Category "Blog"

Enterprises migrating SAP workloads to AWS are looking for an as-is migration solution that are readily available. Earlier, enterprises used the traditional method of SAP backup and restore for migration or AWS-native tools such as AWS Server Migration Service to perform this type of migration. CloudEndure Migration is a new AWS-native migration tool for SAP customers.

Enterprises looking to host a large number of SAP systems onto AWS can use CloudEndure Migration without worrying about compatibility, performance disruption or long cutover windows. You can perform any re-architecture after your systems start running on AWS.

Solution Overview

CloudEndure Migration simplifies, expedites and reduces the cost of such migrations by offering a highly automated as-is migration solution. This blog demonstrates how easy it is to set up CloudEndure Migration and the steps involved in migrating SAP systems from source to AWS environment.

CloudEndure Migration Architecture

The following diagram shows the CloudEndure Migration architecture for migrating SAP systems.

Major steps for this migration are as below:

• Agent Installation
• Continuous Replication
• Testing and Cutover

CloudEndure helps you overcome the following migration challenges effectively:

• Diverse infrastructure and OS type
• Legacy application
• Complex database
• Busy continuously changing workloads
• Machine compatibility issues
• Expensive cloud skills required
• Downtime and performance disruptions
• Tight project timelines and limited budget

Use Cases 

The most common uses cases for CloudEndure Migration are:

• Lift and Shift, then optimize
• Vast majority of Windows/Linux servers when agent can be installed on source machine
• Replicating Block Storage devices like SAN, iSCSI, Physical, EBS, VMDK, VHD
• Replicating full machine/volume

Benefits

Access to advanced technology

Simplify operations and get better insights with AWS Application Migration Services integration with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, and other AWS Services.

Minimal downtime during migration

With AWS Application Migration Service, you can maintain normal business operations throughout the replication process. It continuously replicates source servers, which means little to no performance impact. Continuous replication also makes it easy to conduct non-disruptive tests and shortens cutover windows.

Reduced costs

AWS Application Migration Service reduces overall migration costs as there is no need to invest in multiple migration solutions, specialized cloud development, or application-specific skills. This is because it can be used to lift and shift any application from any source infrastructure that runs supported operating systems (OS).

Conclusion

This blog discussed how Sify can help its SAP customers migrating to AWS Cloud using CloudEndure tool. Sify would be glad to help your organization as your AWS Managed Services Partner for a tailor-made solution involving seamless cloud migration experience and for your Cloud Infrastructure management thereafter.

CloudEndure Migration software doesn’t charge anything as a license fee to perform automated migration to AWS. Each free CloudEndure Migration license allows for 90 days of use following agent installation. During this period, you can start the replication of your source machines, launch target machines, conduct unlimited tests, and perform a scheduled cutover to complete your migration.

This blog exclusively covers the options available in AWS to recover SAP HANA Database with low cost and without using native HSR tool of SAP. With a focus on low costs, Sify recommends choosing a cloud native solution leveraging EC2 Auto Scaling and AWS EBS snapshots that are not feasible in an on-premises setup.

Solution Overview

The Restore process leveraging Auto Scaling and EBS snapshots works across availability zones in a region. Snapshots provide a fast backup process, independent of the database size. They are stored in Amazon S3 and replicated across Availability Zones automatically, meaning we can create a new volume out of a snapshot in another Availability Zone. In addition, Amazon EBS snapshots are incremental by default and only the delta changes are stored since the last snapshot. To create a resilient highly available architecture, automation is key. All steps to recover the database must be automated in case something fails or goes wrong.

Autoscaling Architecture

The following diagram shows the Auto Scaling architecture for systems in AWS.

Use Case

EBS Snapshots

Prior to enabling EBS snapshots we must ensure the destination of log backups are written to an EFS folder which is available across Availability Zones.

Create a script prior to the command to be executed for an EBS snapshot. By using the system username and password, we make an entry into the HANA backup catalog to ensure that the database is aware of the snapshot backup. We use the snapshot feature to take a point in time and crash consistent snapshot across multiple EBS volumes without a manual I/O freeze. It is recommended to take the snapshot every 8-12 hours.

Now the log backups are stored in EFS and full backups as EBS snapshots in S3 and both sets are available across AZs. Both storage locations can be accessed across AZs in a region and are independent of an AZ.

EC2 Auto Scaling

Next, we create an Auto Scaling group with a minimum and maximum of one instance. In case of an issue with the instance, the Auto Scaling group will create an alternative instance out of the same AMI as the original instance.

We first create a golden AMI for the Auto Scaling group and the AMI is used in a launch configuration with the desired instance type. With a shell script in the user data, upon launch of the instance, new volumes are created out of the latest EBS snapshot and attached to the instance. We can use the EBS fast snapshot restore feature to reduce the initialization time of the newly created volumes.

If the database is started now (recently), it would have a crash consistent state. In order to restore it to the latest state, we can leverage the log backup stored in EFS which is automatically mounted by the AMI. Additional Care to be taken so that the SAP application server is aware of the new IP of the restored SAP HANA database server.

Benefits

• Better fault tolerance – Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can detect when an instance is unhealthy, terminate it, and launch an instance to replace it. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can also be configured to use multiple Availability Zones. If one Availability Zone becomes unavailable, Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can launch instances in another one to compensate.
• Better availability – Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling helps in ensuring the application always has the right capacity to handle the current traffic demand.
• Better cost management – Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can dynamically increase and decrease capacity, as needed. Since AWS has pay for the EC2 instances, billing model can be used to save money, by launching instances only when they are needed and terminating them when they aren’t.

