Young Lives vs Cancer
Moving critical infrastructure to Azure in eight weeks.
Young Lives vs Cancer needed to move its infrastructure out of an existing colocation environment before the contract expired.
The charity had eight weeks to migrate approximately 20 virtual machines supporting identity, file services, Microsoft Exchange, remote access, CRM, finance and other important business functions.
The project also supported a wider strategic objective: moving infrastructure expenditure towards a more consumption-based operating model, without maintaining the colocation and Azure environments in parallel for longer than necessary.
Panoptics completed the migration in phases, on time and on budget, with minimal disruption to users and no material incidents or rollback events.
Rather than moving every workload unchanged, the project combined infrastructure migration with selective modernisation, Azure governance, cross-region recovery, cost optimisation and structured handover to the Young Lives vs Cancer team.
At a glance
- Eight-week migration window
- Approximately 20 virtual machines supporting core business functions
- Phased delivery with minimal user disruption
- Selective modernisation using Azure and managed cloud services
- Cross-region recovery tested using Azure Site Recovery
- Completed on time and on budget, followed by structured customer handover
The challenge
The existing colocation contract was approaching expiry.
Extending the contract would have created additional cost. Running the existing environment and Azure in parallel for an extended period would also have meant paying for two infrastructure platforms at the same time.
Young Lives vs Cancer therefore needed to complete the migration quickly, but the deadline could not be allowed to compromise business operations or the quality of the resulting Azure environment.
The workloads included services used for:
- Identity and access;
- File storage;
- Microsoft Exchange;
- Remote access;
- CRM;
- Finance; and
- Other database-backed business functions.
These were not isolated servers that could simply be moved without considering their dependencies.
The migration needed to account for networking, security, user access, permissions, recovery requirements, licensing and the way the environment would be managed once the project was complete.
As a charity, Young Lives vs Cancer also needed a proportionate solution. The target environment had to meet its operational and recovery requirements without introducing unnecessary infrastructure or an ongoing support model that exceeded the capability required by its internal team.
Building the Azure foundation
Young Lives vs Cancer had already begun work on an Azure foundation before Panoptics became involved.
Panoptics reviewed the existing design and completed and strengthened the environment using an architecture aligned with Microsoft landing-zone principles.
The work included:
- management-group and subscription structure;
- virtual network design;
- Azure Firewall;
- monitoring through Azure Monitor;
- recommendations and optimisation through Azure Advisor;
- dynamic licensing-assignment groups;
- security improvements, including work to improve Azure Secure Score; and
- consolidation of cloud-consumption billing through Panoptics’ Microsoft CSP relationship.
The architecture was designed around the charity’s availability and recovery requirements while maintaining control over both implementation and ongoing cloud costs.
Modernising selected services
The project was not treated as a straightforward lift and shift.
Where there was a practical and commercially sensible reason to do so, Panoptics replaced legacy server-based services with Azure or managed cloud services.
File services
Legacy file shares were migrated to Azure Files.
Existing user mappings and permissions were carried across, preserving the required access model while removing the need to maintain the previous file-server infrastructure.
Remote access
The legacy Remote Desktop Services environment was replaced with Azure Virtual Desktop.
The new service retained a single Azure session host as part of the overall solution while removing the wider server infrastructure previously required to provide remote access.
Secure file transfer
The existing server-hosted SFTP solution and its supporting application infrastructure were replaced with a managed cloud service.
This removed another standalone server requirement and reduced the amount of underlying infrastructure the Young Lives vs Cancer team would need to operate after handover.
Together, these changes reduced dependence on conventional server infrastructure while supporting the project’s cost and operational objectives.
Designing for recovery
Panoptics designed and implemented a cross-region disaster-recovery solution around the recovery objectives agreed with Young Lives vs Cancer.
Primary and secondary Azure regions were nominated, with business-critical resources configured for continuous replication using Azure Site Recovery.
The remaining steps required for a prolonged or full recovery were documented within the disaster-recovery plan. This gave the operational team a defined recovery process rather than relying solely on the technical replication configuration.
Panoptics also completed a successful Azure Site Recovery test failover.
The test allowed the recovery configuration to be validated without disrupting the production environment.
The customer’s detailed recovery objectives remain confidential, but the solution was designed against the RPO and RTO requirements supplied for the engagement.
Controlling cloud costs
Cost management was considered during the design and migration rather than left until after workloads had moved.
Panoptics reviewed the resource requirements and advised on:
- virtual-machine rightsizing;
- Microsoft Azure reservations;
- licensing efficiency;
- cloud-consumption optimisation;
- Intune device-management practices; and
- recommendations beyond those generated automatically by Azure Advisor.
The resulting environment combined rightsized infrastructure and Azure reservations to support more predictable ongoing costs.
Cloud consumption was also brought into a more consistent billing arrangement through Panoptics’ Microsoft CSP relationship.
Just as importantly, completing the migration before the colocation contract expired reduced the period during which Young Lives vs Cancer would otherwise have been paying for both the old and new environments.
Phased delivery with minimal disruption
The migration was delivered in phases, with the programme planned around minimal disruption to users.
Panoptics worked closely with the Young Lives vs Cancer technical team throughout the eight-week delivery period.
Progress, risks, dependencies and upcoming activities were shared through regular project updates. This allowed decisions to be addressed quickly without losing momentum against the deadline.
The solution was delivered remotely and completed without any material incident or rollback.
All workloads were migrated before the existing colocation contract expired, with time remaining within the agreed delivery window.
Structured handover and retained expertise
A full managed service was not a condition of the migration.
Panoptics produced documentation recording the completed environment as built, together with knowledge-base material covering common faults and resolutions.
Handover and question-and-answer sessions were completed with the Young Lives vs Cancer team, which then assumed responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the Azure environment.
Panoptics remains available through a retained advisory arrangement when the charity requires additional Azure or infrastructure expertise.
This gives Young Lives vs Cancer continued access to people who understand the environment while keeping ongoing support proportionate to its internal capability and cost priorities.
The result
Young Lives vs Cancer moved approximately 20 virtual machines and associated business services from colocation into Azure within eight weeks.
The migration was completed before the existing contract expired, on time and on budget, with minimal user disruption and no material incident or rollback.
The charity now operates a structured Azure environment that:
- Supports its core business services;
- Provides more predictable ongoing infrastructure costs;
- Includes cross-region replication for business-critical resources;
- Has a documented disaster-recovery process;
- Has been validated through a successful Azure Site Recovery test failover;
- Uses managed cloud services where these provide a practical operational benefit; and
- Can be managed day to day by the Young Lives vs Cancer team.
The project also reduced the period of simultaneous colocation and Azure expenditure and provided the customer with the documentation and knowledge transfer needed to operate the environment internally.
Young Lives vs Cancer retains access to Panoptics expertise when required through a support arrangement proportionate to the organisation’s internal capability and cost priorities.