Overcoming Business Challenges with Azure

COVID-19: overcoming
business challenges with
Microsoft Azure
WHITEPAPER

Optimizing resources, cutting costs, upgrading your infrastructure: these things are routinely found
on an organization's to-do list, but more often than not, they get pushed back in favor of more
pressing, business as usual issues.
But what we're experiencing right now is not business as usual.
Current events have drastically altered the way we operate, how we deliver our products and
services, and the day-to-day lives of our workforce. The global pandemic has forced the hand of
many businesses and transformed those "nice to do" future tasks into immediate necessities.
Whether due to a sudden uptick in remote working, increased use of digital services, or the
need to take certain processes online, many businesses have found themselves needing to
upscale their cloud footprint, and quickly.
In these uncertain times, ensuring that you have the right infrastructure and tools,
you're keeping costs down where necessary, and that your increasingly digitized
operations are secure, is vitally important. The cloud is an invaluable resource;
whether you're just getting started or you're looking to broaden your cloud service
portfolio, we've pulled together some expert advice to help your business make the
most of the cloud.
We hope that you'll find this resource useful—if there is any way we can help
you, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
James Lloyd-Townshend
Chairman and CEO, Nigel Frank International
INTRODUCTION
Maximize your bottom line with Azure
Overcoming business challenges with Microsoft Azure 2

Meet our experts 4
SECTION 01 Cost-saving 7
Eight tools to help optimize Azure spending 8
Ask the experts 14
SECTION 02 Data security 16
Tips, tricks, and best practices for Azure security 17
Ask the experts 21
SECTION 03 Remote working 24
Cloud project management for virtual teams 25
How to make the most of remote working 29
Ask the experts 32
SECTION 04 Growing at scale 34
How businesses can achieve more by thinking of servers less 35
Ask the experts 40
SECTION 05 Business continuity 41
Ask the experts 42
Here to support your business 47
Get in touch 47
Useful links 48
Table of
contents
This whitepaper is an independent publication and is neither
affiliated with, nor authorized, sponsored, or approved by,
Microsoft. Nigel Frank International is a third-party recruitment
firm and not affiliated with Microsoft.
©2020 Frank Recruitment Group. All rights reserved. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Meet our experts
Thomas Maurer
Thomas Maurer is a Senior Cloud
Advocate at Microsoft. He engages with
the community and customers around
the world to share his knowledge and
collect feedback to improve the Azure
cloud platform.
Prior to joining the Azure engineering
team (Cloud + AI), Thomas was a Lead
Architect and Microsoft MVP, and helped
to architect, implement, and promote
Microsoft cloud technology.
Gregor Suttie
Gregor Suttie is an Azure MVP and Head
of Development Services for Sword IT in
the UK, with over 20 years’ experience,
largely as a developer but now in a
management role.
Currently focusing on Azure and DevOps,
Gregor is super keen to learn new skills
and spends a lot of time keeping up to
date and playing with new technology.
Gregor also helps run the Glasgow Azure
User Group, and organized Glasgow’s
Global Azure Bootcamp in April 2019.
Online links:
Richard Reukema
Richard Reukema is a solutions architect
specializing in distributed application
architecture, cloud resources, and service-
oriented architecture.
Since 1985, Richard has been focused
on creating and using software that
creates value and explores how best
to use technology to resolve business
issues. Richard has provided his skills and
consulting services to businesses of all
sizes in a variety of roles such as Solutions
Architect, VP of Product Management,
Technical Team Lead, Technical Architect,
Developer (C#), Database Administrator,
and Instructor.
Online links:
Online links:

Meet our experts
Charbel Nemnom
Charbel Nemnom is a Cloud Architect, ICT
Security Expert, and Microsoft MVP.
An accomplished hands-on technical
professional with over 17 years of IT
infrastructure experience, Charbel has
extensive practical knowledge of complex
systems builds, network design, business
continuity, and cloud security.
Jaap Brasser
Jaap Brasser is a Developer Advocate at
Rubrik, and has a passion for scripting
and cloud automation.
A Microsoft Azure MVP and an active
member of several technical communities,
Jaap speaks at and organizes PowerShell
Conferences around the globe, as well
as many other DevOps, Cloud, and API
conferences and technical meetups.
Derek Schauland
Derek Schauland is a 10-time Microsoft
MVP and works daily with Azure and
Google Cloud Platform technologies.
In addition to his day job, Derek has been
writing technical articles and books for
the last 15 years and has held many roles
within the technology industry.
When he’s not working with technology,
Derek enjoys learning and spending time
with friends and family—including his wife
and two dachshunds.
Online links: Online links: Online links:

Meet our experts
Richard Hooper
Richard Hooper, aka Pixel Robots, is a
Systems Architect with over a decade
of experience working with Microsoft
technologies. His primary focus is on
Azure, with a passion for Hyper-V, Failover
Cluster Manager, SQL, SCCM, VMM, DPM,
and much more.
Pete Gallagher
Pete Gallagher is a freelance IT
Consultant, Microsoft Azure MVP, and
owner of PJG Creations Ltd. He has been
creating software for decades and has
been involved in a wide span of tech
projects specializing in IoT.
Pete also organizes Notts IoT, co-
organizes Dot Net Notts, Notts Dev
Workshop, and sits on the Board of
LATi, a Loughborough based Advanced
Technology networking group.
Ragnar Heil
Ragnar Heil is EMEA Channel Account
Manager at Quest and a Microsoft MVP for
Office Apps + Services. Before joining Quest,
he worked at Microsoft in several roles,
including SharePoint Senior Consultant,
Office 365 Customer Success Manager, and
Partner Channel Lead for Office 365 E5.
An accomplished technical author, Ragnar
has published several books and articles
about Systems Thinking, Social Intranets,
and Digital Business. He is also a founding
member of Working Out Loud Community
in Germany and is passionate about new
ways of working and improving business
collaboration and productivity.
Online links:
Online links: Online links:

The cloud is often hailed for its cost-saving potential, and rightly so. It can eliminate
hardware expenditure and associated overheads, slash spending on wasted
resources, and cut down outlay on staffing since the vendor handles much of the
updates and maintenance.
At a time when many businesses are having to cut costs due to the turbulent and
unpredictable economic situation, the flexibility and pay-for-what-you-use pricing
model of cloud services can be a lifeline. But that's not to say you should take your
eye off the ball and expect the savings to mount up.
Like any other commodity, you need to optimize your use of cloud resources and be
savvy with your spending if you want to see a real difference to your bottom line.
SECTION 01
Cost saving
In this section, Azure MVP Gregor Suttie shares tips on
how to keep track of cloud spending and maximize your
return on investment.
“The most crucial area in which to
be cautious in today’s environment
is remote work technologies. Leaders
should actually devote more attention
to contracts around data security,
cloud storage and VPN, spending
more if necessary to make sure these
systems are robust.”
Sam Berndt
Director, Research at Gartner

Eight tools to help optimize Azure spending
Let’s start by saying that no one ever wants
to get a bill that’s way higher than you
anticipated, and Azure billing is no exception.
The good news is that Azure Cost
Management offers several tools that users
can wield to help with things like setting a
budget, keeping an eye on spend—whether
that’s daily, weekly, or monthly—and setting
up notifications and alerts should spending
start to creep over budgeted levels. Visibility of
your spend when using the cloud is of utmost
importance—it’s easy to spin up infrastructure
or create virtual machines, but if you’re not
keeping a close eye on spending, costs can
spiral quickly.
Part of effective cost management is tackling
the issue of users creating lots of Azure
resources using other means, but let’s stay
focused on Azure Cost Management for now.
The very best part of Azure Cost
Management is that it’s completely free;
there are no hidden costs at all, and by
using these tools, you’ll actually save money
by uncovering overspend and unnecessary
expenses.
By using these tools, you’ll
actually save money by
uncovering overspend and
unnecessary expenses.