Conclusion

This blog discussed how Sify can help SAP customers to save cost by automating recovery process for HANA database, using native AWS tools. Sify would be glad to help your organization as your AWS Managed Services Partner for a tailor-made SAP on AWS Cloud solution involving seamless cloud migration experience and for your Cloud Infrastructure management thereafter.

Cloud computing (which later became known as just Cloud), one of the technology trends since last few years, has become a game-changer. Cloud offered a platform for organizations not just to host their applications but also to maintain it / manage it and charge organizations on a pay-per-usage model. This translated into getting rid of the Capex (Capital expenditure on hardware/servers) and instead, opting for the flexible Opex (Operating Expenses) model which also helped organizations in slashing the manpower budget.

The biggest advantage of Cloud is its scalability – freedom to add/reduce storage/compute/network bandwidth as per the need within an agreed SLA-framework.

The rise of Cloud adoption led to two categories:

• Cloud as a hosting platform
• Cloud-based software/applications

Cloud as a hosting platform

This is more popularly known as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) wherein the service provider offers bundled services of Compute, Storage, Network & Security requirements.

Cloud providers deliver a computing platform, typically including operating system, programming language execution environment, database, and web server. Application developers can develop and run their software solutions on a cloud platform without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.

Based on the deployment options, Cloud is classified under Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud, which vary due to security considerations.

Why AWS

With some PaaS providers like AWS, the underlying compute and storage resources scale automatically to match application demand so that the cloud user does not have to allocate resources manually. They use a load balancer which distributes network or application traffic across a cluster of servers. Load balancing improves responsiveness and increases availability of applications.

As per a 2020 IDC study, over 85% of customers report cost reduction by running SAP on AWS.

Get consulting support, training, and services credits to migrate eligible SAP workloads with the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP).

AWS has been running SAP workloads since 2008, meaningfully longer than any other cloud provider. AWS offers the broadest selection of SAP-certified, cloud-native instance types to give SAP customers the flexibility to support their unique and changing needs.

Whether you choose to lift and shift existing investments to reduce costs, modernize business processes with native AWS services, or transform on S/4HANA, reimagining is possible with SAP on AWS.

When you choose AWS, you will be joining 5,000+ customers who trust the experience, technology, and partner community of AWS to migrate, modernize, and transform their SAP landscapes.

AWS & Sify collaboration

While AWS has been a global leader in Public Cloud services, in India Sify Technologies (one of the pioneers in the ICT domain & India’s first SSAE-16 Cloud certified provider) had designed its own Cloud called ‘CloudInfinit’ way back in 2013 and since then has been helping diverse organizations in moving their ERP applications, especially SAP workloads to its Cloud, seamlessly.

With Sify’s cloud@core strategy, customers can enjoy all facets of Cloud with complete visibility and control.

SIFY’s SAP deployment flexibility ON CLOUD

SAP on AWS hybrid cloud solutions

Use Cases

• Lifecycle Distribution: Separate Development and Test Environments
• Workload Distribution
• High Availability Deployments

Business Benefits

• Best of breed performance with Hybrid Cloud configuration
• Efficient integrations with extended ecosystems
• Compliance with data sovereignty
• Business continuity with resilience
• Simplicity with self service
• Operational efficiency with reduced IT administration
• Cost reduction with on-demand bursting to public clouds

Migration methodology

For SAP Migrations from on-premises or from any other Cloud to AWS, depending on various parameters like Prod. database size, available downtime window, source/target operating system/database, connectivity/link speed etc., we have been using various ways for seamless migration briefly explained below.

SAP SYSTEMS monitoring

Once SAP workloads are moved to AWS, Sify’s Managed Services takes care of every aspect, including monitoring the Operating System, Database, Connectivity, Security, Backup etc. as per the agreed SLAs. It also monitors the mission-critical SAP systems closely as depicted in diagram below.

Conclusion

Cloud, the scalable, flexible and yet robust hosting platform allows you to use your ERP workloads as well as SaaS applications effectively. Going by the increasing number of customers moving to Cloud, it is certain that Cloud is not vaporware, it is here to stay and only to grow bigger and safer by the day! It would also necessitate organizations to chart out a Smart Cloud strategy.

According to Gartner, most of midsize and enterprise customers will be adopting a hybrid or a multi-cloud strategy. Companies have already realized that in order to move to public cloud, it is important to structure workload in hybrid cloud model.

Companies must understand that hybrid IT is not an easy methodology and therefore they must organize their existing IT resources and application workloads both on-premises and in public cloud efficiently to accomplish the goals of hybrid model. Additionally, they must also look for right skills for different private/public clouds and different sets of tools from respective cloud providers.

At Sify, we define some guidelines and structure to right fit your workloads in Hybrid Cloud. Please read on to know how Sify can help customers identify the right cloud (from the set of appropriate private and/or private clouds) for different sets of workloads.

Unique Challenges in Hybrid Cloud

In hybrid cloud, there are some unique challenges that businesses need to address first. key challenges that need to be addressed while designing solution on Hybrid Cloud are mentioned herein.

