With just six weeks left until our in-person, all-inclusive user conference and industry event – excitement and anticipation are at an all-time high. And for good reason! We are bringing attendees the best content, sponsors and speakers to provide a well-rounded learning experience when it comes to leveraging Microsoft Azure, Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365, and give partners the tips and strategies that will allow them to grow their businesses in 2022.
To share a taste of what you can learn at NerdioCon 2022, we’ve developed a new blog series to shine spotlights on our fantastic speakers. Kicking off the NerdioCon Nerd Icon series, we sat down with Jamie Moore, Director of Account Management at Blackpoint Cyber.
What has your career journey been like and how did you come to be in your current role?
I worked for an MSP in Cincinnati, Ohio for seven years. While there, I helped my clients develop strategic technology plans to provide strong foundations for their businesses. Over time, I began to appreciate the dramatic need for increased cyber security. Business leaders were struggling to understand how to keep their businesses safe from cyber criminals. Some overreacted and were afraid of everything; others seemed to completely dismiss concerns because they couldn’t see the impact on their own businesses. This interest in preventing cybercrime and specifically in educating business leaders about cyber security, brought me to Blackpoint Cyber. At Blackpoint Cyber I help managed service providers learn how to grow their revenue, secure their clients, and communicate the value of security.
Can you share more about what you will be speaking about at NerdioCon 2022 and why the topic is so relevant for partners right now?
It’s no question that cybercrime prevention is a massive motivator for businesses to invest in technology. And yet, MSPs are often hesitant to include managed security solutions in their base offerings because these solutions are perceived as complicated and expensive. As the cyber threat increases, the demands for practical solutions also increase. Join us to use managed security to increase your value and subsequently your revenue. Our breakout session will focus on the hacker timeline, the advantages of investing in a SOC, and how to sell the value of a SOC to your customers and how to make a profit while ensuring their security.
What is one trend impacting MSPs you think will be an even bigger focus / topic in 2022?
Based on what we’ve seen this year, Blackpoint recommends our partners to stay alert and watch out for the following cybersecurity trends:
A continued cycle of ransomware with a primary goal of data exfiltration for extortion
Increased offensive action from governments to take down threat groups regardless of borders
Increased supply chain vulnerabilities from both threat groups and nation-states
Remote working is here to stay. Individuals within their home network will continue to be at risk of spear phishing and becoming a key target used to gain footholds into larger organizations.
Thanks so much, Jamie! Where can our audiences find + follow you on social?
We hope to see you at the event, taking place in Cancun, Mexico from February 21-23, 2022! To view the NerdioCon 2022 agenda and register to attend, visit www.nerdiocon.com.
I own and lead an MSP in the greater Philadelphia area and have been providing custom IT support options for businesses of all types and sizes since 2008. We pride ourselves on customer loyalty and satisfaction, so much in fact that one of our trademark differentiators is our guaranteed one-hour response time.
Upholding this rule and being a trusted and committed partner to our clients has been a key to our success, but it’s one of many. To deliver on our guarantee while scaling our practice and adapting to offer the best services, choosing the right vendors and technologies has always been one of my biggest priorities as President.
While I could talk shop all day on this subject, I want to share with you three investments I’ve made into growing my Microsoft Azure practice that have paid off big time especially when it comes to time savings.
StorageCraft OneXafe
One common pain point MSPs encounter across client needs is navigating how to move large amounts of data, especially given the amount of digital transformation and cloud initiatives. After working in IT for nearly two decades, I understand this issue well. Which is why I was instantly hooked after using OneXafe, an easily managed backup and recovery solution which presents an incredibly easy way to move a large on-prem environment to the cloud.
To use a real-life example, my team and I had recent client request in which they wanted a brand-new and scalable environment with all their files and data. This all included the migration 50 users, SQL Server file server and their domain controller. This migration was prepped using the OneXafe Solo device one week in advance and we were able to move 3TB of data in one weekend and completed the migration. This tool helps eliminate labor during server migrations.
Nerdio
At Managed Services IT we understand and tell our clients all the time that IT is any company’s most valuable asset, but it requires enormous amounts of time, money, and manpower to manage effectively. I found the same to be true with Microsoft Azure until I found the “easy button,” Nerdio.
