fabric and similar tools are critical for ensuring workloads and applications are optimized for AI by providing global access to AI services, pre-built models, and advanced analytics and intelligence solutions. Tools are also available to guide adopters through the entire AI lifecycle, from ideation (identifying use cases) through model testing and prototyping, to deploying AI at scale.

With hundreds of thousands of Microsoft partners worldwide, it can be hard to figure out which one is the best match for your organization. You need someone who can serve as a true extension of your team, filling in any gaps, up to and including 24x7 managed services.

Look for a partner who offers a comprehensive array of services. Proactive monitoring of the environment, for instance, reduces security risk and the need for firefighting. Managed detection and incident response services support cyber resilience, while compliance reporting helps you stay audit-ready.

You also need someone with true expertise, which is demonstrated through partner certifications. Connection is certified as a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP, a distinction held by fewer than 1% of Microsoft partners worldwide. In addition, Connection is one of the few firms globally to have achieved the Microsoft Solutions Partner designation in all six solution areas, along with the advanced Solutions Partner for the Microsoft Cloud specialization.

Connection’s approach is relationship-driven, with a strong focus on customer satisfaction demonstrated by high NPS scores and loyalty.

Your relationship with Connection will improve your organization’s productivity by reducing the burden of managing your IT and cloud environment. With deep visibility into your cloud spending, you’ll have greater financial control. Well-architected, secure design will ensure the reliability of your infrastructure. Connection can deliver AI readiness to accelerate innovation and help you prepare for changing demands on IT and help you drive agility.