• Generally, it is very difficult to identify the most suitable cloud environment and manage the cost of different clouds.
• Though all cloud environments are powerful in providing features like scalability and elasticity, however the process of managing a hybrid cloud is quite a complex task.
• Security Risks: The threat of data breach or data loss is perhaps the biggest challenge faced during hybrid cloud adoption. Generally, companies prefer on-premises private cloud to protect data locally. However, in order to ensure top-tier security of data and applications on hybrid cloud, companies must draft robust data protection policies and procedures.

Identify Applications for Hybrid Cloud

It is very important to identify applications for hybrid cloud, and your decision must be based on application’s architecture, behavior and user accessibility. Below are some key points to remember while designing Hybrid Cloud strategy: –

• Consider the compatibility of applications before deciding whether you want to continue running the applications in an on-prem cloud environment or migrate them to Public Cloud.
• Identify the running cost/budget for an application and compare it with different cloud providers to choose the most suitable cloud platform that suits your budgetary outlines and business requirements.
• Pay due attention to licensing requirements before migrating to Public/Private Cloud because a minor loophole in this aspect can have a major impact on the overall business.
• Re-look experience of existing IT team to manage different Private/Public cloud seamlessly.

Why VMC on AWS as Hybrid Cloud Choice?

VMware Cloud (also called as VMC) on AWS brings VMware’s enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Centre software to the AWS Cloud and enables customers to run production applications across VMware vSphere-based private, public, and hybrid cloud environments, with optimized access to AWS services.

AWS is VMware’s preferred public cloud partner for all vSphere-based workloads. The VMware and AWS partnership delivers a faster, easier, and cost-effective path to the hybrid cloud while allowing customers to modernize applications enabling faster time-to-market and increased innovation.

New Amazon EC2 i3en.metal instances for VMware Cloud on AWS, powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors, deliver high networking throughput and lower latency so you can migrate data centres to the cloud for rapid data centre evacuation, disaster recovery, and application modernization.

VMC on AWS can be the right choice because VMware is trusted as a trusted virtualization platform for many years in the industry and enterprise VMware ensures that all your applications run seamlessly. Plenty of companies are already running on VMware platform and have applications running on it. Below are some key identifiers for VMC on AWS:

• VMware SDDC is running on bare metal, which is delivered, operated, supported by VMware
• On-demand scalability and flexible consumption
• Full operational consistency with on-premises SDDC
• Seamless workload portability and hybrid operations
• Global AWS footprint, reach, and availability
• Native AWS services accessibility

How VMC on AWS Solution Works?

VMware Cloud on AWS infrastructure runs on dedicated, single tenant hosts provided by AWS in a single account. Each host is equivalent to an Amazon EC2 I3.metal instance (2 sockets with 18 cores per socket, 512 GiB RAM, and 15.2 TB Raw SSD storage). Each host is capable of running many VMware Virtual Machines (tens to hundreds depending on their compute, memory and storage requirements). Clusters can range from a minimum 3 hosts up to a maximum of 16 hosts per cluster. A single VMware vCenter server is deployed per SDDC environment.

How do We Access AWS Services?

For companies that are using VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) as production environment for their business-critical application, it will require connectivity to an AWS account. This is enabled by an AWS elastic network interface which provides a 25Gbps connectivity between VMC and AWS. Applications deployed on VMC can leverage native AWS services for storage, EC2 instances, RDS Databases, load balancing and DNS routing, etc., providing customers with the best of both worlds. These native services can be accessed from applications deployed on VMC and include:

• Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Elastic File Service (EFS)
• Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

Sify’s Value Propositions to Help Customer Who are Looking for Hybrid Cloud Solutions

Sify has been in the Cloud industry since 2012 and has its own cloud for enterprise customers which can be tailored based on the requirement. Over the last few years, Sify has been involved in large enterprise customer requirement understanding, solutions & implementation across Private, Public & Hybrid Clouds.

Sify has dedicated, experienced and certified SMEs involved during solution stage and implementation and to provide operations services which will enable businesses to accelerate the adoption of Hybrid Cloud.

Our approach is to identify potential use cases for Hybrid Cloud options for VMC on AWS and native AWS services during the initial assessment and design phase, and we also suggest the most suitable services that can help customers meet the strategic goals. These services include the following:

• Discovery Workshop
• Assessment
• Build and Migrate

Feel free to contact us to provide your organization a tailored solutions with the required support across the various stages of the setup of VMC & AWS and migration of workloads.

With the increased demand in scalability and flexibility of the infrastructure for organization to ramp up and speed up the go-to-market approach, it has become necessary to adopt the Public Cloud which can tackle this challenge efficiently. Therefore, businesses are looking for simple, reliable, and rapid migration of on-premises workload to Public Cloud with minimal disruption. Sify, being an AWS Advance Partner, has successfully carried out many large cloud migrations for several customers using CloudEndure and the best practices it brings in.

CloudEndure is a SaaS service offering from AWS to migrate workload from any source (physical, virtual, or private/public cloud) to AWS, from one AWS region to other AWS account (within same Account), and across different AWS accounts. It uses block level continuous replication to replicate data on to the target AWS environment.

To replicate data from source machine to target machine, we need to install agent on the source machine and should have the required CloudEndure license for migration. The migration license has expiry date post which the data replication stops.

