Speed up your time to market with our Azure Accelerator Packs
At BlakYaks, we’ve spent over a decade building Azure hosting platforms, during which time we’ve witnessed significant changes in:
The Azure platform and its extensive range of services
The ecosystem of adjacent and complementary technologies
API architectural features and the automation landscape
Our customers' Azure consumption habits and preferences
Given our extensive experience in this domain, it’s safe to say we’ve learnt a lot along the way. We've honed our skills by learning from both successes and mistakes, continuously improving our processes and approaches.
What we've learnt: Key factors for cloud success
Our experience has shown that customers benefit most from the cloud when they get three critical aspects right:
1 - Broad adoption of cloud native services
Leveraging Azure’s native capabilities to their fullest potential is key to unlocking the cloud's benefits.
2 - Rich automation methods
Embracing automation for both deployment and ongoing management significantly enhances efficiency and reduces errors.
3 - Solid platform foundations
Establishing strong foundations is essential, as they underpin every service, workload, and application deployed on the platform.
Over the years, we’ve partnered closely with our customers to design and deploy cloud solutions tailored for long-term success, particularly for those where scale, cost, and risk management are critical. As organisations grow, so does the complexity of aligning various stakeholders—whether from cybersecurity, development, or cloud infrastructure teams. This consultation process, while necessary, can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
Interestingly, in many cases, the designs we finalise are about 90% aligned with what we initially anticipated. While specific customer requirements and third-party technology investments may influence the final design, the core elements often remain consistent.
Introducing our Azure Accelerator Packs
In late 2022, we recognised an opportunity to streamline the process further by creating our Azure Accelerator Packs. These are designed to deliver the same high-quality outcomes, but in a fraction of the time.
In 2023, we soft-launched three Azure Accelerator Packs, which have already seen great success:
devops & iaC
Accelerator Pack
This service rapidly embeds mature DevOps practices and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) into customers' Azure deployments, covering design, methods, tooling, processes, and integrations.
Enterprise Azure Landing Zone Accelerator Pack
This service rapidly deploys an enterprise-scale Azure Landing Zone (ALZ) entirely using code, seamlessly integrating it into an existing IaC-DevOps solution.
Azure Enterprise Container Platform Accelerator Pack
This service delivers a production-ready, enterprise-level container platform, ensuring that businesses can host their services efficiently and securely.
Why customers choose our Accelerator Packs
Throughout 2023, we’ve engaged with customers and prospects to explain the logic behind these packaged offers. Many see the value in adopting our Accelerator Packs, as they provide a fast track to achieving high-quality platform outcomes. While the delivery still involves workshops, consultations, and handovers, the process is significantly accelerated compared to starting from scratch.
Our Accelerator Packs offer a comprehensive solution with the following key features:
Code-based Deployment and Management: Everything is built and managed with code, ensuring consistency and ease of updates.
Security by Design: Security is baked into every aspect of the design, meeting stringent enterprise standards.
Governance and Observability: Well-defined governance structures and robust observability tools are integrated from the start.
Modular and Flexible: The codebase is modular, allowing easy swaps of components (e.g., Azure services, security tooling, build tooling).
CI/CD Integration: Seamlessly integrates into mature DevOps CI/CD pipelines.
Cost Optimisation: Lower cost outcomes and longer-term operating costs.
Operational Framework: A full operational framework is embedded, ensuring smooth day-to-day management.
High-Quality Documentation: Detailed platform design outputs are provided in PDF format.
Resilience and Scalability: The platforms are designed to be resilient, highly available, and easily scalable.
Disaster Recovery: Sets the standards for rapid build with code, leading to low-cost recovery processes.
Monitoring and Alerting: Comprehensive monitoring included and alerting configured to customer-specific organisational, team, ITSM needs.
Comprehensive IaC Codebase: The complete IaC codebase is transferred to the customer, ensuring full transparency and control.
Compliance and Standards: The solutions are compliant with strong standards, conventions, and policy management features.
Benchmark Testing: Solutions are tested against agreed benchmarks where applicable (e.g., CIS).
Looking Ahead
As we continue to build trust with our growing customer base through 2024, we’re seeing a stronger shift towards adopting our Azure Accelerator Packs. These packs not only accelerate the deployment of new solutions but also enhance existing ones.
As always, we remain committed to applying the lessons learnt from each implementation, continuously improving the experience and outcomes for the customers who trust us with their Azure cloud foundations and platforms.