Workload migration services delivered by professional managed service providers, MSPs, with decades of migration experience such as datacentre and cloud migration programmes, offers your organization the best odds of success. Not only that, it provides a seamless migration experience that will be on time, on budget, and without disruption to users and customers.
Bell, with decades of migration experience, has the knowledge base and tenure you need to guaranty success. After all isn’t this what we are all looking for in a migration partner?
When considering whether to use a Managed Service Provider (MSP) for workload migration services, several factors should be considered to ensure the migration is efficient, secure, aligns with your business needs, and is a success.
Ensure any MSP you are considering has experience with the specific platforms and cloud environments you’re using or are considering migrating to (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc.), and perhaps even more importantly, has the experience necessary to offer solid recommendations for target environments based on your needs.
When validating the MSP’s experience with regards to the delivery of workload migration services look for case studies and customer references that demonstrate the MSP’s experience in workload migration across Hybrid Cloud Environments. Additionally, look to validate that the experience resulted in seamless, headache free, and successful workload migrations.
When choosing your workload migration service partner make sure you feel comfortable with their methodologies behind workload migration.
Assessment and Planning – The MSP should provide a comprehensive assessment of your current workloads and infrastructure. They should offer a clear, well-documented migration plan, including timelines, milestones, and risk management.
Migration Approaches – Different workloads require different migration methods (e.g., rehost, replatform, refactor, etc.). Ensure the MSP can evaluate and implement the best strategy for each workload.
Make sure your workload migration services provider has a strong background in security and compliance and that robust security practices are in place with regards to data security in the form of encryption, access control, and the implementation of proper security monitoring.
In addition to security, have any potential MSP detail how they handle regulatory compliance and the documentation thereof so you can meet any necessary requirements for GDPR, HIPPA, and SOC 2 during and after workload migration.
Bell Integration has a strong Cyber Security practice and a long tenured history of addressing regulatory compliance concerns for Blue-chip companies around the globe. With decades of migration experience spanning the world’s largest organisations across their most sensitive data and mission critical applications, you can rest assured your workload migration services will be secure and in compliance no matter the region of application.
Minimizing Downtime – The MSP should have strategies to minimize downtime during the migration to prevent disruptions to your business operations. Mitigating downtime during migration is a top priority.
Disaster Recovery – Ensure the provider can implement disaster recovery procedures and backup strategies during the migration process so you can recover quickly from unforeseen challenges.
Any workload migration service provider you consider engaging should provide a clear breakdown of migration costs including any additional fees you might face for post-migration services like cloud optimization and ongoing management if desired. Further, ensure that the MSP has the proper experience necessary to provide those post migration services, services such as optimizing cloud resource usage. Understanding exactly what the MSP offers its clients in this area is critical to ensuring that the environment is not only stood up, but will be optimized, efficient, and ready for client handoff if required.
“From the initial conversation, Bell Integration was looking to help us drive value. They leveraged their relationship with an alternative vendor, negotiating a deal that was over £500,000 lower than the incumbent supplier’s.”
James Richards, Procurement Manager, Balfour Beatty
Ongoing management needs to be considered. Will the MSP provide ongoing management and optimisation of your workloads after the migration, this includes monitoring, scaling, patching, and security management. Additionally, many organisations want to have the capability to manage the environment on their own, if need be, even if to simply bridge the facilitation of a transfer of services to a new vendor for a variety of reasons. Does the MSP offer this knowledge transfer with complete documentation so your organization can feel confident in maintaining it’s critical resources and business continuity.
When it comes to workload migration services from third-party MSP’s, making sure they understand your need goes beyond the services rendered for workload migration, and are considered critical to the overall solution. So often vendors lacking experience perform migration services without any, or with limited, future planning or customer specific assessments that would dictate unique decision taking. This one size fits all approach to workload migration services will certainly compromise the outcome.