The Continuous Data Replication task is performed and pushed to the staging area (includes Replication Server, EBS Volume, S3 Storage, Subnets and IP). The CloudEndure Service Manager ensures the co-ordination among the Source Machine, Replication Server and the Target Server.

Three points of contact for CloudEndure’ s components with the external network:

• The CloudEndure Agent needs to communicate with the CloudEndure Service Manager.
• The CloudEndure Agent needs to communicate with the CloudEndure Replication Servers.
• CloudEndure Replication Servers need to communicate with the CloudEndure Service Manager and S3.

CloudEndure helps you overcome below migration challenges effectively:

• Diverse infrastructure and OS type
• Legacy application
• Complex database
• Busy continuously changing workloads
• Machine compatibility issues
• Expensive cloud skills required
• Downtime and performance disruptions
• Tight project timelines and limited budget

Best Migration Practices that CloudEndure recommends:

Planning

• Begin by mapping out a migration strategy that identifies clear business motives and use cases for moving to the cloud.
• Migrate in phases/waves or conduct a pilot light migration in which you start with the least business-critical workloads.
• Do not perform any reboots on the source machines prior to a cutover.
• When scheduling your cutover, ensure that you allow enough time for data replication to complete and for all necessary testing to be carried out.

Licensing

• Ensure that you have sufficient migration licenses for your project.
• CloudEndure Migration license is free for 90 days of use following agent installation on source machine.
• While the use of CloudEndure Migration is free, you will incur charges for any AWS infrastructure that is provisioned during migration and after cutover, such as compute (EC2) and storage (EBS) resources.

Testing

• Check and optimize the network needed for migration.
• Perform a test at least one week before you plan to migrate your source This time frame is intended for identifying potential problems and solving them, before the actual cutover takes place.
• Train the staff early on CloudEndure and mitigate any risk during testing phase only.
• Ensure connectivity to your target machines (using SSH for Linux or RDP for Windows) and perform acceptance tests for your application.

Successful Implementation

• Cutover the machine on planned date.
• Carry out the acceptance test for the application migrated and functionality.
• Remove Source machines from the console after the cutover has been completed in order to clean up the staging area, reduce costs, and remove no longer needed replication resource.

Use cases

The Most Common uses cases for CloudEndure Migration are:

• Lift and Shift, then optimize
• Vast majority of Windows/Linux server when agent can be installed on source machine
• Replicating Block Storage devices like SAN, iSCSI, Physical, EBS, VMDK, VHD
• Replicating full machine/volume

Conclusion

You must keep these above points in mind while migrating to AWS using CloudEndure to reap the desirable outcomes. Sify would be glad to help your organization as your AWS Managed Services Partner for a tailor-made solution involving seamless, cloud migration experience and for your Cloud Infrastructure management thereafter.

Taking steps to meet your legal obligations may sound obvious, but only fulfilling your minimum requirements might result in missed opportunities. Understanding the compliance needs that govern your business will help you take advantage of any benefits while ensuring you stay compliant.

Companies that have compliance as a key component of their learning and development culture and have it fully integrated into their business processes will perform better. Why? Their employees have a higher level of satisfaction, resulting in improved productivity and employee retention. Their reputation and brand perception is better, which results in better economic performance in the marketplace. Safety records improve reducing both cost and risk.

Companies that do not adopt a compliance culture and ethical behaviour put themselves at risk. Organisations with poor compliance reputations will have a harder time recruiting and retaining the best talent and customers.

With global 24/7 news coverage and the reach of social media, word of damaging compliance issues can spread quickly to a large audience.

Visit the Financial Conduct Authority website for guidance on money laundering laws and regulations

A well-planned compliance strategy can help companies grow revenue in many ways, such as:

• Winning or retaining contracts that have safety or other compliance performance requirements.
• Enhancing brand image and reputation, which may attract more customers.
• Attracting the best talent who want to work for a company with a reputation and culture they can be proud of.
• Motivating employees with training and developing plans to be more productive and enjoy their roles.

6 Factors to Consider Ahead of Your Compliance Journey

1. Get Leadership Buy-in

   Your compliance journey must start with commitment from the leadership team to achieve behaviour change. Executives need to define and own the risk management process.

2. Identify Risks

   Risks to the organisation should be identified and prioritised. High-risk issues will require the greatest commitment to training and to achieve behavioural change. Low-risk issues should receive less attention.

3. Align Risks to Business Goals

   Once the risks have been prioritised, they should be aligned to support key business goals and incorporated into your business strategy. Key goals may include revenue growth, expense reduction, risk reduction, and employee safety.

   Next, a training program should be planned to train the right people, on the appropriate subjects, in the right way. The learnings from the training should be embedded in the daily routine of employees and practised on the job.

4. Be Strategic with Training

   Many compliance training programs overlook the emotional aspect of training. Emotional training messages help your team feel that the company is looking out for their safety and well-being.

   By instilling pride in working for an ethical company, employees will stay longer and work harder to support company goals. People enjoy feeling that they are a part of something good that is bigger than themselves. Help employees understand that bad behaviour may have dire consequences.

5. Be Relevant

   Your compliance training program needs to target the right job roles for each training format. Nothing will annoy employees faster than a training course that is of no help to them in their role.

6. Develop Metrics

   Meaningful metrics for the compliance program should be established at the onset. Metrics should be aligned around the key company goals that the compliance program has been designed to support.