In utilizing Nerdio’s multitenant Azure management platform for MSPs, my team has had three engineers doing the work of probably seven as we’ve scaled up our virtual desktop offerings to support the boom in remote work. We’ve got provisioning of Azure Virtual Desktop environments down to 27 minutes on average and have cut back significantly on the amount of nights and weekend hours logged because of Nerdio’s amazing support team and scripted actions.
Pax8
Finding a strong distributor to partner with can often be one of the biggest advantages you can get over your competition. Pax8 has been an invaluable resource in helping us find the right technologies and vendors to support our growing Azure practice and provide timely and insightful advice for selling cloud solutions to our healthcare customers. Our team at Pax8 knows the Azure ecosystem, and its key players, so well and are tapped in across their network of amazing vendors like Nerdio and OneXafe.
If you are looking to expand or establish a cloud practice in Microsoft Azure in the year ahead, the three companies I’ve profiled here are fantastic resources to get you started.
Learn how Nerdio Manager for Enterprise helped Howell Technology Group solve their issues with Azure Virtual Desktop’s complex image management and deployment.
About Howell Technology Group
Howell Technology Group is a midsize Managed Services Partner based in the U.K. With 25 years of industry experience and a focus on ‘people-first technology,’ HTG delivers client-specific, customized IT solutions as well as ongoing technological support and consulting. They specialize in helping enterprise businesses in the finance and public sectors take their IT infrastructure into the modern age, but they also work with smaller businesses to help improve their digital processes and support their growth.
The Situation
Howell Technology Group was interested in migrating users to Azure Virtual Desktop to provide their customers with a virtual workplace solution, but they found that the platform lacked the scaling capabilities they were looking for and made image management overly complicated. HTG’s customers were frustrated by the amount of time they were having to spend overcoming the learning curve of AVD and manually scaling it as their users’ needs shifted.
The Solution
Nerdio Manager for Enterprise offered Howell Technology Group various time-saving features, including their auto-scaling and patching functionalities, which significantly decreased the number of hours engineers had to spend wrestling with Azure. In addition, Nerdio’s tool made image management easier and faster, giving customers the ability to access and manage everything they needed within a single pane of glass.
The Results
Nerdio’s rapid deployment and time-saving functionality led to notable cost savings for both HTG and their customers (the end users of the tool). The time spent on monthly security patching and image management decreased dramatically — patching in particular reduced from 8 hours to 2 hours per customer — which led to less expensive engineer timesheets and faster implementation time. Ultimately, Nerdio’s features saved Howell Technology Group and their customers a significant amount of time and effort when it came to managing AVD session hosts, configuring autoscaling, and image management.
“The time spent on monthly security patching and image management decreased dramatically — patching in particular reduced from 8 hours to 2 hours per customer…”
Learn how Office Depot, the office supply retailer, transitioned their on-premises staff to a remote workspace and saves 40% on Azure costs during the COVID-19 pandemic using Nerdio Manager for Enterprise.
About Office Depot
Office Depot, an office supply retailer, is a banner brand of The ODP Corporation. The ODP Corporation is a leading provider of business services, products and digital workplace technology solutions for small, medium and enterprise businesses.
The Situation
During the pandemic, Office Depot was looking for a way to move their employees from an in-office workspace to a work-from-home environment using Azure Virtual Desktop. Office Depot had no experience setting up a remote workspace for their employees, so they brought in Nerdio to assist with the deployment and management of Azure Virtual Desktop for their staff.
“…Using Nerdio Manager in conjunction with Ansible, they were able to automate images to recreate automatically.”
The IT team at Office Depot found the image and session management process difficult to do at scale and was looking for a way to automate the process. Nerdio Manager for Enterprise was installed into the existing environment and used to automate the image creation and rollout process. Using Nerdio Manager in conjunction with Ansible, they were able to automate images to recreate automatically.
Office Depot’s applications are older and require connectivity back to an on-premises mainframe system with special terminal emulation software. Nerdio assisted with proper key mapping to get terminal emulation software to connect with their system. Several applications required a specific image configuration that Nerdio Manager helped automate.
Office Depot is in a unique position because they own Compucom, a Managed Service Provider (MSP). They wanted Nerdio’s help to build a platform that they could use internally for Office Depot and an external MSP service for Compucom customers.