1 Azure Price Calculator
Whether you’re implementing Azure for the first time, or adding additional services to your cloud portfolio, it’s
always a good idea to cost things up before implementing them. Maybe you’re looking to employ real-time
analytics, take advantage of containers in your app development, or create a data warehouse—whatever your
cloud plans are, Azure Price Calculator lets you estimate the costs of Azure services so you can compare them
with other products or map out your budget.
With Azure Price Calculator, you find the service or resource you’re interested in, choose the details and settings,
and the calculator will give you a breakdown costs for the service depending upon a number of factors.
The calculator allows us to get a pricing estimate for
the products we want to utilize within our solution,
giving us an up-front estimate of what our potential
Azure package might cost before we start the project.
Azure Migrate
As a side note, if you’re currently on-premises and
want to move this into Azure, take a look at Azure
Migrate. Azure Migrate is a service that assesses
your organization’s current workloads in on-premises
datacenters. The tool provides insight into what you
might need from an Azure replacement solution. First,
Azure Migrate analyzes your on-premises machines
to determine whether migration is feasible. Then,
it recommends VM sizing in Azure to maximize
performance. Finally, it creates a cost estimate for an
Azure-based solution.

2 Azure Cost Analysis
Azure Cost Management’s Cost Analysis tool helps you break down the details of your Azure spend—with this tool, you can take a more in-depth
look into exactly what everything costs and do all kinds of grouping and filtering across your resources.
This is the tool to use if you want to see what a service is currently costing you, or if you’re trying to figure out why your bill is higher than you
anticipated. Remember, visibility of your Azure spend is very important and should always be something to keep top of mind.
From the Cost Analysis dashboard, you can use filters to view spend based on:
• Scope (Management Groups, Subscription or Resource Group)
• Time (Day, Week, Month, Year, Last Quarter and many more)
• Granularity (None, Accumulated, Daily, Monthly)
• Group By (Resource Group, Resource Type, Tags and many more)
You can also choose to view Cost by Resource,
which will display a graph of the most
expensive resources so you can quickly see
what is costing the most, or create your own
custom filter to give you more control over the
information you see. Results can be exported
to CSV or Excel, and you can even set up a
schedule to export reports at set intervals.
I’ve personally used the Cost Analysis tool
to look into customer spending and see
where the bulk of their Azure expenditure
is happening. Along with Azure Advisor cost
recommendations (which we’ll come to later),
the Cost Analysis tool can help you or your
customers cut down costs within Azure.

3 Azure Advisor Recommendations
Azure Advisor is a tool that analyzes Azure configurations and usage telemetry to
provide practical, tailored recommendations on how to better optimize resources
and maximize value for money.
Available to designated Azure users, it’s built right into the Azure Portal and
integrated with Azure AD and role-based access control, meaning administrators
have control over who can view and apply the recommendations.
Recommendations are refreshed every time you start up Azure Advisor, offering
tons of useful advice and tips on things that may need your attention, such as:
4 Azure Budgets
Most organizations have a budget, and within Azure
Cost Management you can create an Azure Budget
that spans your Azure subscription(s). This allows you
to set up notifications when your Azure spend hits a
certain percentage of your budget.
Azure Budgets allow you to stay on track and warn
you if you’re about to overspend for any given time
period. This tool enables you to set your budget,
oversee your spending, and check how you’re doing
against your targets.
When creating a new budget within your Azure
Subscription, you need to:
give it a name
set an amount
choose a duration period (month, quarter, year, etc.)
select a start and expiration date
The next step is to set up alerts. During this step, you
can opt to create an alert when you reach a certain
percentage of your budget for the duration period you
chose, and input the email addresses you’d like the
notifications to be sent to when the alert is triggered.
For the purpose of this article, the one we’re most interested in is cost. When we click
on cost, we‘re given a list of recommendations (assuming there are any at this time),
and the Azure Advisor is smart enough to suggest ways in which we can cut costs.
For example, you might receive a recommendation about Azure Virtual Machines.
When you click on one of the rows, you’ll be shown more details about the
recommendation and either action it, postpone it, or dismiss it altogether. Just
from using Azure Advisor, we can see potential ways to save money when it comes
to running our Azure services.
Your organization can cut costs based on your usage patterns, save money by
implementing sizing suggestions, adjusting reservation purchases, or utilizing
Azure Hybrid Use Benefit to maximize savings—all from using Azure Advisor
recommendations.
Availability Security Performance Cost

5 Azure Cost Alerts
With Azure, there are three types of cost alerts:
• Budget alerts
• Credit alerts
• Department spending quota alerts
Budget alerts
Budget alerts notify you when spending, whether based on either
resource consumption or overall cost, reaches or exceeds a defined
amount. You can create Azure Cost Management budgets using the
Azure Portal or Azure Consumption APIs.
Budget alerts are generated automatically whenever the budget alert
conditions are met. You can view all cost alerts in the Azure Portal—
whenever an alert is generated, it’s shown in Cost Alerts, and an alert
email is sent to specified recipients.
Credit alerts
Credit alerts notify you when your Azure credit monetary commitments
are consumed. Monetary commitments are for organizations with
Enterprise Agreements, and credit alerts are generated automatically
when you reach 90% and 100% of your Azure credit balance.
Department spending quota alerts
Department spending quota alerts notify you when department
spending reaches a fixed threshold. Spending quotas are configured
in the Azure Enterprise Agreement Portal, and whenever a threshold is
met— for example, 50% or 75% of the quota—an email is sent out to
department owners and a notification displayed in cost alerts.
Source: Microsoft, 2020

6 Exports
The export tool within Azure Cost
Management gives you the ability to
export Azure spending reports to a
storage account in a CSV format.
Using this tool, you can perform:
• Daily exports of billing-period-to-
date costs
• Weekly exports of costs for the
last seven days
• Custom reports like:
Time range—week-to-date, month-
to-date or billing-period-to-date
Schedule—daily, weekly or monthly
You can use this data in external
systems and combine it with your
own data to maximize your cost
management capabilities. Learn more
about creating and exporting Azure
reports here.
7 API Reference
Azure Cost Management has several APIs available, giving you programmatic access to cost and
usage data for your Azure resources. At the time of writing, the Azure Consumption APIs are
available in the following languages:
• Azure Consumption Python SDK • Azure Consumption CLI
• Azure Consumption .NET SDK • Azure Consumption NodeJS SDK
• Azure Consumption Ruby SDK
An example of one API call would be to list the
details of BillingAccountUsageDetailsList, which
would take the form of a GET request. Here
{scope} would be in the form of, say, the Azure
subscriptionID, which would return JSON like:
Here, we get back details of some very useful
information, including usage dates (start
and end) and the usage Quantity as the
billableQuantity.
Read more about the Azure Consumption APIs.
8 Azure Cost Management updates
Azure Cost Management is regularly updated; keep an eye on their Twitter account as it’s regularly
updated with great articles and useful tips on getting the most out of the tool.

