Cloud Engineering

Solution architecture

A well-defined solution architecture is critical for the success of any cloud project. That's why we provide comprehensive support to our clients in defining their solution architecture on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

We work closely with you to understand your specific business requirements, technical goals, and any constraints or limitations you may have. We then leverage our expertise in Microsoft Azure to create a tailored solution architecture that meets your needs and aligns with industry best practices. Our team of experienced architects can you through the entire process, from identifying key components and services to selecting the right deployment model and designing for scalability, availability, and security. We also offer ongoing support to ensure that the solution architecture remains optimized and updated as business needs evolve. Your solution architecture should be able to answer these questions:

  • Will you be building an application-specific architecture, or a platform architecture where future products will be built on?
  • How will you manage identity and access control in your solution?
  • How will you decouple components to make your architecture modular and flexible?
  • Which parts of your architecture should be implemented on cloud services? Which parts are better kept internally on-premises?
  • Which modern standards should you adopt in your software?
  • How do you provide your service at the lowest possible unit costs (per user, per seat, per device, per tenant, etc)?
  • Are you choosing components in your architecture that your operations team is ready to support? Or are you embracing technology with a steep learning curve for your organization?
  • How will your service scale if it is really successful and demand grows fast?
  • Are you meeting your customer’s expectations in terms of service levels, reliability, durability, data privacy and data protection?
  • Do you need to migrate data from legacy systems? If so, how will you ensure data consistency with the lowest possible impact for the end user?

Technical implementation

Our engineering staff will support you in transforming your product into reality. Once your architecture is defined and ready for prime time, it’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty with the implementation of your product or application. Our engineering teams are highly skilled in leading agile projects and use the latest implementation technologies and frameworks. We can also offer you an attractive delivery model that combines on-site staff with near-shore technical experts to provide an even more flexible cost structure for your project without increasing the delivery risks of the engagement.

UX design

By collaborating with trusted business partners, who are experts in the areas of user experience research and design, we ensure that the applications you build follow a human-centered design approach. Your users will have no choice, but to love using your apps.

Frontend development

The web is the portal into any modern application. We utilize the most modern frameworks to develop your web presence, including VueJS, ReactJS and Angular. To accelerate implementation, we leverage existing design standards and visual libraries such as Vuetify. We will make sure that your application is covered by comprehensive test automation that minimizes the chances of defects compromising your great user experience.

Backend development

Your service must be supported by a robust backend. We will assist you in building and operating reliable and scalable backend services, which include:

  • Distributed or monolithic services.
  • Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which allow consumers to interact with your data and services.
  • Analytics services to capture and produce insights on the data your platform generates.
  • Solid backup and restore procedures in case disaster strikes.
  • Robust logging and monitoring tooling to ensure you are always in control of your own platform.
  • Automation pipelines to ensure you can test and release your new software in the fastest possible period of time without compromising reliability.

Cloud adoption strategy

The cloud adoption strategy is an integral part of your digital transformation journey - whether you are a startup, an SME, an international corporation or a public sector organization. Your cloud adoption strategy should answer the following questions:

  • What is driving your cloud adoption? Is it datacenter migration? A move from capex to opex? Service innovation or application modernization?
  • What is the vendor strategy for cloud services? Are you looking for best-of-breed solutions, or are you interested in committing to a small number of cloud providers?
  • Do you have the proper enterprise and support agreements with your cloud vendors? Adjusting contracts is complex and costly. We will help you ensure that you develop the right setup with your preferred cloud vendors right from the start of your journey.
  • Which are the selection criteria to choose between on-prem solutions vs cloud solutions? This answer will be driven by your appetite for risk, the regulatory environment you are operating in (e.g. which data are you allowed to store in the cloud), and by your organizational readiness.
  • What is your integration strategy? Such a strategy is needed to ensure that your cloud-based solutions not only match, but complement your current investments on-premises, instead of establishing a system of dispersed stand-alone solutions.

Cloud governance

Once your cloud strategy is defined, you need to understand how you will govern and operate your cloud-based solutions. We will deliver a cloud governance concept based on Microsoft’s own recommended practices, such as the Cloud Adoption Framework. Governance should answer these questions for you:

  • How will you organize your cloud-based resources?
  • Who will manage those resources, and how will management access be granted and monitored for different groups?
  • Which policies will have to be established at an organizational level?
  • How will costs be managed, monitored, and transferred back to your internal or external consumers (metering of cloud usage)?

Cloud operating model

Having an operations model that is tailored for the cloud is essential to ensure efficient and effective operations in a cloud environment. Cloud computing offers numerous benefits, including scalability, agility, and cost savings, but it also requires a different approach to operations than traditional on-premises infrastructure. A tailored cloud operations model enables IT managers to optimize their cloud infrastructure and software, ensuring that resources are utilized efficiently and that applications and services are performing as expected. It also allows for quick identification and resolution of any issues that may arise, helping to minimize downtime and ensure maximum uptime. Furthermore, a cloud operations model can help IT managers to achieve compliance and security objectives, as it provides greater visibility into the cloud environment and enables proactive monitoring and threat detection. Your cloud operations model should answer these questions for you:

  • How are cloud services going to be monitored, and how will our ops team be alerted in case of an incident?
  • How to we handle a situation where the datancenter of the cloud provider goes offline for a prolonged period of time?
  • Are the out-of-the-box RTOs, RPOs and SLAs of the cloud services we use sufficient for our business, or do we need to prepare addition protections?
  • How will you provide visibility of the cloud resources under the responsibility of your organization?
  • How will you ensure that you have a updated inventory of your cloud-based assets?
  • How will you extend your platform operations from on-prem to include monitoring and operating of cloud resources?
  • How will you extend your operations and monitoring to include applications that are dependent on cloud services?
  • What extension will you need in your security model to protect cloud-based services?

Want to know more about cloud adoption?

Connect with us today, and find out how the Option 4.0 team can help your business adapt and meet the demands of new technologies.