The Solution
Nerdio provided Office Depot with a way to address the needs of their parent company as well as those of their IT service provider. They helped with creating a system that set up Office Depot to provide MSP support internally as well as to their company, Compucom, to sell the service to their customers. Azure Virtual Desktop was rolled out to a large number of users. Both published desktops and RemoteApps are used extensively in this environment.
“…As a result of Nerdio Manager’s auto-scaling capabilities, Office Depot is saving up to 40% on Azure compute and storage costs.”
The Results
Nerdio manager for Enterprise helped automate the image and session management process for Office Depot. Working in tandem with Ansible, Nerdio was able to automate images to recreate automatically. As a result of Nerdio Manager’s auto-scaling capabilities, Office Depot is saving up to 40% on Azure compute and storage costs.
Learn how Mr. Cooper Group, Inc., a large US-based home loan servicer, scaled their remote capabilities to match the increase in business during the COVID-19 pandemic using Nerdio Manager for Enterprise.
About Mr. Cooper Group, Inc
Mr. Cooper Group, Inc., one of the largest home loan servicers and the largest non-bank servicer in the United States, was looking for a solution for scaling up their virtual desktop to meet their increasing needs after the pandemic sparked a dramatic increase in home-buying which led to rapid growth. With 3.5 million customers and $650 billion in unpaid principal, Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. serves customers through their portfolio of brands including Mr. Cooper, Champion Mortgage, and Xome. The company had a very large existing Citrix implementation on-premises, but they weren’t sure they wanted to stick with Citrix during the transition to virtual work.
The Situation
As the pandemic brought on a massive increase in real estate purchases, Mr. Cooper Group, Inc.’s business was growing fast, and with that rapid growth came new licensing and infrastructure needs. Their small IT team needed help managing a large virtual desktop deployment: 20 workspaces, 70 host pools, 2000+ VMs, and 20,000 CPU cores. Their current Citrix environment had worked for Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. in the past, but the recent increase in business would require upgrading their investment, and they wanted to see whether Azure Virtual Desktop would bring more value for money than Citrix. The company’s initial evaluation of AVD found it difficult to manage and lacked the necessary features for the implementation of their scale. Microsoft brought in Nerdio to design and implement a custom solution.
“…Their small IT team needed help managing a large virtual desktop deployment: 20 workspaces, 70 host pools, 2000+ VMs, and 20,000 CPU cores.”
The Solution
Nerdio Manager for Enterprise’s elegant design delivered the capabilities Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. needed to deploy, manage, and optimize AVD at a price point that delivered significant savings. Not only was Nerdio able to provide a sleek, customized deployment, but they also seamlessly integrated the company’s legacy line of applications with Azure Virtual Desktop, enabling a quick and easy implementation during an extremely busy time. Nerdio then stayed on as an expert ISV to support the company’s 9000 users, two-thirds of whom use the environment concurrently.
The Results
With Nerdio Manager for Enterprise, Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. was able to migrate more than 10,000 users from Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop quickly and efficiently.
“…Nerdio Manager is helping Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. save over
$200,000 per month..”
They were also supported throughout the process: when Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. was forced to pause their migration halfway through due to another app’s performance issues, Nerdio helped them optimize their environment to get back up and running. The cost savings were significant, too — Nerdio Manager’s cost optimization is helping Mr. Cooper Group, Inc. save over $200,000 per month in Azure computing and storage fees.
Learn how Solarus, a US-based Managed Service Provider, stayed competitive and brought on new clients during the COVID-19 pandemic using Nerdio Manager for MSP.
About Infoware
Solarus Technologies is a Managed Service Provider (MSP) in the United States that provides outsourced managed services to small and mid-size businesses worldwide. They offer IT services, network architecture, cloud services, and consulting, among other services. Typical clients include nonprofit/NGO, small businesses, and startups. Solarus is available to their clients on a 24/7 basis with IT support for all of their tech-related needs.
The Situation
As businesses shifted from an in-office work environment to work-from-home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Solarus needed to find a way for their customers to access their virtual desktop infrastructure from home.