How can businesses cut their costs right now?
Charbel Nemnom For industries that are struggling, I highly recommend looking at the cloud services
that Microsoft is offering right now. For example, enterprises that are affected by COVID-19 can get
Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) E1 free for six months. I would also recommend leveraging cloud
services with autoscale where they can, so that they pay only for what they need.
Richard Hooper So, if you are already running Azure, I would look at the Azure advisor. This free tool
will tell you where you can save money in Azure. This includes right-sizing VMs and reserved instances.
Reserved instances are a way for you to make a commitment to Microsoft of a VM for 1 or 3 years. Before,
this was a big upfront cost, but now it can be done pay as you go.
If you want to migrate to Azure, make sure you use the amazing
Azure migrate tool. This will help you pick the right VM size in
Azure—as I am sure most of you know when running VMs on-
premises we always over-spec the RAM and CPU, and in Azure,
that’s what costs money.
Thomas Maurer There are many ways to optimize your
spending on Microsoft Azure. In fact, I wrote a blog post about
this covering most scenarios. I think it’s hard to go out now and
save money from the IT budget since IT needs to become a
strong business enabler. However, I think businesses should free
up resources and invest them in tasks that help the company.
“The amazing Azure migrate tool
will help you pick the right VM size
in Azure—when running VMs on-
premises we always over-spec the
RAM and CPU, and in Azure, that’s
what costs money.”
Ask the
experts

How can businesses who have been hit hard use Microsoft Azure to cut down spending?
Charbel Nemnom Businesses that start using Microsoft Azure can save money immediately: firstly because they don’t need to keep
maintaining on-premises infrastructure, and secondly because they don’t need to keep people around to look after hardware, not to
mention savings on power, cooling, and other related outlays.
Ragnar Heil My main recommendation is to keep business running and think about growing it differently while offices, factories,
restaurants, and shops are locked down. First of all, it’s about considering migrating legacy on-premises servers to Azure and Microsoft
365. Otherwise, users can’t access their data.
After that, it’s about offering advanced digital services. It’s not enough for a restaurant to share a scan of a menu on Facebook and
expect that guests are picking up their food. It’s about creating new shopping experiences on mobile apps, including payment, delivery,
and tracking. All these aspects in the delivery chain can be realized on Azure. It has never been easier to open an online business.
Gregor Suttie Cost-cutting starts with being sensible: what outgoings can you cut back on and still stay relevant? Expenses for staff travel will
obviously be affected; I would say that only the key workers should be traveling if they have to, but we're still seeing people traveling into work
that aren't key workers.
Jaap Brasser I think this is very dependent on the type of industry and the expenses that a company has. Something that applies to all industries
is to limit investments in any activities that depend on people gathering in place for the coming months. There's a lot of uncertainty here;
investing in company trips, in-person workshops, or offline events should be avoided.

As we continue to grow our digital footprint, taking more of our processes, our data, and
our people online, safeguarding our cloud environment has never been more important.
Though social distancing and working from home helps flatten the curve when it comes
to COVID-19, the enormous spike in remote working we’re seeing across the world can
have an adverse effect on the health of our tech systems. As we increase our usage of
cloud-based tools, we also make ourselves more vulnerable to bad actors that might look
to take advantage of this growing surface area.
Many industries may be suffering the effects of the global pandemic, but cybercrime is
not one of them. We’ve already seen opportunistic cybercriminals seeking to exploit the
increased usage of cloud systems and the anxiety of the global population around the virus.
Not only that, but our heightened dependency on cloud infrastructure means that the
stakes are even higher when it comes to keeping your digital operations performing as
they should. That’s why it’s critical that businesses redouble their cybersecurity efforts to
protect themselves and their employees from malicious online activity.
SECTION 02
Data security
In this section, ten-time Microsoft MVP Derek Schauland
shares his quick and dirty tips on how to make the most of
Azure’s security features and safeguard your data in the cloud.
“Global losses from cybercrime
already reach into the trillions each
year and those losses could be all
the more devastating for individual
businesses given the economic
uncertainty brought by COVID-19.
As more individuals are compelled
to work remotely, it will take a
determined focus by all parts of an
organization to maintain proper
controls on sensitive information and
finances.”
World Economic Forum

Azure Security Center
Microsoft has done a lot of work in the security space to help make all of its products more secure, but one of the favorite security features I’ve
seen recently (since its preview release over the past year or so) is Security Center.
This service is baked into the Azure platform—the basic tier of the service is free and begins collecting data about your Azure environment
as soon as you start it up (all Azure subscriptions can collect information in the free tier).
The power of Security Center, in my mind, comes from two areas: the Security Advisor, which will provide recommendations for correcting
things found in your Azure environment; and an upgrade to the standard tier of Security Center, which allows you to configure agents on any
virtual machines you have running, both in Azure and elsewhere, and collect data about the security posture of your environment as a whole.
When you access Recommendations from Security Center, a list based on mitigation priority will be displayed to help you understand what’s
needed and, in many cases, offer a fix at the click of a button.
Tips, tricks, and best practices for Azure security
The cloud is an amazing place and is by no means getting smaller.
The key players—Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud—are making big
strides very quickly to bring new and exciting things to customers
the world over. Then there are the not so big players, trying to keep
up with the major cloud providers all while finding some way to
remain innovative.
All in all, it’s a very interesting time to work in IT.
With all of these players and all of this technology, we, the
consumer, must spend time considering what security might look
like today, and what we want it to look like in the next few months.

Resource Cost Additional Info
Virtual Machines $14.60/Server/Month 500Mb data collection
App Services $14.60/App Service/Month
SQL Database $14.60/Server/Month
MySQL* $7.30/Server/Month
PostGres* $7.30/Server/Month
Storage $0.04/10,000 Transactions
Pricing for the standard tier:
*preview pricing for these resources – subject to change when the service goes GA
There are additional charges for data storage over the included 500Mb daily limits
as well, and more info can be found on the Azure Security Center Pricing page.

This is more a policy or practice than a feature of Azure—sure it
supports the use of Multi-Factor Authentication, but there may be
users who have read-only privileges to a subset of resources that may
not require MFA to be enabled all the time.
For any admin accounts, requiring MFA is definitely a security practice
worth implementing. Consider for a moment the following:
You are the administrator at AwesomeStuff, a company that makes
awesome stuff and uses Azure for the majority of its IT services. As the
administrator, you can configure settings in Microsoft 365, create and
destroy virtual machines, and use pretty much any service you need to
(within reason and budget). While you’re on vacation with your family,
your administrator account for Azure has been used to log in and
create three or four huge virtual machines, and costs are spiraling out
of control.
When you return to the office, you see these new machines and their
costs. Asking around, no one knows what they are used for and is under
the assumption that since they were created using your account, they
must be needed for something. Further investigation into the logs
shows that when these machines were created, the sign-in came from
IP address that traced back to a European country; not your office in
the US, not your home office, and not anywhere near the lake house
you rented for vacation.
Without enabling MFA on your admin accounts, they can be used
from anywhere. In the event that they are compromised, the person
who has gained access to your account is able to create resources for
any purpose they choose, and even steal both money and intellectual
property from your organization.
Had MFA been enabled on the account in the above example, the
owner of the account would have been prompted to respond when
the login occurred. Since you were on vacation (and definitely not
creating virtual machines or other resources in Azure), you could
immediately recognize the log in as suspicious, denied the second-
factor authentication, and taken five minutes to change your
password. This simple configuration might have prevented the
account compromise.
Enforcing Multi-Factor Authentication for administrator accounts