At Bell Integration we painstakingly take steps to ensure all future growth needs are considered and that thorough customer specific assessments are undertaken to ensure there is no stone left unturned with regards to business needs.
“Bell Integration executed a fault-free migration to our new Azure and Microsoft 365 environments, with zero disruptions,” confirms Leon Howgill. “From Day One everything simply worked – there were no dramas or disruption – and our working environment literally evolved overnight.” – ARM
As of 2024, cloud adoption in the UK is growing rapidly across public and private sectors alike, driven by a combination of technological advancements and strategic government initiatives. The UK cloud market is expected to reach USD 55 billion by 2024, with projections to almost double by 2029. This growth is propelled by sectors like banking, financial services, insurance, and the UK's burgeoning FinTech industry, which are heavily investing in cloud technology to enhance agility and competitiveness.
What are the drivers influencing cloud adoption in the UK
Government Initiatives - The UK government has been actively promoting cloud services through programs like the G-Cloud framework which simplifies the procurement of cloud solutions and services for public organisations. This has promoted and encouraged accelerated cloud adoption across public services, especially those in healthcare and defense.
Hybrid Multi-Cloud Environments Adoption - Many UK organisations are embracing hybrid multi-cloud strategies to increase flexibility, reduce costs and avoid cloud vendor lock-in. This approach to the cloud is becoming more popular as businesses see value in leveraging multiple cloud providers and environments for optimal performance and cost management.
Sustainability and AI – In the UK, a significant focus on sustainability within organisations has emerged, with over 90% of UK organisations preferring cloud investments that align with their environmental and sustainability goals. Additionally, AI is driving cloud adoption exponentially, with many businesses recognising that these technologies require cloud infrastructure to deliver their full potential.
This however does come with challenges that cloud and workload migration services from professional MSP’s can overcome.
Despite the UK’s growth in cloud adoption, challenges remain, such as concerns over vendor dominance (AWS and Microsoft Azure control a large share of the market) and the complexities involved in cloud migration. Issues like egress fees also known as data or bandwidth fees, interoperability, and skills shortages are barriers for some businesses. UK organisations can lean on tenured workload and cloud migration specialists to remedy these concerns and move swiftly through their transformations.
Overall, the UK's cloud landscape is evolving quickly, with increasing investments and a clear shift towards multi-cloud environments, but there are still hurdles to overcome, particularly in terms of competition and skills.
“Bell Integration shares our sustainable computing services vision, so it made perfect sense to ask them to design an end-to-end eco-sensitive process for our laptop refresh rollout. Alongside minimising unnecessary logistics journeys, it was critical that the end-of-life process for our legacy laptops focused on maximising opportunities to reclaim, recover and recycle machine parts and materials wherever possible.”
Jon Ozanne, CIO, Balfour Beatty
Verification of cloud provider relationships are critical when engaging 3rd party workload migration services. Check whether the MSP has standing partnerships with major cloud vendors like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, as this can offer better pricing, support, and access to resources, as well as provide for best of breed services in the form of hybrid cloud environments to meet both cost and business goals
Sometimes overlooked is the cultural and strategic fit between a vendor and the client. Although not imperative, it certainly reduces friction and provides common values and shared processes from which to build successful collaborative programmes. Everything from communication styles to decision making processes to responsiveness can help productivity thrive and keep miscommunications to a minimum.
Look for providers that effectively work with internal teams in a collaborative process for seamless integration of disparate work teams and flows.
MSPs should offer clear SLAs that outline their commitments to uptime, performance, and issue resolution times during the workload migration process.
Using an MSP for workload migration services requires careful evaluation of their technical expertise, migration strategy, security measures, cost structure, post-migration support, and overall compatibility with your business needs. For decades Bell has been providing critical migration programs for DC relocation, cloud adoption, application and data migration, desktop transformation, and more to the world’s largest organisations and doing so on time, on budget, and with successful outcomes. If you are considering a workload migration and are uncertain of where to start, call or email us today for your free workload migration service consultation
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