Solarus Technologies was looking for an efficient way to onboard clients to a full cloud environment. Prior to partnering with Nerdio, clients were unable to work remotely, had outdated servers, and relied on VPN to connect to their network. Fellow MSPs in their network highly recommended Nerdio’s services and referenced the success they were having using Nerdio Manager for MSP for their Azure Virtual Desktop deployment, management, and optimization needs.
“Nerdio enabled us to get into the Azure space and grow our business with Microsoft,” said Matthew Nikravesh, the President of Solarus Technologies
The Solution
Nerdio Manager for MSP allowed Solarus to quickly and easily deploy, manage, and optimize virtual desktop environments in Microsoft Azure for their clients. “Nerdio enabled us to get into the Azure space and grow our business with Microsoft,” said Matthew Nikravesh, the President of Solarus Technologies, adding that the service…
“…gave us the tools and the training to build a practice around Azure Virtual Desktop.”
Prior to working with Nerdio, Solarus had no clients who used Azure and didn’t have the technical know-how to set it up on their own. Since partnering with Nerdio, they’ve onboarded 15 of their clients into the service. Nerdio gave them the ability to automate their services and make their process more efficient. Setting up tasks in Azure can be time-consuming, and Nerdio’s services enable businesses to automate Scripted Actions that can then be replicated at scale with multiple clients. Solarus was able to deploy 50-75 complete virtual desktops , automatically, in under two hours. They can also easily manage all their clients’ environments from a centralized management console without the need for an experienced Azure engineer on-staff – saving them thousands per month.
The Results
Solarus was impressed with Nerdio during their onboarding process. Nerdio gave attentive, detailed support during the first two migrations through their hands-on service, providing “white glove” service that set them apart and ensured Solarus’ success (and the success of their customers). Nerdio’s expert Go Live Engineers went through each step in the process with Solarus, showing them how to use the platform and how to set everything up in their clients’ virtual space.
“We did not consider any other solutions besides Nerdio,” said Nikravesh. They didn’t need to.
It took 45-60 days for Solarus to implement their first client and have since grown to 15 clients on their platform. Solarus has added around 50-75 desktops in that time frame, averaging around 10-25 desktops per client and is in the process of proposing Azure Virtual Desktop, using Nerdio Manager, to more clients.
One trend that came out of the pandemic for Solarus is that several of their clients have moved or closed offices. In response to the pandemic, their clients were looking for a way to develop a centralized network that could be accessed by employees across the country.
One client, who had an office in New Jersey, used Azure Virtual Desktop for four months and decided to close their New Jersey office permanently.
If we didn’t have Nerdio, we probably wouldn’t be doing any business within Azure,” said Nikravesh. “They really helped catapult us.”
To other businesses considering using Nerdio’s services, Nikravesh advises, “Don’t wait. Just do it. Even if you have no experience within Azure.”
As a quick overview and definition of terms, a “lift and shift” is where existing resources are migrated from the on-premises environment into Azure. A close cousin of this is a Greenfield deployment where new VMs are provisioned in Azure and only the data is moved from on-premises. In this white paper, we will use lift and shift (L&S) to reference both since in most cases, partners will be doing a little bit of each when migrating their on-premises environment to Azure.
Before we get too deep into the L&S strategy, let’s also discuss its counterpart which is known as a Hybrid Active Directory configuration. Hybrid AD is the process of extending an on-premises internal domain into the Azure environment, allowing you to keep existing infrastructure in place, as well as providing new resources in Azure under the on-premises internal domain.
In some cases when we bring up the idea of migrating the on-premises environment into Azure, our partners become a little overwhelmed at the prospect of moving everything. They say something like “we’ve spent a lot of time and energy building the existing environment, we don’t want to go through the headache of migrating everything or starting over.” This is definitely a valid argument, however, when we break down the process and go over exactly what’s included, most partners actually get excited about the L&S Azure migration option and elect to go this route.
Lift and Shift Concerns
In order to do this topic justice, let’s begin by bringing up the top three concerns we hear partners raise when considering the L&S strategy, and we’ll break down exactly why those concerns are largely unfounded.
Concern #1: Changing the Active Directory management from on-premisesises to Azure
“Transferring user data sounds like more work than it’s worth, plus it could cause major disruptions for the end-user.”
To address this effectively, we’ll break down both concerns in turn.