Security in Azure Storage
We’ve looked at general and login security, but what about data storage?
You need somewhere to keep the data you’ll be working with, and that data
might be the next big thing, so security isn’t something that only applies to
processing resources.
Shared Access Signatures help keep information safe and accessible, without
having to use the Administrative credentials. Using Shared Access Signatures,
it’s possible to control access to data stored in Azure storage accounts, and
easily ensure access expires when it’s no longer needed.
Here’s another example:
I’m an admin storing documents in Azure Storage, and I need to share a
document with a vendor, but only for a limited period of time. Using Shared
Access Signature allows delegation of access to the data with expiration built
in. When I create an access signature, a URL is created and can be shared with
whoever needs access. Each storage type—blob, table, and files—is configured
for the shared access signature independently, but more than one type can be
assigned to each URL.
With this configuration, I can create an access endpoint that allows me to share
both blob and files for as much time as necessary, allowing a few days for the
data to be collected. Then, the URL expires, and the data becomes inaccessible.
While this may not seem like a security feature, it can certainly help keep your
stored data both secure and available to others when needed. In addition,
there is no requirement for a third-party service to share files, so any data
storage and sharing is only being done within your Azure environment.
Keep your environment and data safe
in the cloud
Cloud Security, like all of the other resources available
in Azure, is something that should be looked upon as a
first-class citizen. Taking your environment, and possibly
your customers, for granted is not something that’s
easy to bounce back from. Using the available resources
in Azure and the Microsoft Documentation will help you
better understand how to keep things safe in the fast-
paced, constantly evolving world of the cloud.
The Azure cloud is not a “set it and forget it”
environment, and the care and feeding needed are
different in some ways from the practices used on-
premises. Many of these will translate well, but you will
need to continually review the services, features, and
use cases for many of the resources you leverage in
Azure.
The product team behind Microsoft Azure is moving
just as fast (or faster) as their customer organizations
in some areas, so the way security works today may
not be the way security works tomorrow. Spend some
time reading the documentation and reviewing courses
through Microsoft Learn to help you stay on top of
what’s new and exciting in Azure.

With all employees working remotely, and some of them using personal, unsecured devices,
what advice can you give on reducing the risk of a data breach and security in general?
Gregor Suttie I would say store the files in the cloud; try not to store anything work-related on your own personal
PC, and use something like OneDrive.
Jaap Brasser Good security is a combination of education and using technology to achieve this goal. Having a form
of device management to ensure basic things such as updated software, security functionality of the platform, and
disk encryption already goes a long way.
Having Multi-Factor Authentication is a big boost to security, and helps to ensure that the user that authenticates is
the person they say they are. Informing employees about the dangers of phishing and educating them on how to
limit their risk of getting phished is very valuable too.
Charbel Nemnom As more users are working remotely and need to access resources, businesses need to ensure
that Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled to enhance their identity protection. MFA is super important;
it’s the number one security recommendation. Some users might also need remote access to servers on Azure
infrastructure via RDP or SSH. Instead of allowing full 24/7 access to those servers, organizations should use Just-In-
Time (JIT) access to those servers. A VPN must also be used.
If a business is already hosting some of their workloads on Azure, I highly recommend enabling Azure Security
Center and reviewing and remediate any vulnerabilities to make sure their security score is high.
Pete Gallagher If possible, arrange for any staff to have time with the IT team to help them over any technical
issues they may have. Drafting easy to understand documentation for staff to follow would be great, including any
video tutorials, if possible. Likewise, providing time for remote staff to have access to advice when they need it is
very important. Staff members shouldn’t feel as though they are on their own trying to work through problems, as
this will likely lead to issues. Providing all of these resources will benefit the company long after the lockdown has
ended as it will provide staff with the ongoing means to work remotely well into the future.
Ask the
experts

Do you foresee any specific industries that are at security risk from working from home, and what tech can mitigate this?
Pete Gallagher Industries, companies, or teams that work in sectors that deal with highly sensitive information are going to need to be
very careful in how staff work remotely. This will doubtless affect those in the banking, health, and schooling sectors, where highly personal
information is at risk.
Making sure that staff have the facility to VPN into their work network and access sensitive data directly, rather than needing to take this
home, is a key factor. If sensitive data does need to be off-premises, having a good security strategy is very important; this includes making
sure that drives are encrypted, passwords are strong, and two-factor authentication is enabled where possible.
Likewise, if staff are using their own technology, it’s important that
staff understand the risks of things like social media.
Ragnar Heil Holistic modern workplace systems like Microsoft 365
don’t only include collaboration and communication tools; they also
offer identity management and modern authentication approaches
like “Windows Hello” for passwordless logins, just using webcams and
your eyes. That’s helpful in case your children know your PC PIN.
In case a smartphone is lost or stolen, all data can be wiped away.
The Security and Compliance Center is notifying admins automatically
when suspicious behaviour appears—this user should be in their
home office now. They logged in from San Francisco and two hours
later in Sydney? That seems to be a hacker! It’s all about discovering
security threats earlier, fixing it faster, and hardening the systems with
machine learning capabilities.
“All industries are at security risk
from working from home. The
coronavirus is already impacting
cybersecurity. I’ve seen two main
trends: attacks that aim to steal
remote user credentials and
weaponized email attacks.”

My number one recommendation is to store all of your business critical
and confidential data in compliant and secure cloud systems. If a thief
enters your house and grabs all digital business devices like PCs, Macs,
phones, and tablets, then they are going to be disappointed as they
won’t be able to open the files even though they’re now in charge of the
hard disk, all thanks to Azure Information Protection.
Charbel Nemnom All industries are at security risk from working
from home. The coronavirus is already impacting cybersecurity.
I've seen two main trends: attacks that aim to steal remote user
credentials and weaponized email attacks.
Again, Multi-Factor Authentication should be enabled to enhance
user identity protection. To protect against weaponized phishing
attacks, I highly recommend using services like Microsoft 365 ATP and
Exchange online protection.
Also, make sure your devices have the latest security updates installed
and an antivirus or anti-malware service. For Windows 10 devices,
Microsoft Defender Antivirus is a free built-in service enabled through
Settings. Turn on cloud-delivered protection and automatic sample
submission to enable artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning
to quickly identify and stop new and unknown threats.

Digital transformation has been on the to-do list of countless businesses for some
time. But because of the global pandemic, companies have been forced to virtualize
what they can practically overnight.
The stakes involved with going digital have suddenly become impossibly high; it’s
not just about being more efficient or competitive anymore; now, many businesses
are having to rely on online infrastructure just to survive.
Implementing the right tools and processes is only half the battle, however. If you
are one of the businesses that have suddenly found themselves operating with a
remote workforce, you have to be confident not only that your staff has the skills to
make the most of these digital tools, but also that they remain productive, engaged,
and connected in this strange and challenging time.
In this section, we’ll be looking at some of the best tools out there to help your
remote workers be their best wherever they are, as well as some tips on how to
support and optimize your newly dispersed team.
SECTION 03
Remote working
“I don’t see this as a distraction to the
cloud migration plans, I see this as an
accelerant.”
Craig Lowery
Research VP at Gartner

Cloud project management
for virtual teams
One of the main barriers employers face
to efficient remote work is finding the right
collaborative and communicative tools.
Whether you’re on the other side of a city
to the rest of your team or the other side
of the world, virtual teams rely heavily
on digital platforms to get things done.
Sharing files, holding meetings, and
tracking the progress of your projects all
have to be done online, so choosing the
right tools is crucial.
While the project management market has
been flooded by trendy new programs of
late, none provide a more comprehensive,
deeply integrated experience than those
in Microsoft's cloud suite. We took a look
at some of the tools Microsoft has to offer
virtual teams, from best cloud project
management to digital communications,
and how they can help your team be more
productive.
Microsoft 365 Business
When it comes to introducing new technologies to the workplace, user adoption can be
a massive hurdle to productivity. That’s one big advantage of Microsoft 365—previously
known as Office 365—right out of the gate; pretty much everyone has experience with
Microsoft Office’s ubiquitous suite of apps.
With versions available for both small to medium organizations and enterprises,
Microsoft 365 Business features all the programs you know and love, without the need
for on-site infrastructure or pesky installation CDs. Based in the cloud, Microsoft 365
grants users access to their apps and their files wherever they have the internet, making
it perfect for hotdesking and remote working.
Far more than the word processor
that came with your PC, Microsoft
365 is a complete virtual office
solution; packaged with email,
storage, and calendar features, it’s a
project management tool in itself.
Microsoft 365 packages are
available from $5 per user, per
month, for the Microsoft 365
Business Package plan, with several
plan options including other
collaborative services such as Skype
for Business, and Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft 365
Business

