THE BRAINTREE APPROACH
Assess, Land, Migrate, Optimise.
The migration is one stage of the relationship. Braintree starts with the workloads and the cost model, then builds the foundation needed to operate them. Moving to Azure and taking over an existing estate require different starting work.
01
Assess
Review infrastructure, application dependencies, security posture and business demand. Establish the migration scope and cost assumptions before choosing the target architecture or committing to a cutover.
02
Land
Prepare identity, networking, governance and the security baseline in the landing zone. Select regions against service availability, data requirements and the architecture the business needs.
03
Migrate
Move workloads in an agreed sequence. Test and validate each move, with dependencies, business acceptance and recovery arrangements considered before the change window.
04
Optimise
Review consumption against the work the estate supports. Examine right-sizing, reservations and eligible Azure Hybrid Benefit alongside monitoring, resilience and ownership of ongoing operations.
SERVICE SCOPE
What’s in scope.
01
Landing zones and architecture
Define the identity, network, subscription and policy foundations for Azure workloads. The source service includes management structure, private connectivity and governance expressed through repeatable infrastructure definitions using Bicep or Terraform where appropriate.
02
Workload migration
Assess servers, storage, networks and application dependencies before planning a move. Define workload groups, validation, business acceptance and a rollback approach so the migration sequence reflects the systems that depend on one another.
03
Monitoring and security posture
Connect Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and Defender for Cloud to a defined operational scope. Establish which signals are collected, who owns an alert, how an incident is escalated and what security findings need action.
04
Cost and resource management
Use Microsoft Cost Management and Azure Advisor to review consumption, allocation and resource fit. Assess reservations and Azure Hybrid Benefit against eligible workloads, licensing evidence and expected demand before making a commitment.
05
Ongoing cloud operations
Agree the work needed after migration: monitoring, patching, backup, governance, cost review and capacity planning. Establish responsibilities, service levels and the evidence used to review the environment rather than leaving these decisions until handover.
A cloud review connects technical and commercial evidence.
The starting point can be an on-premises estate, a co-location environment or Azure subscriptions already in use. The review establishes what exists, the business requirements and the decisions that affect the target design.
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Current infrastructure, dependencies and workload ownership.
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Landing-zone, security and operating gaps.
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A proposed migration or improvement sequence with acceptance criteria.
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Cost assumptions covering consumption, licensing and the agreed support scope.
Migration and operational takeover need different plans.
A migration needs a target foundation and a controlled cutover. An existing Azure estate needs an ownership, configuration and cost baseline before responsibilities change. Both routes should identify service dependencies and the conditions under which the business accepts the environment. Data, AI and application modernisation can then be considered against that foundation.
01
Start with the workload the business must keep running
A cloud requirement often begins with a server refresh, a new application, unreliable recovery or subscriptions that have grown without a common operating model. Those triggers lead to different work. Moving an application will not by itself resolve an unclear owner, an unsupported dependency or an untested recovery procedure.
Microsoft’s landing-zone guidance distinguishes shared platform foundations from application landing zones. This helps separate identity, connectivity and governance decisions from the requirements of a particular workload. Braintree’s Azure scope should connect those layers to the business service: who uses it, which systems it depends on and what interruption or data loss the owner can accept.
02
Bring the operating evidence as well as the infrastructure list
Useful inputs include resource and server inventories, network and dependency diagrams, existing bills, licences, access arrangements and recovery requirements. Include maintenance windows, monitoring gaps and commitments to third-party application vendors. Where the record is incomplete, the assessment should label that uncertainty rather than treating it as an architectural fact.
Agree the target design, deployment responsibilities, acceptance evidence and operational ownership. Configuration, migration and managed operations are distinct pieces of work even when purchased together. The customer must identify workload owners, approve business-impacting changes and provide the necessary application knowledge. The agreed handover should leave resource ownership, privileged access, alert routing and recovery responsibilities understandable to the people who will run the environment.
03
Cloud design decisions to compare
Decision
Evidence to examine
What to agree
Workload destination
Application support, dependencies, latency and recovery needs.
Retain, migrate or modernise, with the reason and unresolved prerequisites.
Shared foundation
Identity, network, subscription and governance requirements.
Which controls the platform team supplies and which the workload team owns.
Operating cost
Consumption pattern, licences, resilience design and support coverage.
A cost model tied to demand assumptions and a review owner.
BEFORE YOU DECIDE
Practical questions.
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Must every workload move?
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Does a South African region establish compliance?
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What is included in managed operations?
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Can Braintree take over an existing Azure environment?
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Does backup prove we can recover?
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Who manages applications above the Azure infrastructure?
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How should we compare an Azure estimate with current costs?
BUILD YOUR BUSINESS CASE
Connect the cloud decision to the work it must support.
The problem to solve.
A move to Azure affects application dependencies, operating costs and recovery. A useful proposal makes those consequences visible before choosing the migration date.
What success should look like.
Set a target architecture, a credible operating-cost model and a migration sequence that the application owners can accept.
Bring these into the discussion.
A useful starting point for your team and the people approving the investment.
Useful reading for your proposal.
Evidence, examples and questions to take into the decision.
Customer story
7 September 2023
Customer story
Efficient Group: a connected Azure foundation
Review a customer’s infrastructure, security and workplace requirements together.
Read the customer story
Insight
22 January 2024
Cloud economics
Put cost management into the cloud plan
Frame the recurring cost decisions alongside the migration investment.
Read the insight
Insight
14 August 2026
Resilience
Test the recovery plan
Use a failure scenario to define the recovery evidence your proposal should require.
Read the insight
LET’S GROW.
Work through the next step with Braintree.
Start with the workloads and the operating constraints. We will work through the migration and management options.
