Overcoming key barriers in cloud native adoption

Despite Microsoft Azure being a mainstream cloud platform for over a decade, many businesses are still in the process of migrating their applications, workloads, and services to Azure.

This gradual pace may seem surprising, but there are several valid reasons why enterprises have taken their time. Key factors include:

Legacy investments: Many large enterprises have made substantial investments in their data centre infrastructures. These organisations often needed to fully realise the return on these assets before considering a cloud transition.
Platform maturity: Businesses have waited for Microsoft Azure and its supporting ecosystem to mature enough to host critical business services at scale.
Internal strategic conflicts: There are often conflicting viewpoints within organisations about strategic approaches, such as the debate between cloud versus data centre and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) versus serverless models.
Maximising cloud benefits: Companies have recognised that the full benefits of cloud can only be realised with a well-structured approach that includes strong automation and an extended use of serverless technologies.
Hybrid environments: Many organisations have had to adapt to managing large, hybrid technology estates that span both cloud and on-premises environments.
Operational adjustments: Significant changes to operational models have been necessary, affecting both processes and the teams responsible for them.
Early movers and revisits: Some organisations moved to the cloud very early and, having arguably missed the optimal transition period, are now revisiting their strategies and deployments to leverage a more mature cloud ecosystem.
Technology lifecycle timing: Many businesses have waited for natural points in their technology lifecycle, such as the expiration of data centre contracts or the evolution of on-premises applications, to justify a significant shift towards a cloud native posture.

Navigating the dichotomy in customer environments

Within enterprise environments, there is often tension between adopting cloud native Platform as a Service (PaaS) and serverless technologies versus sticking with more familiar Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or virtual machine (VM) approaches. The latter requires fewer immediate adjustments. However, experience over the last decade has demonstrated that embracing cloud native solutions—such as serverless, containers, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC)—often results in a lower-cost, more feature-rich platform.

While some services, processes, and applications may not naturally lend themselves to the latest cloud native technologies and might be better suited to a 'lift-and-shift' approach initially, it is advisable for businesses to begin their journey to cloud native as soon as possible. This allows some services to be transitioned immediately, while others may require a more gradual migration aligned with their natural software evolution cycles.

Many enterprises face deadlines for data centre contract renewals, prompting an initial lift-and-shift of VMs to the cloud, followed by phased upgrades to cloud native technologies over several months or years.

Building confidence in cloud with the right foundations

At BlakYaks, we specialise in cloud platform engineering, focusing on the foundational elements that pave the way to a cloud native future. We work closely with application, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure teams to drive the adoption of robust cloud native, DevOps, and automation standards.

Our expertise includes helping application teams transition to Azure-native PaaS and container services, often as part of broader cloud migration and modernisation programmes.

To facilitate our customers' transition to the cloud, we have developed three foundational cloud native Azure Accelerator Packs:

These Accelerator Packs provide customers with confidence in the quality of their Azure deployment and hosting environments.

Establishing an enterprise-grade Azure landing zone integrated with mature DevOps processes, tools, and automation methods is crucial for large enterprises to succeed in their cloud native journey.

Our Enterprise Container Platform (ECP) Accelerator Pack, for example, focuses on delivering a secure, scalable, reliable, performant, and observable containerised application hosting environment using best-of-breed cloud native technologies and automation standards.

Each of the three Accelerator Packs comes with a production-ready design, a robust codebase, seamless integrations, and comprehensive documentation. Moreover, an expert team from BlakYaks is assigned to implement these solutions swiftly before handing them over to the customer’s operations team or BlakYaks’ dedicated operations team (BlakYaks SpecOps). This approach enables customers to achieve their cloud platform objectives in a matter of weeks, rather than months or years.

By adopting all three packs, customers can quickly establish a highly automated setup, a resilient Azure environment capable of hosting diverse workloads, and a container platform designed to manage the most critical and demanding business services. Customers have the flexibility to choose any combination of the packs to suit their specific requirements.

CUSTOMER STORY

Read how our Customer achieved 35% increase in application deployment efficiency with our Azure Accelerator Packs.

When to modernise, migrate or containerise?

In addition to the BlakYaks Azure Accelerator Packs that provide strong foundations for cloud native, serverless, and DevOps in an Azure enterprise context, BlakYaks also works closely with customers to support their migration to Azure. This might involve building or enhancing existing Azure platform deployments to meet enterprise-grade standards. We also work extensively with customers to support their application transition and modernisation efforts.

Once solid Azure foundations are established, we help customers identify which applications and business services can and should be modernised immediately, while also earmarking those where a 'lift-and-shift' to cloud IaaS is more appropriate. Regardless of whether services are deployed as IaaS or PaaS, we ensure they are implemented in a highly automated manner and integrated into mature DevOps and DevSecOps pipelines.

This process typically begins with a detailed assessment of the application and business service landscape to make informed decisions about the appropriate "treatment strategy" for each application or service. To further support this effort, BlakYaks has recently established a strategic relationship with Altra, leveraging their Dr Migrate tool to plan and execute seamless transitions to Azure.

If you’d like to discover how our Accelerator Packs or MIgration services can benefit your business, let’s chat.