Microsoft Project
One of the lesser-known features of Microsoft’s 365 suite, Project offers a single database in
which to track all of your team’s projects.
Used by more than 10,000 organizations, Project is a cloud-based app accessible from any
web browser. Project provides users with all the essential functions, such as assigning and
scheduling tasks, sharing files, planning timelines, alongside deeper functionality, including
resource allocation, demand management, and in-depth reporting capabilities.
Though it’s hugely customizable, Project can also be used right out of the box, with a range
of built-in templates for scheduling, planning, and reporting to get you on the right track fast.
It can also be used to manage timesheets, with the ability to create and capture scheduling
information for payroll or invoicing purposes.
Integration with SharePoint and Skype for Business lets users synchronize their workloads,
share documents or communication right from the Project interface, so you can keep track
of all communications during the lifecycle of a project in one place, without the need for any
“where are we on this?” emails.
You can get access to the basic features of Project from $10 per user, per month. Enhanced
editions that include access to the desktop client and ERP functionality are available at $30 and
$55 per user, per month respectively.

SharePoint
Intranet services have come a long way, and leading the way in customizable, collaborative
platforms is SharePoint.
Developed primarily as a web-based storage system in 2001, SharePoint’s massively
configurable nature allows its 200 million users to utilize it in countless different ways.
Accessible through any browser, you can shape your SharePoint solution to be whatever you
want it to be; a place to host news and communications, build a knowledge base, and store and
share files and documents. SharePoint features tons of great functionalities, including real-time
co-authoring, extensive search functions, and the ability to sync local copies of files or folders
for offline editing.
Brand it, customize it, add in sections; SharePoint is uniquely scalable to fit your organization’s
needs, and access can be tailored to the requirements of individual users. SharePoint also
boasts excellent mobile apps, meaning your team can access the information they need
wherever they are in the world. It even features an integral Task List web part, which allows
users to plan, schedule, and assign responsibilities within a Gantt chart-like project planner,
and can even send automated task-related alerts to assignees. Tasks can also be added to the
Task List straight from Outlook.
Managing SharePoint is essentially the same as running a simple website, with pages that can
be added and edited, sections and menus, and file repositories. Most reasonably tech-savvy
teams will be able to run their SharePoint platform with ease. Licensing SharePoint can cost as
little as $5 per user, per month, which includes 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user.
SharePoint’s internal web can become a little tangled, however, for larger organizations with
numerous brands, departments, and users with varying access and security requirements.
In these cases, it’s worth having a SharePoint administrator to hand to help keep your portal
operating smoothly.

Microsoft Teams
Unveiled in 2017, Teams is a “chat-based workspace” that aims to expand on the collaborative
functionalities of Microsoft 365, offering a hub for modern teams to work, converse and
engage with one another.
A successor to Skype for Business, which will be retired in 2021, Teams extends the instant,
informal chat platform provided by Skype, folding in more productivity features, customization
options, and creating a space for project management. Where Skype offers instant messaging,
think of Teams as a super-functional message board.
Chat threads can be split by team or project, with tabs within threads for files, presentations,
conversations, and shared calendars. Images, documents, gifs, emojis, or even bots can be
shared instantly, making it easy to track new developments or edits on a project without
trawling through email threads.
Documents can be worked on collaboratively from within the Teams interface, making version
mix-ups and accidental overwrites a thing of the past. Integrated with Skype, voice and video
conferences can be hosted through Teams, with space for private conversations, and even a
built-in meme generator.
Teams is available to license from $5 per user, per month; but due to the massive surge in
businesses enabling remote working in the face of the global pandemic, Microsoft has made
Teams free to use.
In a move intended to empower those trying to adjust to working away from their usual base,
Microsoft's free version of Teams includes free unlimited chat, video calling, file sharing, OneDrive
storage, and more. There's no cap on how many users can take advantage of the app.

How to make the most of remote working
Remote working has become prevalent in the tech industry over the
past few years. Developments in cloud technology have made it easier
for professionals to work from anywhere at any time.
With the skills gap in tech continuing to grow, many organizations
have taken to offering remote or home working as a benefit to try and
attract the best talent. Being able to operate a dispersed workforce
also means that employers are no longer constrained by geography
when it comes to hiring the right person for the job.
Though we all know that flexibility will play a big part in the future
of work, many businesses have been slow to adopt it. For whatever
reason, countless organizations across all industries haven't got
around to implementing home working infrastructure—and a vast
number of them are now being forced to enable remote working at
speed and under difficult circumstances.
Operating with a dispersed workforce can be a challenge for both
your organization and your staff, especially if it's new territory for you.
Let’s take a closer look at how to make the transition a little smoother,
and how you can get the most out of your remote workforce.

Building team relations
Fostering good relationships between team members is an
absolute no-brainer for those in a management position,
but over half of those using virtual teams reported building
connections as their biggest challenge. Positive connections
among a team mean happier workers, who are willing and able
to work together and, in the end, get a whole lot more done.
For those working in a traditional office environment, building
team relations might mean catching up on the latest series of
Stranger Things around the refrigerator, grabbing a quick drink
on the way home from work, or making conversation in the
elevator; when you share the same space, opportunities to chat
and bond are naturally more bountiful.
Remote workers don’t have as much opportunity to have a casual
chat or grab your attention when they need it, so make sure you
offer those chances as much as possible. Since your team won’t
physically see each other every day, it’s important to replace that
contact with something else that helps your team get to know,
like, and trust each other; a digital water cooler, if you like.
This could mean playing an online game together, having a
social thread where your team post pictures of their pets or their
favorite YouTube video, or hosting a weekly video catch-up where
people can share what they got up to at the weekend.
Combatting employee isolation
Closely tied to building team relations, one of the biggest
challenges for remote workers is feeling isolated. Although
working from your home office in your Disney pajama pants every
day might sound dreamy, you can quickly find yourself counting
the hours until the mailman arrives just so you can speak to
another human being face-to-face.
Even if your virtual team members are office-based, and there are
other people around every day, they’re likely to feel closest to the
people they speak to and work with most frequently, and if their
fellow team members aren’t around to chat, it can be easy to slip
into feeling insulated. Regular video conferences and other real-
time communications can help virtual team members feel directly
connected to their teammates.

Though digital-native companies and those already using cloud-based
products and services have an advantage in adapting to the world of
remote work, that doesn't mean that those businesses who've been
forced to roll out digital infrastructure at very short notice can't do
anything to close that gap.
Put together essential how-to guides on using the tools you've
implemented, for example. Some people might be afraid to ask for
help or clarity, so make this knowledge available to everyone across
the organization.
Hold weekly training sessions to offer tips and training on getting the
best out of the products you have. You could set up a question box so
that staff can let you know where their knowledge gaps are and use
that to inform your topics; you can be sure that if one person is asking
a question, there'll be countless other people who'd like to hear the
answer too.
Ensure lines of communication are open so that people can get
help when they need it. Create a superuser system, assigning those
with higher skill levels as points of contact for individual products or
processes so they can disperse their knowledge to their colleagues,
and be available for one-on-one tutoring where needed.
Businesses can provide instructor-led training to groups of employees
via video conferencing if they can afford it, but even if there's little
wiggle room in the budget, training and upskilling doesn't have to
cost the earth. There are so many free learning resources, courses,
and certifications out there that learners can do at their own pace. Set
aside time for your staff to study, gamify learning by offering rewards
and perks for those who commit to upskilling, and try to make it fun.
The impetus to bring your organization’s
digital abilities up to scratch has never been
higher. Those who don’t invest time and effort
into democratizing these skills across their
entire workforce risk falling into the divide, but
it’s not too late to start.
Ensuring staff have the right skills