Active Directory
The process of severing the user’s connections with the on-premisesises AD and transferring ownership of those users to the AD in Azure is pretty straightforward. What’s, even more, is that the process of transferring ownership shouldn’t cause any disruptions to the end-user. Nothing is physically migrated (i.e.. email, contacts, calendar appointments, etc.); you’re only changing who has the rights to manage those user objects.
Transferring User Data
Since users will be moving to the cloud anyway, we see the process of transferring user data as the first step to get users thinking in that direction. Although there are several options for this, we normally see partners leverage something like SharePoint or OneDrive to easily backup the user’s data, and then copy that to the AVD environment. We’ve even seen this as something the end users appreciate because it gives them the option to do some house cleaning on their local session. Our partners will hand this task over to the end-user and have them decide what’s important to bring over to the cloud environment, and what on their computer is old or redundant data that can be cleaned up or left on the old environment. Once the users have synced their data with an application like OneDrive, the data migration phase is essentially over since the users will simply authenticate to OneDrive in Azure and have all their critical data ready and accessible.
As you can see, when we break down both of these concerns, the actual transition for the users won’t cause much disruption at all and can take place during standard work hours if necessary. The process of severing the user’s connections with the on-premisesises AD and transferring ownership of those users to the AD in Azure is pretty straightforward. What’s even more is that the process of transferring ownership shouldn’t cause any disruptions to the end-user. Nothing is physically migrated (i.e.. email, contacts, calendar appointments, etc.); you’re only changing who has the rights to manage those user objects.
Concern #2: Group Policy/On-premisesises Domain
“Our group policy and on-premisesises internal domain have been in place for years. It would be too difficult to start over in Azure.”
Since both the GPOs and the internal domain have sometimes existed for over a decade, it’s understandable why partners are initially hesitant to transition away. What makes matters worse is that most MSPs have inherited the domain and GPO from a previous provider, which adds another layer of uncertainty. In these situations, there are two options we see most often utilized by partners.
Option 1: Export/Import
The first option is to simply export the GPOs from the on-premisesises environment into Azure. This can be a good option, but one thing to keep in mind is that both the good and the bad get migrated over when going this route. If this environment had been operating for over a decade, it’s likely a mess and you’re bringing that mess into the Cloud with you. As a result, partners will frequently decide to go with option two.
Option 2: Clean Start with a Reference
The other option is to start over clean and fresh in the cloud but use the existing on-premises GPO as a template to build out the GPO in Azure. Although this sounds intimidating at first, once our partners think about it, they start to like the idea of having complete control and intentionality behind every rule and policy that’s in place in the environment.
Tied into this conversation is the idea of moving away from the internal domain on-premises. This would be something like contoso.local. After working with many partners in similar scenarios, we’ve found that since they are moving all the infrastructure and users to the cloud, there isn’t a great reason to keep the on-premises internal domain. All the on-premises servers will be in the cloud and the users and their AVD desktops will be managed by AD and GPO in the cloud. The only thing left on-premises are the users’ physical workstations which, to a degree, become irrelevant. What I mean by this is that technically, the users could log in from any computer in the world, as long as they have their phone nearby to verify 2- factor authentication. They could be at home, in the office, at the local library, etc.
In addition, given that AVD is now streamed to their local session, they could use something as simple as a Microsoft Surface Pro, Chrome Book, or some other low-level laptop. Once the connection is established, they’re then placed in the cloud with all the controls and restrictions that have been set via GPO. So again, being tied to an on-premisesises internal domain is really not necessary since there won’t really be anything left on-premisesises other than a few workstations.
Concern #3: Migration
“It’s going to be too much of a headache to migrate all the On-premisesises infrastructure into Azure”
The final concern we see partners raise is related to the migration process of moving their on-premises infrastructure into Azure. This is especially true when they’ve spent an extended period of time configuring their Servers with applications and customizations that would take 8 to 12 hours to reconfigure from scratch in Azure. In these situations, we see them leverage Azure native tools like Azure migrate or Azure Site Recovery to lift their servers and place them into Azure. This allows for a transition of the entire server without going through the headache of reconfiguring it. They can then place it on the new internal domain in Azure and move forward as if nothing changed. The other option is to use something like our Nerdio built in data mirroring tool. This is effective when the on-premises server is end-of-life and has an outdated operating system. In this case partners don’t typically want to move, for example, a server 2008 R2, or 2012 machine into Azure. Instead, they’ll migrate individual files/folders using our data mirroring tool, and provision a brand-new server in Azure as the new host.