   The compliance program should be implemented in such a way that data for the metrics can be easily collected and reported via a Learning Management System. Targets for the metrics should be realistic and achievable. When targets are unachievable, people are not motivated to reach them.

Read the full eBook, Shifting Mindsets: Adopting a Compliance Journey to learn more

Conclusion

Your compliance journey is a marathon, not a sprint. It is important to keep your team motivated throughout their learning experiences to keep the momentum going. Here are some ideas to consider:

• Share success stories with your employees of how your compliance program has succeeded in helping the company reach its goals.
• Tell the outside world about your compliance program successes. This will help enhance the reputation and brand perception of your organisation and help recruit the best talent.
• Empower your employees. Provide a Learning Management System that provides easy access to digital learning content that will help them in their jobs.
• Create learning experiences that are engaging and maximise learning technologies to provide high-quality content.
• Proactively seek feedback and survey, listen to the concerns of employees, and act quickly to respond to needs.

The benefits of strategically using compliance to support business objectives are clear. A people-centric compliance culture can help organisations reach important goals, such as revenue growth, cost and risk reduction, and improved safety. The risks of failing to adopt a compliance culture can be severe.

Integrate your Cloud, Core, and Edge

With the advent of IoT, pervasive mobility, and growing cloud service adoption, the network has become increasingly distributed, and the need for faster compute and connectivity at the edge has become more pronounced.

As organizations increasingly drive digital transformation initiatives and adopt hybrid multi-cloud, the network must be rearchitected to support new-age topologies. Hence, Network Transformation gains predominance. Network Transformation and re-architecture must play out at all the 3 points of presence of the Network – at the Network Core, Network Management layer, and the Network Edge.

Let us look at the significance of the Transformation at these 3 layers and the contribution that Sify is bringing at each of these points of presence.

Transformation at the Network Core

With Cloud adoption, Data Center is no more the Core of the network. As enterprises are moving their applications to the cloud on consumption-based models for enhanced business productivity, it has become important to secure connectivity to the Cloud and extend the Quality of Service to a hybrid multi-cloud environment. Hence, the transformation of the network at the Core is essential for improved agility, enhanced productivity, and scalability.

Sify’s Transformation Services at the Core are designed to help customers harness the true potential of cutting-edge cloud, digital, and network technologies. We help our customers accomplish their transformation goals and meet dynamic business requirements capably by providing Cloud Interconnect networks, which enable customers to establish direct connectivity between their private and public cloud infrastructure and fully realize the benefits of hybrid cloud architecture. With our Hyperscale Cloud partnerships and the Cloud Interconnect Networks, combined with expertise to deploy technologies like SDWAN & NFV, we hold a distinct level of expertise in network integration and transformation for a hybrid multi-cloud environment.

Transformation at the Network Management and Control Layer

As networks become more & more complex, organizations nowadays are leveraging multiple network service providers, and they have distributed nature of applications and end-users. This has resulted in a very complex network architecture. Moreover, monitoring and management of these complex and distributed networks and network elements have become very critical. Network Management & Control requires a distinct level of expertise, advanced tools, and automation platforms, and hence makes good business sense to outsource the management to an expert who has the benefit of scale, experience, and toolsets to deliver the same. The customer can in turn focus on his core business.

Empowered with a robust Network Operating Center, Sify offers a wide spectrum of Network Consolidation, Network Transformation, and Operations Outsourcing solutions. Sify can manage customer’s as-is WAN network architecture, provide 24×7 monitoring of links, undertake incident management, change management, and can yet ensure unified SLA management across multiple service providers in a single-window provision. Not only this, but Sify also helps customers in network study & assessment and consulting for Network Re-Architecture and Managed Services.

Transformation at the Network Edge

Network Edge is the bridge between an organization and its end customers to deliver enhanced user experience and employee productivity. It is a strategic gateway to connect widely distributed organizations. The traditional networks cannot accommodate the new IoT devices, sensors, and plethora of Edge devices that are connected and managed at the Edge. Therefore, it is crucial to adopt transformation of the network at the edge to meet the requirements of the end devices and make them an integral part of the Enterprise Networks.

Sify Edge Connect Services include advisory services like an assessment of customer requirement with respect to coverage and performance. Further, we ensure end-to-end implementation of customer’s WiFi network, which includes configuring guest access and incorporating employee authentication & access. Our highly secure platform provides insight into user patterns and analytics such as the location of users, applications browsed, etc. Sify also provides deep visibility and control of the performance and usage of applications. In addition, Sify Edge Services include IoT services and aggregation and integration of the same with the Enterprise Network.

While rearchitecting your network, it is important to include aspects connecting the above three points of presence of users and applications. This will help you architect a network that delivers efficiency and is future-ready. However, the majority of organizations lack the necessary skills and expertise to envision and manage such a complex transformation, and that is where Sify Technologies can be your partner in this transformation journey.

What makes Sify the preferable partner for Network Transformation?

Sify is the largest Information and Communications Technology service provider in India, serving 10,000+ businesses across multiple industries with its impeccable Cloud and Data Center services, Network services, Security services, Digital Services, and Application Services. Our industry-wide experience of working with diverse clients, skilled workforce to manage varied network transformation projects, and the Technology Partner ecosystem, makes us the most trusted Network Transformation partner for India Enterprises.