What advice would you give to teams now working 100% remotely?
What tips can you provide to keep morale high?
Jaap Brasser I think there are different aspects to keeping up morale. First, if there ever was a time to invest
in a decent home setup, it's now. This does not necessarily mean buying new devices or upgrade existing
ones, but have a dedicated place for work where you can focus on work and have a place to hold your virtual
meetings.
What we always do with our team calls is turn on cameras; it helps with maintaining a personal feel, and
since a lot of communication is in body language, this also prevents misunderstandings. We have virtual
happy hours too, to stay in touch with each other. Whenever we have something to discuss that takes more
than about ten messages, it's often easier to have a videocall to quickly discuss and solve issues.
Ragnar Heil My team is using video now in every call; we enjoy seeing each other and we can better
recognize how everyone is feeling. We use video conference on a Friday afternoon too, to have drinks
together and talk about personal topics like families, home schooling, fun, new behaviours we needed to
adopt, fears, and threats. We also use social networks like Yammer to connect with the broader teams and
global organization, and to share photos from our home office or favourite exercises like yoga.
Pete Gallagher For teams that are now finding themselves working remotely, especially if this is a new
circumstance, then make good use of the communication tools available. Organize Teams meetings for
stand-ups and project status, but also make sure there’s time for a social element too as this will help the
overall morale of the team.
People will find this difficult for all manner of reasons; listen to the mood of individuals and take the time to
talk to people one-on-one too. Take good care of managing expectations, especially if this is a new way of
working, as productivity will doubtless be impacted.
Ask the
experts

Richard Hooper My advice would be to take breaks away from
your new work environment, even if it’s just ten minutes here and
there. I would also try and just keep communicating with your
colleagues. Every now and then a couple of colleagues and I just
jump on a Teams call for an hour or so, continue to do our normal
work, but have a bit of office noise and just normal office chat
but remotely. We’re also going to try and do burger Fridays, but
remotely!
Gregor Suttie Have your daily stand-ups with cameras on, ask
people to show off their pets, and have a laugh when you can;
add some funny backgrounds or filters to lighten the mood! Make
sure to check up on team members one-to-one when you can too.
Charbel Nemnom I am one of those now working 100%
remotely, so I follow a strict and disciplined routine as if I'm in the
office. I go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, just as
I would normally.
I take short breaks every 90 minutes, and I exercise twice a day
to keep the blood flowing since we have less occasion to travel
and walk around now. I also got myself a standing desk so I can
change things up a couple of times during the day.
You need to make sure to keep your body hydrated and drink
a lot of water to make sure your immune system is performing
well. Last but certainly not least, I meditate and keep a gratitude
journal around me to keep my morale and energy high.

In this section, Solutions Architect of 35 years Richard
Reukema explains how businesses can get more out of their
application and software development by thinking more
about software architecture, and less about deployment.
Adapting to swings in demand and being able to scale your business as required
are crucial capabilities to have, particularly in uncertain economic periods.
Investing in scalable compute solutions means you can seamlessly tackle spikes in
demand, and, perhaps just as importantly, scale down and cut costs by only paying
for what you use.
Those businesses that can respond to upticks in traffic and requests quickly,
without having to implement additional hardware resources, put themselves at an
enormous advantage.
SECTION 04
Growing at scale
“When traditional channels and
operations are impacted by the
outbreak, the value of digital
channels, products and operations
becomes immediately obvious. This
is a wake-up call to organizations
that focus on daily operational needs
at the expense of investing in digital
business and long-term resilience.”
Sandy Shen
Senior Research Director at Gartner

How businesses can achieve more by thinking of servers less
Software design and programming have often been compared to
songwriting: it’s very abstract, it’s usually written in pieces, comes
together slowly, and often fails to create a ‘hit’ song. However, get all
the parameters right, and it’s something that spikes in popularity and
enjoyment. That’s the upside.
The downside is that after listening to it—or working with it—for a
while, its star slowly fades, and in time it needs to be replaced with yet
another ‘hit.’
This is also true of software development. We’ve gone through
various cycles in design and languages, as well as multiple cycles in
hardware capabilities. I mention the hardware only because, over the
decades, the capacity of hardware is often reflected in the design and
construction of software.
I feel the influence of hardware (or now the lack thereof) is at the
heart of the paradigm shifts in software application design we’ve been
experiencing in the last few years.

The current ‘hit’ in software development is something that is being
referred to as “serverless” application design. This is often interpreted
as a software design that does not need servers. Obviously, this isn’t
true, and both linguistic purists and those in IT management alike
wince at the use of the word.
My interpretation of the term, however, is different: “Serverless” is a
design paradigm that simply means we think less of servers, or think
of servers less. When we think of “serverless,” my perspective is that
it allows us to think of software architecture (and the business domain
that it serves) more than the deployment of that software across
various bits of servers and hardware.
In terms of software architecture, most Architects work from the
traditional perspective of servers. The “architecture” designs need a
web server, a server with business logic, and likely a database server
to persist data. This is NOT thinking of servers less; instead, it’s a
paradigm that we naturally fall into. If we are to think of serverless, we
must think of services first and foremost, rather than servers.
The same thought pattern using a serverless mentality would be
a web service (HTTP/HTTPS); application services (or even better,
business services and their business processes); and finally, a data
persistence service. Note that in each of these layers we talk about
services, and the notion of a product that provides the service
becomes absent in thought.
Think of servers, and you may think of something like IIS on Windows,
or Apache and the implementation on those platforms. Think of the
service that the application needs, and the thinking moves to the
application domain—rather than the physical deployment domain—
and how that domain provides those services, which likely directly
affects the software design. For example, authentication and how it
works with IIS vs. Apache would be a distraction from the business
need for authentication.
Serverless… or servers less?
Of all the change that’s occurred in software
architecture, this is a change not only in the
abstract design of software but also in the
business acumen behind how enterprises use it.

As most Solution Architects today have been trained with only
a server deployment mentality, this paradigm shift in thinking
requires discipline to NOT fall into old habits, and the paradigm of
designing software to what servers offer. We need to stay above the
implementation perspective, and only think of what the application
requires from a services perspective.
In terms of the business acumen of IT in enterprise-level businesses,
this same paradigm exists. The technical deployment paradigm has
bled over into the business domain. Business leaders, at a high level,
solution against their business needs in terms of what they know. This
is only natural, of course, and most business discussions of IT center
around a business-lead solution.
Solution Architects who attend to these business needs interpret the
design and add the necessary details so that Technical Leads can
construct the software and deploy to the servers. The business is
happy, the Solution Architecture did their job, and the software was
created as the business stakeholders had wanted.
However, a significant opportunity has been likely missed: everyone
involved has been thinking of servers rather than services. In cloud
platforms, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is often thought of as the
counterpart to servers. For example, a SQL Server provides a SQL
service, and web server provides a web service. But the capabilities of the
platform service, as opposed to the server, does not translate well, if at all.
Aside from their dynamism, their other characteristics can be
provided by a server configuration, though at a considerably
higher cost in terms of time, resources, and coordination. These
characteristics of platform services, let alone how to leverage them
in existing or new business models, are simply not appreciated by
most business leaders.
Thinking of server-less in both business domain and software
architecture can yield amazing results. Consider a business (any
business) that went from start-up to a $1 billion evaluation in 18
months! In a traditional business landscape, this is simply not
possible. The infrastructure of both business and technical aspects
would not be able to scale quickly enough. Yet this is exactly what
happened to Instagram.
Platform services are scalable, reliable,
accessible, and, arguably most
importantly, dynamic.
A new way of thinking