As you can see, if we break down the top three concerns and talk about the details of what’s included, then the L&S option becomes far more appealing, and the vast majority of our partners choose to go this Azure migration route.
Advantages of L&S
Now that we’ve addressed the top three concerns let’s talk about the top three advantages of going the L&S route.
Advantage #1: Reduces Overhead and Increases Security
As you can imagine, not having the on-premises infrastructure will immediately reduce costs when compared to the Hybrid AD setup. With the L&S strategy, you don’t have to worry about refreshing end-of-life servers or keeping them backed up. The other benefit is that the L&S option requires less infrastructure to run than the Hybrid AD setup. Hybrid AD out of the box includes an additional DC to manage the Domain Trust between on-premises and Azure.
In addition to the reduced overhead, the L&S option is far more secure as there are less opportunities for security breaches. With everything sitting in Azure the only thing left on-premises are the physical workstations used to establish a connection to user’s virtual desktops, and those are usually secured with 2-factor. The actual infrastructure in Azure and the security protecting it is backed my Microsoft’s trillion-dollar budget, which makes it infinitely more secure than anything the average MSP could create, both physical and virtual.
Advantage #2: Run LOB Applications in Parallel
One of the advantages of a L&S deployment is the ability to test and verify the cloud infrastructure before providing access for end-users. This is especially true with Database applications such as SQL. You can restore the on-premises database in the cloud and run it for a few weeks or for however long is necessary to ensure everything is working as it should. Then as the last step just take one final backup of the SQL database, migrate it into the cloud environment over the weekend, and then use the Cloud environment as the authority starting the next week. This provides ample opportunity for testing and helps to ensure an outstanding end-user experience once the environment goes live.
Advantage #3: Clean Start
Going the L&S route provides for a good refresh of the entire environment. You’re getting a new internal domain, fresh GPOs, new infrastructure, and a clean AD forest. In addition, you’ll be running all servers on the latest OS and user desktops will be running Windows 10 natively, rather than a Server OS built to look like Win10.
In summary, going the L&S route can be a good way of bringing a client who was running on a legacy environment into the modern age of technology.
Migration Path
Now let’s look at the practical order and steps we usually see these Azure migrations take. In order to provide the least amount of disruption to end-users, the Infrastructure & GPOs are typically pulled over to the new Azure environment first. After that’s been thoroughly tested and confirmed to work, the end-users are then migrated over to the new environment and everything on-premises is done away with.
Step #1: Infrastructure
The first step when migrating the infrastructure is to select which servers will be migrated as a whole and which server will get built new in Azure. After this you’ll migrate the servers specified to get lifted into Azure by leveraging the Azure Migrate tool. The servers you selected to build new in Azure, you’ll use the Nerdio native Data Mirroring tool to transfer the data from the older server onto the new server in Azure. During this phase, you’ll also configure the AVD pools and any dedicated desktops that will get provisioned for new users.
Step #2: GPO
Migrating the policies from on-premises into Azure is pretty straightforward. You can either export them from on-premises and import them into the Azure environment or use the on-premises GPOs as a template and build them new in Azure manually.
After migrating both the infrastructure & GPOs to Azure, the on-premises environment should still be fully functional. This means that from a quality assurance standpoint you’ll be able to setup and configure everything in the cloud before moving to the user import phase. This allows you to test LOB applications, ensure GPOs are applying, and overall thoroughly test the environment to ensure that end-users have a great first impression. Once this is complete, you’re ready to move to the User migration phase.
Step #3: Users
The final piece in the migration is to import users over into Azure. This includes breaking their connection with the current on-premises AD and adjusting the management piece to the AD in Azure. One thing to keep in mind is that the migration will require a password reset for each user and can take sometimes 72 hours to enable dirsync. We recommend initiating the process EOD Thursday or Friday (if doing it over the weekend) to provide enough time for the resync to conclude and users to get fully configured for the workday on Monday.