Today, Network Integration, Network Transformation, and Managed Services are the key differentiators. That’s where Sify can help businesses achieve their strategic goals. As a strong, capable ICT transformation partner, Sify brings in the integrated skillsets, processes, and tools that are required for a seamless transition in a cost-effective way. Add to this, Sify’s engineering capabilities are the best in class and help our customers design innovative solutions that are custom-built to suit their business needs.

In the digital age, migration to Cloud has become the top-most priority for businesses across realms. We are seeing major shift in the number of ‘Cloud Hostile’ customers turning into ‘Cloud Friendly’ & ‘Cloud Ready’ customers and pondering on the best plan to implement the migration successfully.

One of the major reasons behind this trend – besides performance, security, and cost – is agility & flexibility which help in faster business innovations. Organizations have started transforming themselves digitally to drive business value and grow business with enhanced end user experience.

Over the past few years, Microsoft has earned massive popularity among organizations worldwide for being a leading Cloud provider with – Azure, Microsoft 365 (M365) and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Microsoft Azure is a highly productive, hybrid, and intelligent Cloud that allows you to leverage the power of cutting-edge digital technologies to build, deploy and manage critical applications as per your company’s requirements. It also provides Cloud enhanced services like AI/ML, RPA, Analytics tools, and integrated Cloud resources to make your organization more agile and improve top-line performance.

Considering the above benefits, many forward-looking businesses are exploring Cloud-powered services to optimize internal processes and generate new business models. However, this digital aspiration is incomplete without transforming the technology landscape first. A strong technology foundation provided by Microsoft will help you connect your disparate data, processes, users, and applications to accomplish the end objective of organizational excellence.

Achieving all these is not as simple as it may seem initially! That’s where, Sify’s consultative approach can help you leverage the true value of Microsoft Services and align your organizational roadmap with the ever-evolving technology landscape.

Azure Migration: The most successful path

Different organizations have distinct approach towards Cloud migration, and their decisions are governed by business specific priorities and constraints. You must know that Cloud migration involves significant organizational change management across people, process, and technology. It’s very important to draft a holistic approach to migrate successfully and realize the benefits of efficiency, agility, and cost.

With Sify as your strategic partner, you are perfectly positioned to draft, implement, and monitor the overall migration plan in the most successful way. Our team of Cloud experts, Azure certified professionals, cutting-edge toolchains, and partner ecosystem can help you accomplish migration goals successfully. We can help you across all three phases of migration – assessment, migration, and optimization.

Assessment: This is the first phase of migration journey, which includes assessing and discovering your on-premises apps, data, and infrastructure. Our comprehensive range of assessment services can help you map dependencies across applications and decide their priority of Azure migration for a seamless journey.

Migration: The actual migration begins in this phase, where you start moving your apps, data and infrastructure – leveraging the best-suited migration strategies and tools. Our migration services will help you automate the entire migration journey (depending upon your IT specific needs) and minimize the downtime.

Optimization: Once you have moved to Cloud, it becomes important to monitor your Cloud resources continuously for better performance, enhanced security, and reduced cost. Our services will help you maximize your ROI and leverage unified visibility of Cloud resources for efficient resource utilization and optimization.

Sify + Azure Advantage

• Single window solution provider (Network, Security, Azure IT and Management)
• End-to-end Azure service coverage: Access – Architect – Migrate – Manage – Secure
• Integrated Azure network and security proposition
• Unified Dashboard across Azure IT
• Simplified Execution and single point of ownership

Know more about transforming your IT Infrastructure with Sify’s Azure capabilities.

Microsoft 365 – Mail migration

With Office 365 becoming the de-facto mode for conducting business, it is important to modernize the underlying infrastructure and platform. It is imperative for enterprises to move their legacy exchange and other mailboxes to Office 365 in order to reap full benefits of their workflow optimizations. Additionally, Office 365 offers the benefit of pay per use pricing for optimizing cost.

So in case, you are exploring the possibilities to conceptualize and implement your cloud migration in the most success-driven manner, Sify can help you embark on a successful Microsoft Cloud journey.

Our Accreditations

• Microsoft Certified Partner for Cloud & Managed Services
• Certified Deployment Partner for deployment of M365 & Azure services
• Express Route Partnership for seamless connectivity with MS Cloud Azure & Microsoft 365
• Certified team for Migration & Deployment of MS SQL workloads
• Certified team for deployment of Hybrid Cloud Platform

In today’s hyper-connected and fast-paced global marketplace, connectivity is the lifeblood needed to keep businesses running smoothly. Enterprise, small or large, need reliable and fast communication networks to work and grow.

MPLS with its ‘labeling protocol’ provides organizations with a communication network that is completely dependable, fast, flexible and cost effective. The obvious and many benefits of MPLS Connectivity is driving businesses to consider switching to MPLS networks, but with the industry inundated by a wide range of services and management models the process of selecting an MPLS service provider can be long and complicated.

How do you evaluate the various telecom service providers and their offerings to get the best possible solution for your requirements? We list out the 5 key criteria that you need to consider.

Network coverage and reach of the MPLS service provider

The first thing that business need to check, is the network coverage offered by the service provider. Do all your desired locations fall under the network carrier’s footprint and in case you need global connectivity can they offer reliable international coverage? The coverage and reach of the service provider will directly impact issues such as latency, jitter, resilience and cost of the MPLS network.