Instagram: a serverless success story
Instagram moved to a cloud platform very quickly after it launched because
waiting 48 hours for a new server was simply too long. Then, in April 2012, it
again leveraged the cloud to handle signing up 1 million users in 12 hours after it
launched its Android mobile app.
Most business leaders today don’t realize how a staff of just 14 people executed
Instagram’s business model and harvested the required computing power to
earn so much success in such a short period of time.
Benefiting both the commercial and technical sides of the business, cloud
services allowed the Instagram team to dynamically scale their solution
quickly, easily, and, most importantly, as it was needed. In the past, the resource
needed to address this steep uptake in business would mean significant
time, effort, and capital to purchase equipment, carry out configuration and
maintenance, manage licensing, and cover overheads like physical space,
networks, power, and cooling: all of which would’ve taken significantly longer and
would have had a negative effect on their overall market success.
What if somebody made the same effort to focus on managing financial data?
Oil and gas? IoT devices that send data directly to the cloud? Health care data
that uses the patient as the central focus to share data? Would business leaders
in these industries predict an assault on their market segment in the same
timeframe?
In traditional business leaders’ thoughts, they simply do not believe it’s possible.
Business leaders must mix business acumen with dynamic cloud service
capabilities, which would allow them to repeat of Instagram’s incredible success.
38
Optimizing your business with the Microsoft cloud

To bridge this gap, business leaders must express business problems
and goals without allowing their technical knowledge to limit their
vision of what’s possible. Without knowing what businesses like
Instagram have achieved with cloud computing, how many business
leaders would set a target of 1 million new customers in 12 hours?
Architects must educate themselves on what cloud services are,
and how they can help businesses avoid the limitations of server
deployment and configuration. More importantly, they must
understand the commercial needs that underpin everything they do,
and ensure business leaders recognize that 1 million new customers
in 12 hours really is possible.
Bi-directional communication and mutual respect between IT and
business leaders is essential if companies want to achieve an optimum
solution—a solution that supercharges existing business models, or
adapts to new business models that weren’t previously possible.
Only then can we achieve the ultimate goal of IT as an enabler of an
agile and efficient business that can respond quickly and easily to both
increasing demand and changes in business requirements.
Marrying commercial goals and tech know-how

For industries seeing a surge in demand for their services, what advice can you give them on
being able to service that demand? What technologies can they implement?
Gregor Suttie This is where the cloud can shine. Auto-scaling can be critical at times like these; to be able to
scale up and scale out using the cloud can potentially help a huge number of customers.
Charbel Nemnom For industries that are seeing a surge in demand for their services, such as healthcare and
safety organizations, I highly recommend they look at cloud services that offer scale on-demand, if they are not
doing so already. This will help them to overcome the surge demand for their services, which will then enable
them to scale down when the demand is minimized.
Jaap Brasser What I've seen is that many websites that have experienced a big increase in traffic have been
negatively affected. For those businesses, I'd advise they use technologies that allow websites to scale based
on demand. There are numerous options that enable you to do this, so look at how you can equip your sites to
make use of this.
Pete Gallagher Surges in demand present both an opportunity and also an issue for many companies,
especially if their staff are now working from home but haven’t done so regularly before. Companies must be
very careful to balance the workload they now find themselves enjoying with the wellbeing of their staff.
No matter whether working remotely is a regular occurrence or not now, staff morale, wellbeing, and motivation
must be carefully monitored as productivity will doubtless be affected.
Obviously, working with tech such as Microsoft Teams or Skype really helps to keep teams on track and staff
members feeling like they're still valued. Making good use of Kanban boards and planning tools is even more
important, but once again, take the current situation into account when measuring time.
Ask the
experts

In moments of uncertainty, it can be comforting to stick with what you know. But
business continuity doesn’t always mean sticking to business as usual. Sometimes
it means rolling with the punches and being able to adapt. Organizations who
are willing to modify the way they work will enjoy continued success even as the
parameters change.
The innate agility of the cloud is an invaluable resource in these fluid times, offering
a multitude of tools and services that break down barriers, help businesses
innovate, and allow them to respond to change fast, without being hindered by
hardware or infrastructure hurdles.
Our Azure experts share their thoughts on how businesses can power through
this unparalleled situation: the steps they need to take to adjust to this new
landscape, what they can do to succeed today, and how to make sure they’re
prepared for tomorrow.
SECTION 05
Business continuity
“We see the crisis playing out broadly
across three waves: Wave 1, ensuring
stability and business continuity
while containing the crisis; Wave
2, institutionalizing new ways of
working; and Wave 3, using learning
from the crisis to prioritize tech
transformation for resilience.”
McKinsey Digital

Ask the
experts
In your view, which industry sectors won't be affected by COVID-19?
Jaap Brasser I think the current situation is going to impact all sectors; a global recession has already been
declared by the IMF. An economic downturn is always going to influence all industries. I think now is the time
for businesses to make well-informed decisions on where to invest and where to mitigate risk.
Charbel Nemnom In my personal view, all organizations that embraced digital transformation and cloud
services early on will be the least affected by COVID-19. This, of course, differs from one sector to another.
All businesses that have an online presence and are using mature cloud
services are seeing the least disruption. We are all impacted by this, but the
technology sector has proved again that we can combat this virus together.
Thomas Maurer I think every industry will be affected, directly or indirectly.
Many industries are impacted in a negative way. However, there will be a lot
of innovation and new business models happening.
Ragnar Heil I don’t see a single industry that’s not affected by COVID-19.
Lots of industries are currently challenged because of high workload and
customer demand, like healthcare, eCommerce, supermarket retailers,
and logistics. Others are suffering too, like the automotive industry, many
of whose companies have had to close their plants and are already facing
decreased demand for classic combustion engines.
“All businesses that have an
online presence and are using
mature cloud services are seeing
the least disruption. We are
all impacted by this, but the
technology sector has proved
again that we can combat this
virus together. ”

Which projects won't be affected, and why?
Jaap Brasser I think all projects will be affected in some sense; those least affected are the ones that were started with the assumption all work
would be done remotely. For projects that are affected, new timelines might have to be established and new processes will have to be drafted and
agreed upon. I think the biggest benefit that will come from this is that many companies will have a better understanding of how to manage remote
teams. This will be valuable knowledge as we are moving into a period that’ll see an increase in people working remotely.
Ragnar Heil I can’t speak globally here, but currently my employer is supporting many customers and partners in migrating legacy file and mail
servers, as well as on-premises collaboration tools, to cloud services like Microsoft 365. We’re seeing stronger demand than ever, especially around
Microsoft Teams. Working from home is a big driver here.
Charbel Nemnom Many businesses are accelerating remote work for their employees in a secure way. Collaboration systems and communication
services as well as security projects won’t be affected. In fact, there will be huge demand in those two areas.
Pete Gallagher The current pandemic, and
specifically the fact that a lot of people are working
from home, actually provides an opportunity for
projects that are awkward to work on or deploy
when people are in the mix.
Likewise, projects which are often worked on entirely
offline, perhaps even by staff who work remotely, will
likely be unaffected, unless these projects rely on
the primarily affected industries and are short term.
Needless to say, businesses working in any form of
remote tech will find themselves tested, but this will
lead to far better quality software for implementing
remote working.
How can businesses currently implementing Microsoft Azure
ensure business continuity in the next 3-6 months?
Ragnar Heil That really depends on the requirements and which part of the
large Azure stack is chosen. The easiest way would be to setup Virtual Machines
with predefined workloads—that doesn’t take longer than a coffee break. It’s a
good time now to migrate Windows Server 2008, which is at the end of its shelf
life, to Azure, especially file servers. They’re massively preventing collaboration
in home offices. Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, or OneDrive are a much better
choice and also don’t require VPN connections. These kind of migrations to the
Intelligent Workplace only need a few hours to configure and to start.