One important thing to note is that the process of breaking the user’s connection with the current on-premisesises AD does not cause any disruption, but that’s the piece that can take around 72 hours to complete. That timeframe is subjective and is something only Microsoft can speed up, however starting this on Thursday or Friday during work hours won’t cause any disruptions for the end-user. The only thing that will change is general user administration tasks such as password resets and user adjustments will need to be executed from the Office portal, rather than on-premises AD.
Once users are syncing with the AD in Azure, they will populate as eligible users to be imported through the Nerdio Admin Portal. That piece is where the password reset comes in and is the first place where end-users might be negatively impacted if enough foresight hasn’t been applied.
That’s it! At this point you’ve configured the infrastructure in the environment, you have it managed by the appropriate GPOs, and users have been migrated over and are operating smoothly in the new environment. Everything has been fully tested and it’s all backed up and totally secure.
Helpful Tools
As the final section, I thought it would be beneficial to highlight a few Nerdio native tools that are quite helpful when transitioning from on-premises to the cloud.
Bulk Add/Update Tools
One of the most underutilized Nerdio tools is the Bulk Add/Update tools. These are used most effectively during the import/configuration phase and for bulk changes after the fact. Our bulk add/update tools provide a comprehensive Excel spreadsheet to populate with various changes including new resource assignments, password resets, and adjusting Office licensing. You can make all these changes on one sheet, then upload that to the Nerdio Admin Portal and our script will run through the list and make all the changes in an automated fashion.
AVD Pool Templates
If you have an existing deployment with Nerdio then you realize how valuable our pool templates are for making bulk application/software changes for whole groups of users in a quick and automated fashion.
Data Mirroring Tool I’ve mentioned this several times already, but it’s worth mentioning again here because it makes the data migration piece of deployments so simple and easy. It can be located under the “Onboarding” tab in the Nerdio Admin portal.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve seen, the L&S strategy for environment migrations is less expensive, more secure, and provides a more dynamic and flexible work environment than a Hybrid AD solution. When at all possible, we recommend utilizing this Azure migration strategy.
Interested in learning more? Contact us to chat more about your L&S migration questions.
Discover how this large US-based Managed Service Provider saves significant time and money using Nerdio Manager for MSP’s automatic management and deployment of AVD, and powerful backup and auto-scale capabilities.
About Chelsea Technologies
Chelsea Technologies is a Managed Service Provider (MSP) in the United States and has provided business technology solutions to the global financial industry for over 25 years. They help clients navigate complex technical issues and focus on creating the infrastructure that helps clients succeed. Typical clients include hedge funds, banking institutions, and private equity firms. From startups to those with billions of dollars under management, Chelsea Tech also serves clients in other sectors that rely on their technical and business expertise, such as aerospace, law firms, and many others.
The Situation
Working with clients in complex and often highly regulated industries, Chelsea Technologies needs to ensure the highest standards of network uptime, hardware reliability, data integrity, and application stability.
As a trusted partner to their clients, Chelsea Technologies works tirelessly to meet clients’ business and technology requirements, creating solutions that meet their needs in an IT landscape that is constantly evolving. Building native Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environments was proving time and resource intensive. The complexities of Microsoft Azure resulted in a limit on the number of engineers who had the skills to deploy it correctly. Chelsea Technologies needed to be able to use those engineers’ time efficiently and expand their ability to bring the advantages of AVD to clients. As it became apparent that they would need a partner to help drive success, they researched their options, looking for the right tool to help drive its growth.
“We were migrating everything to Azure, and we really needed a tool that was right for the job – powerful, yet easy for our team to deploy and manage,” said Justin Vashisht, Professional Services Director for Chelsea Technologies.
The Solution
After previewing Nerdio Manager for MSP, it became clear to Vashisht and the Chelsea Tech team that the ease of deployment, auto-scaling technology, and potential for cost-savings were the kinds of solutions they needed to successfully leverage their engineering talent and manage internal resources. Nerdio Manager for MSP held other attractive features as well, including built-in backup and audit trail capabilities, which, Vashisht noted, would be helpful for clients in highly regulated industries, like financial services and aerospace, among others. “This is especially important to clients in financial services and highly regulated clients for whom everything must be tightly monitored and controlled,” said Vashisht.
