CLOUDY WITH A GREAT
CHANCE OF SUCCESS!
EMPOWERING THE
ENTERPRISE TO TAKE
FULL ADVANTAGE OF
EVERYTHING AZURE
EQUINIX WHITE PAPER
Equinix.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction................................................................................................... 3
The cloud journey......................................................................................... 4
How can my organization accelerate the cloud journey?............................. 5
How do you manage to succeed?................................................................ 8
Equinix — the secret sauce everyone wants............................................. 10
Conclusion.................................................................................................. 11
Equinix.com12
TABLE OF CONTENTS | 2
INTRODUCTION
The cloud era has reached the stage where it is no longer a question of
whether a company should migrate, but when. Enterprises have embraced
the outsourcing of where their various applications are stored and who
manages them, saving significant investment along the way. Plus, the cloud
has become a defining competitive edge. Companies who fail to successfully
adapt risk failure.
The media, of course, continues to extol the virtues of the cloud, including how easy it is to get there. Migrating
to the cloud is a simple affair — just call up a cloud provider and your wishes come true! The reality is quite
different, however, as enterprises struggle with a wide variety of migration issues, from security to overtaxed IT
teams and everything in-between.
This whitepaper will examine the cloud migration issues facing today’s enterprise — and how Hanu Software and
Equinix empower companies to adopt an infrastructure based on Microsoft Azure, a Tier 1 cloud provider, in the
simplest and most seamless ways possible.
INTRODUCTION | 3
THE CLOUD JOURNEY
Since migrating to the cloud involves altering most, if not all, of a company’s infrastructure there are a
number of factors that can hinder the transition. Three of the most mission critical involve security,
performance and management.
Security
Today, virtually every enterprise has moved at least one operation to the cloud. Yet few trust the cloud enough to
migrate sensitive data, especially if they are in a heavily regulated industry such as healthcare or finance. In addition,
local compliance rules vary from region to region, and a single court ruling can up end an entire business model
overnight. Witness the 2015 Safe Harbour decision, in which the EU court declared American companies doing
business in Europe were in violation of European privacy laws. This ruling decimated the American multi-national
business model, forcing companies to rethink their operations, including cloud incorporation.
Performance
While security is a compelling issue, on a more practical level one of the biggest drawbacks to cloud adoption
is application performance. There is little point to migrating business operations if the end result is slower, less
responsive user applications.
• Internal teams (partners, employees) experience frustration, causing them to either avoid using the application
or find workarounds. This severely impacts business productivity, making the enterprise less competitive.
• Remote users, a significant and growing segment of any enterprise’s workforce, soon find themselves “second
class citizens” once they leave the office. This, of course, hampers productivity but can also lead to higher
levels of turnover.
• Public facing companies such as e-commerce retailers put their entire operation at risk. Imagine trying to
stream a two-hour movie with sporadic network speeds — customer churn is inevitable.
Management
Enterprise IT teams were already overburdened with legacy systems long before the cloud era came along.
This was compounded any time a company completed an acquisition and had to absorb a different infrastructure.
Some mergers, such as that of United and Continental airlines, had such radically different IT infrastructures the
changeover negatively affected operations for years.
The cloud offered a lot of promise to remedying IT issues. Companies could now outsource many of their
“mundane” operations, enabling their internal IT teams to focus on more mission-critical applications and
infrastructure improvements. Ironically, the cloud has ended up causing more work and more headaches for IT.
Migrating applications to a whole new infrastructure is not as simple as throwing a switch. Public facing companies
can’t simply shut down for a few weeks to make the transition — picture the results if Amazon posted a message
stating, “Sorry, our site is down for technology updates. Check back in two weeks.” And then there is the problem
of what to migrate and how, especially given the aforementioned security and performance requirements.
Another lesser, but important, issue is the fact many enterprise IT teams have little experience migrating applications
to the cloud. Such an undertaking simply isn’t their area of expertise. Yet management thinks moving to the cloud is
easy and demands results. IT teams are forced to spend a lot of time learning new systems while ignoring other,
often mission critical, tasks. As with other factors, this endangers the enterprise’s ability to successfully operate as
a competitive player.
The cloud journey | 4
HOW CAN MY ORGANIZATION ACCELERATE
THE CLOUD JOURNEY?
Hanu and Equinix know.
Realizing the myriad of obstacles facing today’s enterprises attempting cloud migration, Hanu Software has
partnered with Equinix to deliver turnkey cloud adoption solutions. Now enterprises can quickly and seamlessly
migrate to Microsoft Azure, one of the world’s top cloud providers, without the traditional hassles associated with
security, performance, management and other migration issues.
