INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Blue Turtle automates and
optimises move to Microsoft
SA Data Centre
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W
ith the official launch of the
Microsoft Data Centres in
South Africa, Blue Turtle has
announced a suite of services that enables a
customer’s journey to the cloud.
Blue Turtle will deliver Azure Migration
Services that encompass discovery,
assessment, migration, optimisation,
operation and security. The services leverage
technologies, which analyse a customer’s
existing environment, optimise system
utilisation prior to migration, create the
target Azure specification, assess Azure costs
and provide for automated migration.
“This really is the moment that South African
businesses have been waiting for,” said
Avash Maharaj, Head of Infrastructure and
Operations at Blue Turtle.
“Those cloud migration plans that have been
on the backburner due to data sovereignty,
network costs and security concerns are now
a thing of the past.
Maharaj, while the roll out to the cloud can
be done timeously, preparing for the process,
understanding the costs and securing the
budget are the key building blocks to a
successful project. He has urged customers
not to take short cuts that in the long run will
result in a poor return on investment.
While the company uses industry recognised
frameworks, it is one of few partners in the
region that is able to also provide migration,
cost control, service monitoring and security
capabilities. Furthermore, Blue Turtle is the
African partner for Turbonomic, software
that has been earmarked by Microsoft
itself as a preferred solution to assist with
workload automation for a hybrid cloud
environment, and helps customers to
optimise performance, compliance, and cost
in real-time.
As an example, using Turbonomic, Cloud
Services International, a global consulting
and technology services company, was
able to expand its Azure footprint and
automatically deliver the application
performance and policy compliance the
business needed – while at the same time
reducing cloud spend by 20%.
“Our approach to customers who are looking
to migrate workloads into the Microsoft Data
Centres is to ensure they get the planning
and assessments right, once this is in place
we will architect the most appropriate plan
for their migration – ensuring that the move
is seamless,” added Maharaj.
“In 2018, research giant IDC estimated
that cloud services in South Africa would
generate nearly 112,000 new jobs in the
country by 2022 and that spending on
public cloud services will nearly triple over
the next five years, up from R4.29 billion in
2017 to R11.53 billion in 2022. These figures
are huge – but again we caution customers
to ensure they map their cloud strategies
properly before they take the leap.” n
“The challenge for customers is to determine
what can be moved, migrate systems
quickly and efficiently, manage the quality
of service while avoiding cost overrun, both
in the migration and then for on-going
cloud use. Through our solutions, services
and Microsoft partnership, we are uniquely
positioned to be able to provide customers
with a fool proof mechanism by which to
evaluate cloud opportunities and exploit
Azure in a controlled, speedy and cost-
effective way.”
Blue Turtle is currently assisting many
enterprise customers with assessments that
will help them understand their environment,
and plan and migrate in a controlled
manner, allowing them to embrace the
Microsoft Cloud offerings. According to
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