University’s IT continuously optimises after transforming workloads to Azure with Ntirety

To continue providing leading programs and support for its students and staff, a major university knew it had to undergo a digital transformation. But making the transition threatened to open doors to downtime and other IT risks, requiring greater expertise than what the higher ed organisation had in-house to execute smoothly.

Challenge

The university’s traditional colocation provider was not providing visibility to understand the rising issues

Offering both traditional and online class options with large television and digital marketing programmes, evolving their IT stack was already beginning to expose IT performance and availability issues, before adding in the extra strain of a digital transformation.

The university’s traditional colocation provider was not providing visibility into the IT environment to understand the rising issues, in addition to lacking effective monitoring or management.

Microsoft Azure, GLA

With its history of excellence in managed IT services, Ntirety was selected to perform the university’s transformation to Microsoft Azure, plus an added commitment to provide continuous support and improvements beyond the move through the managed service provider industry’s first Guidance Level Agreement (GLA).

Ntirety’s GLAs deliver actionable recommendations for improvement in four key areas—availability, performance, security, and cost, all of which the university needed help in.

Solution

Ntirety’s plans included a full analysis of existing code and infrastructure design

Ntirety designed the project plan in tandem with the university’s internal team, meeting daily to work through all the details and preparation for transformation and improvement.

Aiming to avoid downtime and optimise the environment both during and after the move to Azure, Ntirety’s plans included a full analysis of existing code and infrastructure design. Ntirety provided comprehensive solutions for the higher ed organisation, including:

• Completion of a successful, non-disruptive cloud transformation to Azure.
• Managed Cloud Services customized for the university’s applications and IT needs.
• Implementation of new security measures to meet new IT environment standards.
• Continued professional database services throughout migration and beyond.

Optimising investment 

Beyond the digital transformation, the university was guaranteed continuous improvement through the Ntirety’s GLA, taking the higher ed organization a level up from their previous IT service provider’s traditional SLA.

Ntirety’s GLA includes monthly reports and actionable recommendations for further optimistation of the university’s Azure investment. “The migration went very well and shows that we are fully operational with no outages," says the University Director of Web Development.

Digital transformation and further optimisation

Achieving a smooth transformation to Azure, the university was relieved of many of the operational risks and costs associated with managing a legacy colocation provider.

In conjunction with the benefits of modern infrastructure, the ongoing work between the university and Ntirety continued to bring further optimisation in the four key areas of the GLA—availability, performance, security, and cost:

• Availability: As a proactive measure, the university expanded its managed IT to include disaster recovery services to protect the availability of their systems for their students, staff, and the time of their internal teams in case of emergencies.
• Performance: Although Azure provides some reporting, Ntirety’s GLA takes the deeper dive and broader analysis to help the higher ed organization make decisions and take actions if needed.
• Security: After suffering from ineffective monitoring and management from their legacy colocation provider, Ntirety’s GLA delivered a new level of proactive security and visibility.
• Cost: Since making the move to Azure, Ntirety continuously helps optimise the university’s Azure spend for their specific business outcomes in this dynamic IT environment.

The digital transformation did not end with migration but continued with Ntirety’s trusted Managed Cloud solutions and GLAs providing lasting support and optimisation for the university’s internal IT teams and letting them focus on continuously delivering academic excellence.