Network project management and monitoring

Complex networks require constant management to run smoothly. Proactive management can lead to reduced costs and downtimes and enhanced security. Businesses need to understand the details of pricing and the scope of services offered under the head of network management and monitoring services. Do they monitor the entire network? Can they provide managed services to free up IT staff?

Complete MPLS Network Security

Security capabilities of the MPLS service provider need to be scrutinized closely. Businesses need to ensure that service providers are able to support and monitor the entire network closely and provide access to a dedicated security infrastructure including experienced NOC engineers to ensure guaranteed uptime.

Compare SLAs and check references

Another surefire way to assess the capabilities of the service provider is to check the SLAs (Service Level Agreements) offered. While experienced service providers with tested capabilities are usually willing to back their services with SLAs, it pays off to compare SLAs of several MPLS network providers. It is also helpful to look at their existing clients and check references to evaluate their performance.

Class of Service and Quality of Service

Businesses need to evaluate and understand the classes of service (COSs) offered by the carrier. How the carrier consolidates and prioritizes various traffic types will affect the Quality of Service (QoS). It is important that these COSs match your business requirement and the contract with the service provider clearly defines and states these service commitments.

While the above mentioned points form a base to shortlist the right MPLS network provider, other points, such as routing protocols, staff expertise, 3^rd party partnerships, network architecture and future scalability capabilities, must also form a part of the decision making process.

Although cost always plays a big role in any business decision, alignment to your business’ current and future needs and long-term goals should be the deciding factor. After all, your MPLS Network will form the backbone of your business for a long time to come.

Sify Technologies is uniquely positioned to cater to the MPLS Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity requirements of Large & Emerging Enterprise customers through its SiteConnect™ services which enable cost-effective converged network solutions that enable point to point data, voice and video traffic. Sify’s carrier-grade next-generation network core offers stringent SLA-based converged data, voice and video traffic support.

Simplify your Network Transformation with Sify

The business world is witnessing an unprecedented transformation as organizations across verticals are passionate to embrace new technologies. Cloud, Analytics, Automation, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning are some major forces that are enabling enterprises to deliver a top-tier experience to customers. As organizations nowadays are highly reliant on these emerging technologies to achieve organizational excellence, one must acknowledge that all cutting-edge technologies require an intelligent and robust network. There are numerous factors that are fundamentally redefining the ways new-age networks work and function. The emergence of new global trends and multiple new technology trends have compelled organizations to demand more from networks. This blog discusses:

• Major global and technology trends that have paved the way for network transformation.
• New-age network architecture and design for Intelligent Network services
• How Sify can help you in your network transformation journey with a wide range of Intelligent Network Services.

Global Business Trends leading to increased demands from Networks

• Hyperconnected Enterprises:
  In the digital age, global organizations rely on a multitude of connections for geographically distributed people, processes, and devices. Also, the increasing adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud has compelled global enterprises to become hyperconnected. For such hyperconnected enterprises, a scalable network is quite critical to deliver top-tier services to customers across the globe through digital technologies.
• Digital Business Transformation:
  In line with their digital ambition, organizations worldwide are looking to leverage Cloud-native technologies such as analytics, mobility, IoT, AI, and ML to modernize and develop new processes, services, and models for generating new revenue streams. An intelligent and adaptable network can quickly adjust according to evolving requirements, facilitating seamless transformation.
• Automation and Robotics:
  Several enterprises rely on Automation, Robotics, and Robotic Process Automation to improve operational efficiency, quality of services, and customer satisfaction score. The use of Automation and Robotics in the coming years will continue to surge as companies look to improve quality, workforce productivity, customer satisfaction, and more. This is even more relevant than ever in the pandemic-stricken world. As automation of processes is time-sensitive and mission-critical, enterprises will need round-the-clock availability and reliability from their distributed networks as even a minor lapse in network availability or reliability can potentially hamper the process flow and affect overall efficiencies and customer satisfaction.

Technology Trends powering fundamental Network Transformation

• Applications being modularized and distributed across Clouds: Recently, hybrid Cloud and microservices have gained massive prominence across business verticals. The majority of software applications are being modularized and distributed across public Clouds and network edge. To support applications across such a distributed landscape, the network needs to transform fundamentally. There is a need for Networks to be agile, seamless, secure, and responsive to dynamic application landscapes.

• IoT and M2M integration with mainstream Networks: The exponential rise in the number of IoT devices worldwide highlights the need for smart Machine-to-Machine communication. This means the network must capably provide connectivity to all the IoT devices and integrate them smartly with mainstream networks.

• Pervasive Mobility: Owing to the anywhere data center and anywhere user access, there is a need for a robust network to allow users to access applications on Cloud. As anticipated, mobile users will continue to grow in the years to come and they would need round-the-clock high-performance connectivity to access applications on Cloud from private devices over Wi-Fi or 4G networks. Therefore, to cater to this rapidly growing mobile population, it becomes imperative to strengthen the Edge connectivity to these vast diverse, and distributed user base. Edge Transformation is predicted to be the next big wave in the Networking space. As per Gartner – by 2025, 75% of enterprise-generated data in industrial settings will be created and processed at the edge.