Hanu provides consulting, managed services and Azure governance solutions for enterprises of all sizes.
Equinix delivers the other piece of the puzzle, empowering enterprises to get the most from their Hanu and Azure
operations via state-of-the-art interconnection solutions.
Start with the basics
Migrate Any Workload (or Server) from Anywhere to Azure!
Any Workload
Anywhere
•
•
•
•
•
• On Premise
(Physical/Virtual)
• AWS
• Rackspace
Dev/Test
SQL/BI/Oracle
Open Source
SharePoint
Active Directory
Tools
Methodology
Best Pracitices
Experts
Hanu, a Microsoft Gold Partner, is expert at migrating any enterprise workload or server, from anywhere, to the
Azure cloud. Whether you’re moving virtual machines, physical-to-virtual or individual applications, Hanu will
perform all the necessary re-architecting, re-packaging, data and image transformation necessary to have your
enterprise up and running quickly on Azure.
Here’s a general snapshot of the Hanu Azure migration methodology:
• Hanu will assess, analyze and identify consistency groups, definite a data transfer strategy, and align
a service level agreement (SLA)
• Next, the company sets up your Azure environment, including VPN and Active Directory
• The migration is handled using industry-proven tools designed to reduce downtime and optimize your
operations for the cloud
• Testing is performed to ensure all functionality is in place
• Finally, Hanu does a cutover from source to destination, and your company goes live on Azure
How can my organization accelerate the cloud journey? | 5
More specifically, the migration is accomplished through a comprehensive three stage process that takes your
company’s individually requirements into account.
Journey to
the cloud
with
1. Awareness
2. Assessment
3. Adoption
Stage 1
Awareness
1. Awareness
Think of this as Cloud 101. Hanu experts work with your IT staff and (non-tech) management to give your teams full
understanding of everything cloud.
• Learn what the cloud can do for your legacy operations, and what it’s not appropriate for
• Understand the difference among the various cloud application development models
◦◦ Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
◦◦ Platform as a service (PaaS)
◦◦ Software as a service (SaaS)
• Discover how to maximize deployment of public, private and hybrid clouds
• And more, depending on knowledge level/requested learning
How can my organization accelerate the cloud journey? | 6
Stage 2
Assessment
2. Assessment
This is where Hanu helps your IT team determine if your application(s) are a good fit for the cloud. All of your
enterprise’s business concerns are taken into account, from security to performance to remote users.
• Hanu experts outline clearly defined benefits to ensure superior ROI and overall cost effectiveness
• A “soup-to-nuts” cloud adoption strategy is developed
• Finally, a proof-of-concept (PoC) test is designed and implemented
Stage 3
Adoption
3. Adoption
Once the previous two stages are completed your company can proceed with cloud adoption. The Hanu Extended
Development Center, an extension of your in-house IT team, ensures applications are migrated in sync with your
stated compliance and other business goals. The results are impressive:
• Time to market is dramatically reduced, as are overall development costs, thanks to Hanu’s 30+ reusable
components and readymade cloud framework
• Hanu’s IT team augments your existing staff during adoption, then exits after the migration is complete. This
removes the need for new talent acquisition that may ultimately be unnecessary once systems are in place
• As a bonus, all Hanu migration initiatives are designed from the start to give your company a competitive edge
via more innovative functionality
How can my organization accelerate the cloud journey? | 7
HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO SUCCEED?
Once you have successfully migrated to Azure you have another decision to make — do you manage your
new cloud infrastructure yourself or outsource? As previously mentioned, chances are your IT department is
not expert at Azure management. That’s where Hanu Managed Services comes into play.
An extension of your IT team, HMA monitors and manages your application, data and infrastructure on a 24x7
basis. The benefits include Azure usage cost optimization, enhanced availability/uptime and affordable direct
access to technical experts.