Are there any specific projects you're seeing, predicting, or advising now, and why?
What typically would the required team consist of / skillset be?
Thomas Maurer I believe this is now a key moment for digitalization. It doesn’t matter really in which industry—manufacturing, healthcare,
or even the small shops in your street—all of them should be starting to use and actively using technology to support their business beyond
just information workers. To give you an example, I live in a small village. Since this crisis, I’ve seen many small shops, restaurants, and bakeries
setting up online shops with home delivery, or small businesses using Microsoft Teams to efficiently communicate while they’re doing working
from home. If you think back a couple of years, things like that would have been challenging to set up, but the cloud makes this possible. We
definitely need more experts who have the know-how to implement platforms, tools, and processes to support this.
Pete Gallagher I’ve found that, while some of my clients have stopped working on projects entirely, others are using the opportunity to make
good progress. For instance, I am part way through a project for a clothing designer and manufacturer.
The fact that the staff aren’t currently working means we’re able to test and deploy this without the risk of affecting ongoing work. Likewise,
I'm working on a project for a company that makes building monitoring systems, and they're able to gain access to buildings without staff
being there.
Finally, I'm working on exam creation for Microsoft, and most of the existing work here is unaffected. I don’t, however, see that teams or skillsets
will need to be intrinsically different during this time, but it’s clear to see that teams will need to be well managed, self-motivated, and able to
overcome problems in working remotely.
Charbel Nemnom I'm seeing a lot of projects around Microsoft Azure and Windows Virtual Desktops for two reasons: companies require quick
access for additional compute capacity, and they want to offer their employees Windows 10 virtual desktop in a secure way.
Jaap Brasser I've been seeing that there's a lot of activity around enabling work from home—a strong focus on modern workspace and allowing
employees to be able to work remotely, communicate and collaborate with each other.

What do you advise IT leaders to focus on in the short, medium, and long term?
Jaap Brasser In the short term, invest in enabling your employees to work effectively remotely. Where applicable, provide the technology required
to make this possible. In the medium-term, start to investigate options to reduce costs by replacing legacy solutions with cloud-based solutions.
My advice here is to start with the low-hanging fruit and plan from thereon. In the long-term, explore whether existing applications or platforms
could be rearchitected for a serverless environment.
Charbel Nemnom IT leaders should try and learn from current events and create a plan to execute as soon as possible. The health crisis will end;
people are already back to work in some of the nations that were struck by the virus early. The economy will boom. Life will become even better.
While I hope this will happen within 4-6 months, no one can say for sure. Yet all this will happen sooner or later, so we should start planning steps
focusing on short, medium, and long-term goals.
The short-term goal is to survive with the current situation and securely enable remote work to keep the business running with the least impact possible.
The medium-term goal is to handle the huge business demand that'll come after this storm ends. We need to make sure our systems are capable
of scaling as quickly as possible because the economy will bounce back. If we're still using on-premises infrastructure when that time comes, we
won’t be able to scale and respond quickly to business needs.
The long-term goal is to be prepared for another disaster that could occur in the future. The current business continuity and disaster recovery
(BCDR) plan that we have is obsolete; we need to update it to include a new plan so we can survive such events. Earthquakes, fires, and technology
viruses are not the only events that will disrupt the business; we've learned that the human virus is the most impactful nowadays.
Thomas Maurer If you haven’t had a look at adopting the cloud, especially hybrid solutions, I think it’s time now. You also should have a look at
how people work today and make sure that you build a strategy to give them a modern workplace where they could (even if they don’t necessarily
need to) work from everywhere. I’ve seen great success stories where companies switch from a classic desktop environment to a modern
workspace using laptops and a modern device management solution, and now they’re able to react fast and enable people to work from home.
Gregor Suttie IT leaders should concentrate firstly on staff; without staff, there won’t be any industry. Short term: Is everyone okay? Medium-term: Does
everyone have everything they need to do their job, if that’s possible? And longer-term: How can you be better prepared if another virus like it was to hit?

Ragnar Heil Now is a perfect time to modernize your IT and roll out a cloud-based modern workplace which supports team- and company-wide
communication and collaboration. Your users need to continue with their business, and if you don’t support them now, uncompliant and unsecure
shadow IT is going to grow massively. They won’t wait any longer.
The other thing is that IT leaders should be able to empower the business. As we’ve seen, e-commerce and online business has grown in a huge
way. IT should be able to make sure that they can help with the challenges businesses are facing and try to spend less money and resources on
things they can just buy or get from the cloud.
Pete Gallagher Many companies are scaling back or furloughing staff in the short-to-medium term. However, in the longer term, towards the end
of the year, these same companies are planning to be extremely busy catching up, and have already indicated that there will be a lot of work to be
done later on.
In the intervening time period, it’s important to
maintain the lines of communication between
team members and also teams themselves. It’s
important to make good use of any slack in the
system caused by a lack of orders to invest in staff
training so that they can make good use of new
skills once the economy starts to pick back up.
I’m also advising companies to make use of this
time, if possible, to get projects completed that
would ordinarily be difficult to achieve if the
company was busy—for instance, releasing new
versions of applications, which are easier to test
when a company isn’t running at full capacity.
For businesses currently having to severely ramp up production or
pivot their product offering, how can they use Microsoft Azure to
meet this demand?
Thomas Maurer The great thing about the cloud is that it’s a fantastic toolbox.
Companies can now use different Azure services to build and run the necessary
applications at super-fast speed. These can be anything from classic virtual
machine infrastructure projects to full development on all kinds of Azure PaaS
services. But even more interestingly, using low-code or no-code approaches.
One thing I’ve seen is businesses having a lot of quick success with Microsoft
Power Apps; these allow people to quickly address business needs without
development experience.

These are challenging times. Businesses across every industry are
making tough decisions and, in many cases, completely revamping their
business model, the way they work, and the core resources they use to
get things done.
Across the globe, organizations are relying more heavily on digital
infrastructure to keep things moving forward. Having been helping
our clients digitally overhaul their businesses for almost 15 years, we
understand the metamorphic power that cloud tools can have.
We appreciate that now more than ever, in the face of unprecedented
adversity, businesses of all sizes need to utilize the resources at their
disposal to overcome these challenges and endure.
Cloud projects don't just stop. Digital transformation doesn't just stop.
Migrations don't just stop. Implementations don't just stop.
You won't stop, so neither will we.
We're still hard at work sourcing and placing the talent our clients need to
get them through this testing time, no matter what their requirements are.
The need to invest in the cloud tools and services that will make your
business more agile, more efficient, and more resilient has never been
more urgent. Whether you need permanent Azure professionals to help
you get the most out of your cloud platform, or a contract developer to
facilitate new ways of doing business, we can connect you with the right
candidate for the job.
Here to support your business Whatever you need, we're
ready to support your business.
Get in touch
contact@nigelfrank.com
www.nigelfrank.com
UK +44 20 7337 0875
USA +1 267 463 4700
ANZ +61 3 8657 4570
Connect with us
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professionals with a proven track record in remote working
available now for terms of any duration
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Optimizing your business with the Microsoft cloud 47

Useful links
• Nigel Frank blog
• Microsoft Azure online training
• Microsoft Azure code samples
• Latest Microsoft Azure updates
• Official documentation
• Microsoft Azure Knowledge Center
• Quickstart templates
• Azure Status Dashboard
• Build5Nines Azure blog
• GitHub’s Azure Tips and Tricks

Overcoming Business Challenges with Azure

Overcoming Business Challenges with Azure

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