Cloud placement you can explain
Open your last cloud invoice and try to account for every line on it. Most SMEs can't, because nobody decided where each workload should sit or revisited the cost since migration. Our cloud assessment maps what you're running and what it costs before we recommend a public, private or hybrid environment, so every line has a reason.
Where To Start Depends On What You Already Have
Every cloud engagement starts in a different place, depending on what’s already running. Start with an assessment if you’re not sure what you have, or go straight to the service that matches what you know needs attention.
Cloud Assessment
Know exactly what you're running, what everything costs, and where each workload should actually sit, before committing to a migration or a platform.
Private, Public & Hybrid Cloud
The right model per workload, not a one size fits all. Some workloads move to public cloud, some stay on premise, and some sit in between.
Microsoft Azure & Office 365
Licensing, configuration, and security for Microsoft's stack, managed end-to-end once the placement decision for the workload is made.
Backup as a Service
Automated, encrypted backup for whatever's running in the cloud, tested for restoration rather than assumed to work when you need it.
DR as a Service
A failover ready environment on standby for the workloads that can't afford downtime, not just a backup sitting in storage.
Email Management
Hosting, migration and day to day mailbox administration, handled without adding to your team's workload.
What Nobody Decided About Where Your Workloads Should Live
Cloud accounts don’t just fail on the sly, they leave tracks. Every workload that lands in a cloud environment without a deliberate placement leaves a mark somewhere: on the bill, on the security configuration, or on a compliance requirement nobody checked at the time. Here’s what that usually looks like inside a Johannesburg SME’s environment.
Spend
Resources get more provisions than the workload actually needs, and nobody resizes them once the rush to go live is over. Industry estimates put unnecessary cloud resources at 20 to 30 percent of total spend when nobody is managing it.
Placement
A workload lands on whatever platform was quickest to set up at the time, not the one that really suits it, and it stays there because moving it was never anyone's job. That's how vendor lock-in happens: not by design; by default.
Security
Every workload needs its own security configuration, not a copy of whatever the last one used. Access controls, encryption and logging get set once at migration and rarely get reviewed again after that.
Compliance
POPIA holds a business accountable for the personal data of South African data subjects regardless of where it's hosted. Few businesses can say with certainty where every workload's data actually sits today.
Review
Cloud is billed on consumption, so the invoice moves every month whether anyone is watching it or not. Without a scheduled review, cost only ever moves in one direction.
Cost And Security Reviewed Together, Every Month After Go-Live
Go-live isn’t the finish line. A cloud environment that’s secure and efficient at handover can drift out of both within a quarter if nobody’s reviewing it, because the platform keeps billing on usage and keeps offering new sharing permissions whether anyone’s watching or not.
Monthly Cost Review
Budgets, alerts and right sizing get checked every month against actual usage, not left to run until the invoice arrives.
Security Configuration, Revisited
Access controls, sharing permissions and conditional access get checked on a schedule, not only at migration. A setting that was correct in month one can be wrong by month six as staff, apps and permissions change.
Right Sizing, Not Sized Once
Consumption based billing means the bill changes with usage. Oversized resources from the original migration get flagged and adjusted as workloads change, rather than sized and left alone.
Compliance, Kept Current
Data residency and access records get reviewed as part of the same cycle, not treated as a separate project. Where governance needs to extend into formal policy and audit prep, our compliance advisory team is on it.
WHAT KEEPS YOU RUNNING WHEN THE HARDWARE DOESN'T
Most “the cloud is slow” tickets we get called into fix aren’t cloud problems at all. They’re environments sized for the migration, not for what the business actually runs day to day, with no plan for what happens when one piece fails.
What Actually Drives Your Cloud Bill Up Or Down
Cloud spend is billed on consumption, not a fixed hardware cost, so the invoice moves with how much you actually use, not what was budgeted in January. Three things drive it: how many workloads you run, which licence tier and compute size each sits on, and whether cloud management is standalone or bundled into your wider Microsoft 365 and Azure management.
Number Of Workloads And Their Compute Size
Licence Tier And Consumption Commitment You Choose
Standalone Engagement Or Bundled Into ESMS Support
Industry estimates commonly put wasted cloud spend at 20 to 30 percent where nobody actively governs it: unused seats, oversized instances, and licences nobody cancelled.
Who this is for
This fits businesses still running legacy on premise infrastructure that has never had a deliberate placement decision made, and businesses already on public cloud who suspect they are overpaying or badly configured. It also fits hybrid setups where some workloads need to move and others need to stay for compliance or cost reasons. If all you need is email hosting and migration, that has its own page.
How it Works
Frequently Asked questions
Will moving to the cloud mean downtime for our business?
Migration runs in planned waves, not one weekend cutover, each with its own rollback plan built in, the same discipline behind our DR as a Service failover setups. Most workloads cut over in an off hours maintenance window, so staff see near zero disruption.
How much will this actually cost us once we're in the cloud?
Cloud is billed on what you use each month, not a fixed hardware cost, so the number moves with usage instead of sitting still like a lease. Left unmanaged, that drift commonly wastes 20 to 30 percent of spend on unused or oversized resources industry wide, which is why we review and right size usage monthly rather than migrating and walking away.
Is our data hosted in South Africa, and does that matter for POPIA?
POPIA holds you accountable for the personal data of South African data subjects no matter where it is physically hosted, so hosting location is confirmed as part of the cloud readiness assessment before anything moves.
Can we move some workloads and leave others where they are?
Yes. A lot of our cloud clients come to us already migrated but under-managed or overspending, and that’s where we start.
What happens if the cloud ends up costing more than what we pay now?
That is exactly what the ongoing management catches: spend and configuration get reviewed on a schedule, not left to run until the invoice is a surprise, so a workload that turns out cheaper to keep on premise gets moved back rather than left drifting.
Who is responsible for our cloud environment once it is live, and what does that cost?
Once a workload is live it sits under ongoing management covering security configuration and cost review together.
Cloud Workload Placement Decided On Purpose, Never Left To Drift
A cloud assessment fixes workload placement first, then Azure and Office 365 spend gets reviewed against what it costs.