Specifics:
Configuration and ongoing monitoring
• Notifications and alerts
• Monitoring 24X7: (PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, apps and data)
• AutoScale: Configuration and management (for ideal performance/cost balance)
• Incident reporting: Phone, e-mail, Web response time
◦◦ Broken down by severity level
▪▪ Severity A: two hours
▪▪ Severity B: four hours
▪▪ Severity C: eight hours
• Periodic first level health check audits and reporting of CPU, disk, memory utilization and bandwidth
How do you manage to succeed? | 8
Advanced management
• Troubleshooting and resolution
• Patching: OS, SPS and BTS servers, SQL Server
• Data backup and recovery via Azure Storage
◦◦ Azure SQL Database, SQL Server on Microsoft Azure VM
◦◦ On-demand restore
◦◦ Performance tuning
• Application deployment and configuration
• Load testing and capacity planning
• Application and infrastructure architecture guidance
• Application troubleshooting support
• Microsoft Azure data center downtime support
• Act as liaison with Microsoft Azure support team
How do you manage to succeed? | 9
EQUINIX — THE SECRET SAUCE
EVERYONE WANTS
There’s a reason Hanu solutions are deployed via Equinix IBX data centers. All Hanu solutions are based in
Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers, which feature the world’s most advanced
co-location and interconnection ecosystem options for the modern enterprise. The choice of Equinix was
based on several industry-leading factors including:
• Reliability – All IBX data centers are equipped with full UPS power, back-up systems and N+1
(or greater) redundancy, with a proven, industry-leading >99.9999% uptime record
• Power density – With robust heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, IBX data centers
exceed the requirements of even the most power-hungry deployments
• Security – Each IBX data center utilizes an array of security equipment, techniques and procedures to
control, monitor and record access to the facility, including individual cages
Equinix is also the Home of the Interconnected Cloud™. That means your company, through Hanu, can
always maximize your investment in Azure applications regardless of your business requirements.
The following is what makes it possible:
Equinix Cloud Exchange™
Now you can interconnect multiple clouds (private, public, hybrid and multi) quickly, simply and securely with
one-to-many or many-to-many virtual connections via a single physical port. Cloud Exchange works in tandem
with Microsoft ExpressRoute to deliver unparalleled performance from your Azure-based applications.
Learn more ►
Equinix Performance Hub™
Accelerate your Azure performance by distributing your data and applications across multiple IBX data centers
to access dense ecosystems of customers, cloud and network service providers.
Learn more ►
Equinix Data Hub™
An extension of Performance Hub, Data Hub solutions interconnect your organization to “data capacity
housing” by colocating data, analytics and clouds for improved real-time data interactions and insights.
Learn more ►
Interconnection Oriented Architecture™ (IOA™)
Interconnection empowers your company to connect to thousands of partners and customers. Adopting an
IOA strategy — which helps your IT teams build a portfolio of integrated cloud services — will position your
enterprise to realize the full potential of Azure’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Learn more ►
Put simply, there is no better home for your cloud operations than Equinix.
Equinix — the secret sauce everyone wants | 10
CONCLUSION
The hybrid cloud offers unparalleled opportunity for enterprise growth and success. But concerns over
security, performance and management — in addition to the challenges of migration itself — have kept many
companies from fully embracing the cloud.
Hanu and Equinix eliminate all barriers and concerns around hybrid cloud migration. Now enterprises like
yours can seamlessly incorporate all the power of the cloud into their operations — without placing undue
burdens on IT or the overall infrastructure. From basic planning to complex implementation, Hanu makes
every step effortless and easy for your internal teams to get up to speed. Every phase is customized to your
individual business requirements, including cost considerations, ensuring your cloud investment delivers
optimized ROI.
And since every Hanu solution is deployed via an Equinix IBX data center, you’re guaranteed a state-of-the-art
cloud ecosystem that can instantly grow and adapt as your company expands into new markets. An Equinix
IOA strategy can transform what’s possible with your enterprise initiatives, empowering your company to
achieve an unprecedented competitive advantage in any business environment.
To find out what Hanu and Equinix can do for your enterprise, contact your Hanu or Equinix representative,
or email us at:
Hanu Software
[email protected]
Equinix, Inc.
Dan Ohlson
Sr. Channel Director, New York & New England
[email protected]
Conclusion | 11
Corporate HQ
EMEA
Asia-Pacific
Equinix, Inc.
One Lagoon Drive
Redwood City, CA 94065
USA
Equinix (EMEA) BV
7th Floor Rembrandt Tower
Amstelplein 1
1096 HA Amsterdam
Netherlands
Equinix Hong Kong Limited
Units 6501-04A & 6507-08, 65/F
International Commerce Centre
1 Austin Road West
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Main: +1.650.598.6000
Email: [email protected]
Main: +31.20.754.0305
Email: [email protected]
Main: +852.2970.7788 
Email: [email protected]
About Equinix
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world’s leading
businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside
the most interconnected data centers. In 40 markets across five
continents, Equinix is where companies come together to realize new
opportunities and accelerate their business, IT and cloud strategies.
© 2016 Equinix, Inc.
Hanu White Paper v0616 WP-EN NC-CA 0516
Q116
In a digital economy where enterprise business models are
increasingly interdependent, interconnection is essential to
success. Equinix operates the only global interconnection platform,
sparking new opportunities that are only possible when companies
come together.
Equinix.com