Microsoft Azure
Azure for Swiss SMEs: assess cloud workloads, costs, security and continuity before deploying infrastructure that fits your applications and business priorities.
Suitable tools. Local support. A team close to you.
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Microsoft Azure offers infrastructure and platform services. For an SME, it may be useful for hosting an application, preparing a test environment or changing capacity that has become difficult to manage locally.
Start with the application: its users, operating hours, dependencies, data volumes and the consequences of an outage. An IT audit can help gather this information. A hybrid arrangement remains an option when certain equipment or software needs to stay on site. Moving a server without reviewing its use does not guarantee simpler management or lower spending.
Assess Azure virtual machines against the applications, resources and operating hours required, specifying who manages system updates, backups and interventions on each hosted server within the responsibilities agreed for the service.
Compare an Azure application platform with virtual machine hosting, then check application dependencies and how operational tasks are shared before choosing the service that suits the project and the organisation maintaining it.
Assess Azure storage against data volumes, transfers and recovery needs, include these elements in the budget and document how information will be protected and retrieved if the architecture needs to change later.
Prepare connections between Azure and the systems kept on site, check each application’s dependencies and test access before moving a service that employees rely on during their normal working activities and business processes.
Configure Azure Cost Management budgets with identified thresholds and recipients, then define the decisions available after an alert without treating the budget as an automatic stop on the resources being consumed.
Prepare Azure scenarios for restoring data, restarting services and retrieving information, then test the essential steps and keep documentation accessible to the people responsible for the production environment and any future architecture changes.
From initial scoping to ongoing support, the agreed work and each party’s responsibilities are defined with you before implementation.
Installation, configuration and support.
Protection of data and access.
Monitoring, updates and optimisation.
Backup strategy and disaster recovery planning.
Tenant management, backups and administration.
A local, responsive and available team.
We start with your teams’ needs, business applications and organisational constraints.
Share client files between colleagues, with appropriate access and documents that are easy to find.
Protect patient records and maintain the tools needed for consultations.
Find plans and files on site while keeping control of access for everyone involved.
Organise access for employees, elected representatives and volunteers, and make handovers easier when teams change.
Tools alone are not enough. Ongoing management, access and documentation need to remain clear over time.
Roles, permissions and protections suited to the agreed scope.
Identified dependencies, with backup and recovery arrangements to prepare.
Documented joiners, leavers and changes in responsibility.
Accessible configuration, licence and upcoming renewal records.
Uses, limitations and frequently asked questions: the points to clarify when preparing your project.
Microsoft describes a shared responsibility model. The division changes by service: a virtual machine requires different operational work from a managed application platform. Customer-controlled data, identities and configuration still need ownership.
Before deployment, we recommend recording who manages updates, permissions, backups, alerts and incidents. This prevents a task from being assumed to be Microsoft's responsibility when it belongs to the business or its provider. Review that allocation again when the architecture changes, because moving to a different service can also change the operational tasks.
The budget should include active resources, storage, data transfers, protection and operational work. Estimates are more useful when they show several assumptions: normal activity, peak demand and expected growth.
Azure Cost Management budgets trigger alerts; by themselves, they are not a spending cap that stops consumption. Identify who receives alerts, which resources should be removed after testing and what decisions can be taken when spending differs from the plan. IT governance provides a framework for this recurring review.
A pilot should validate access, required performance and connections to other systems. Identity management, including Microsoft Entra ID, deserves particular attention for privileged accounts and external administrators.
Also plan how to restore data, restart a service and retrieve information if the architecture changes. Sunitech can scope an assessment and implementation stages; operational responsibilities, service hours and response times must be agreed. Keep the chosen architecture documented and accessible to your organisation so that future decisions do not depend on one administrator's knowledge.
No. Assess each service against its constraints and dependencies. An application closely linked to production equipment may need a different approach from an administrative tool. Compare on-premises, cloud and hybrid options, including operational costs and recovery arrangements. The aim is to choose a suitable destination for each workload, rather than impose one destination for everything.
A budget alert informs someone; it does not automatically block every resource. Define who investigates a variance and which actions are authorised. Automatically stopping a critical service can have significant consequences. Any automation should therefore be tested and approved according to business impact, rather than triggered solely by a financial threshold.
Region selection is one part of the assessment. Review the services used, their terms, dependencies, backups and administrative access. Compare your organisation's requirements with the commitments applicable to each selected service. Location does not replace access rules or security management. Record the reasoning so it can be revisited when services or requirements change.
Review of your needs, comparison of options and clearly explained priorities.
Preparation, configuration, testing and coordination with the relevant providers.
Agreed support scope, documentation, licences and next steps.
A project? A question?
An initial conversation to understand your situation and decide on the next steps together.
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