Azure Cloud Management Gateway

Industry

Retail

Services used

Cloud Migration

Partners used

Azure SCCM

Overview

cloudEQ is working with this global Fortune 500 client in the Retail Service industry to lead a POC, Pilot and subsequent global roll out of Azure SCCM CMG (Cloud Management Gateway) global deployment.

Challenges & Mitigation

Concerns over changing technology and the criticality of delivery – Proved no impact
Package delivery latency – delivery improvements
Change management, training and education – little to no training required
Security restrictions at the endpoints and the cloud – addressed through Security appliances
Resource availability in country – Mitigated through reducing the effort to testing

Client's Goals

The client was in the process of a cloud migration lead by cloudEQ to consolidate services and retire physical data centers throughout the globe. As the client migrated the SCCM and SCOM environments to Azure they began encountering Intermittent MPLS (WAN) network service interruptions affecting other applications while deploying large packaged applications.

POC AND PILOT

To meet the initial goals, cloudEQ setup an Azure CMG – PaaS solution both domestically and internationally, establishing the initial footprint necessary for a POC. Working in conjunction with the local counties we established initial locations, security requirements, evaluation / success criteria, communication and testing timelines. Established a communication and risk mitigation strategy that includes:

Technical

Evaluation and Success criteria
Architecture documentation
Implementation guide
Pre-requisites
– Firewall rules
– Bandwidth requirements
– Configuration requirements
– Additional security requirements
– Deployment guide
Technical training & adoption material
Operationalization model & runbook
Monitoring, Support & troubleshooting guide

Non-Technical

Road show overview presentation
Project plan for global rollout
Communication matrix and strategy
Nonfunctional evaluation & success criteria
Training & adoption material

Results

The successful POC and Pilot solution took 6 months for requirements, build, evaluation and pilot deployment. The full This implementation gave them the capabilities to deploy packages via the store internet connection to Azure, increased efficiency of the deployments, in some cases upwards of 5 times faster. With this now deploying via the internet, we have eliminated the possible of MPLS network saturation.

Successes

We delivered the POC, Pilot and subsequent implementation of the global CMG solution in Azure domestically and internationally.
86% improvement in package speed delivery
Annual $2M WAN upgrade – Cost avoidance