• Immersive video experience: User experience has taken the center stage in the digital era, therefore enterprises are keen to make the video experience more immersive. They have started leveraging the power of digital media technologies, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and immersive 3D environments to ensure a top-tier experience. This is placing greater demands on enterprise networks as video experience is totally dependent on low-latency and high availability infrastructure. Moreover, enterprises also want their networks to provide end-to-end bandwidth and dynamic performance controls to further make the experience more enriching.

New-age network architecture and design for Intelligent Network Services

In response to emerging trends and the fast-changing IT landscape, organizations need to rethink network architecture and design strategies to drive digital transformation. It becomes quite critical to align network capabilities in accordance with the changing business requirements and modern topologies. In this light, some of the expectations from Intelligent Network Services are the following:

• Support the fast-changing set of users, applications, devices, and services and unify them intelligently for top-tier user and application experience
• Seamlessly connect between distributed IT assets and applications in a DC and hybrid multi-cloud environment
• Leverage Software and other functionalities to control, rather than physical access and distributed policy control
• Leverage the cutting-edge technologies and algorithms to collect, assimilate, analyze, and visualize networking information in real time for better visibility and control

To achieve the above objectives, there are 3 broad aspects that the IT leaders must follow while designing and architecting the new-age network architecture.

Networking architecture for anywhere Data Center:
Organizations nowadays have their applications and data spread across Data Centers, Clouds, and Edge environments in diverse geographical regions. To meet the requirements of this diverse hybrid ICT landscape, organizations need new networking architecture that is ready for Cloud, meets application connectivity demands, and ensures technology and operational consistency across locations. Therefore, the new-age network must facilitate faster and safer modes of data transfer across Data Centers, Cloud, and Edge devices. This highlights the significance of Cloud-ready Networks with DC Interconnects and Cloud Connect capabilities.

Being a trusted ICT company, Sify ensures a Cloud-ready Network, comprising of Data Center Interconnects, Hyperscale Cloud Connects, and Internet Exchanges for carrier neutrality. Our Cloud-ready Network provides you with deterministic and secure connectivity to move applications, middleware, and database workloads between private infrastructure and Cloud for improved application performance.

Hybrid WAN and Application performance-focused Network Architecture:
In the age of hybrid and multi-cloud, it becomes critical for organizations to have a well-thought-out network strategy for distributed workloads, data footprints, applications, services, and microservices. With the rise in multi-cloud adoption, the legacy hub-and-spoke WAN architecture can hold organizations back. The shift from Data Centers towards Cloud has resulted in the more prevalent use of the SLA-defined Internet (in addition to MPLS) as a reliable and pervasive way to establish robust connectivity. Hence, modern-day businesses need a hybrid WAN strategy – the use of internet for business applications along with MPLS. This means the new-age network must enable the hybrid WAN and be smart enough to adapt to the changing application performance demands in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment, ensuring better performance.

Herein, Software Defined Networking can enable fundamental network transformation. SDN can help accomplish the goals of network transformation – agility, flexibility, and application centricity – by intelligently controlling the network architecture using software applications.

• Software Defined Networking facilitates flexible network architectures, which can utilize multiple network connectivity options (MPLS/ILL/BB/4G-LTE/Internet) which help leverage a Hybrid WAN strategy for the evolving DC and Cloud landscape
• SD-WAN ensures application awareness and complete visibility of site-wise utilization of various applications, which paves way for better performance, availability, and security.
• SD-WAN leverages the power of Cloud-based monitoring and management platform for centralized, real-time visibility of all resources.
• SD-WAN solutions can be easily integrated with legacy network architectures, which enable phase-wise migration of sites.

Sify’s SD-WAN platform is hosted in Secure Cloud, and our experts perform all the monitoring and management functions from the state-of-the-art NOC. This helps you maintain distance with different configuration tasks at branch sites and focus on your core business. Our SD-WAN solutions – coupled with end-to-end Managed Network Services – drive efficiencies, reduce cost, and optimize multi-cloud connectivity.

Centralized visibility, control, and insights of the Network:
Organizations need complete visibility and control over network connectivity to make the most of their Cloud investment. They would also want their network to provide intelligent insights that enable data-driven decision-making. An intelligent network can help businesses with automated and effortless orchestration of network resources. However, enabling a network with comprehensive intelligence is not as simple as it seems, because it requires a well-established network management practice with well-integrated toolsets.

Currently, only a few network service providers, such as Sify Technologies, have the assets, capabilities, and expertise to deliver Intelligent Network Services. We ensure centralized management of the network, powered with the capacity of SDN, to bring in the highest level of visibility and control of the entire network landscape. We offer a comprehensive range of Network Management Services on flexible outcome-based models – shared NOC Services, Hybrid NOC Services, and Dedicated NOC Services – from our state-of-the-art Network Operating Center.

Sify’s network experts ensure 24×7 proactive monitoring and management of network connectivity of devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls, and provide comprehensive reporting of various network parameters such as availability, performance, and security.

Conclusion

The emerging business and technology trends have compelled enterprises to empower their network with inherent intelligence built into them. This needs fundamental network transformation and re-architecting from the ground up, to suit evolving DC and Cloud landscape, distributed/mission-critical applications, and network orchestration needs.

Being a strategic network transformation partner, Sify helps you transform your network into a robust and intelligent asset. We provide Intelligent Network Services which include Cloud-ready Networks, Software-defined WAN, and centralized Network Managed Services, to accelerate your digital transformation with the robust foundation of a fast, secure, and future-ready network.