Since initially partnering with Nerdio over two years ago, the Chelsea Tech team has continued to work with Nerdio Manager for MSP, which launched in public preview in January 2021. This solution enables them to get the most from the technology and their most critical assets– their technical staff.
“For example, we have a client with over 250 users with AVD, and our help desk is managing it through the Nerdio platform. I didn’t have to worry about creating a custom portal, spending time testing it, and all the associated details. Nerdio provides it all to me in a single pane of glass. That represents substantial savings and reduced burden right there.”
“Nerdio Manager for MSP is seamless, and it will allow me to migrate the rest of my clients over. Nerdio hit the sweet spot for us,” – Justin Vashisht, Professional Services Director for Chelsea Technologies.
The Results
Auto-scaling is a standout feature for the team at Chelsea Technologies. The ability to automate what can be a labor-intensive and costly process saves time and effort, and the cost savings is a game-changer.
“We have several large, expensive VMs. With Nerdio Manager for MSP, I can scale them down at 7:00 pm and scale them back up at 7:00 am. I get savings by automatically detecting usage and demand. You can’t put a price on that. Actually, yes, you can! It makes a big difference,” Vashisht said.
“There are so many details that come into play when building a secure Azure infrastructure. With all that complexity, human error is a reality of life. Nerdio Manager for MSP handles all those intricacies. It does everything for me. To set up a VPN takes minutes, not hours.” – Justin Vashisht, Professional Services Director for Chelsea Technologies.
The knowledge-sharing and resources made available by Nerdio have made a real impression on Chelsea Tech.“The videos and blogs on the Nerdio Academy are clear, concise, and very helpful. It’s almost like getting a graduate degree in Azure,” said Vashisht. “The Nerdio team has increased the value of the platform for us. They’re knowledgeable about the MSP space, and understand the challenges we face. That’s why we continue to invest in the platform.”
During Chelsea Tech’s deployment of Nerdio Manager for MSP, the key differentiator has been the ease with which Nerdio was able to immediately onboard and scale its solution, especially considering the challenges the Chelsea Tech had faced with clients going through painful digital transformations.
Implementing Nerdio Manager for MSP has been a great success for Chelsea Tech. “If you’re looking to take an organization from a legacy, on-prem, physical server mindset and looking to jump into the cloud and accelerate the process, it would normally take six months to a year to do it right,” he said.
“With Nerdio, you can dive right in. The console is great and Nerdio is very forgiving as a platform, so implementation is easy.” – Justin Vashisht, Professional Services Director for Chelsea Technologies.
Vashisht has straightforward advice for anyone considering Nerdio Manager for MSP: “If you’re looking to get into Azure, look no further than Nerdio. It will make your life easier.”
Learn how an energy company deploys, manages and cost-optimizes Azure Virtual Desktop company-wide with Nerdio Manager for Enterprise quickly and easily.
About Petrofac
United Kingdom-based global company Petrofac provides services to energy companies that deploy large teams across the globe. The company helps design and build complex structures for deployment on job sites, providing engineering, construction, procurement, and administrative services. In its quest to support remote work, Petrofac began planning an Azure Virtual Desktop deployment in late 2019. Little did the company know that the project would become a bedrock for its remote workers when the COVID-19 crisis forced widespread remote work practices a few months later. Even though employees at some locations are now able to access their office buildings, the engineering team continues to use Azure Virtual Desktop with Microsoft Azure NetApp Files, a fully managed cloud service. Petrofac attributes survivability during a multinational lockdown, enhanced performance, and falling costs to its deployment of these critical Microsoft services.
Petrofac was working on digital transformation when the COVID-19 crisis increased the urgency of the initiative. The compute demands created by thousands of engineers working on bulky 3D image files on specialized desktop devices added complexity. But the company’s pivot to remote work with Azure Virtual Desktop solved that problem and created other benefits. The resulting performance gains sped up timelines, and engineers can now work anywhere. Increased scalability saves operational budget, too. Most importantly, business continues smoothly regardless of challenging times.
Meshing complex needs across the globe
Petrofac is largely an engineering company, depending on its talent to deliver construction plans and schema for complicated processes. Those 3D workloads are complex enough in isolation: they’re demanding, comprise large files, and engineers generally need graphical interfaces to work on them. Add globally distributed engineering teams to this data-intensive enterprise, and it’s easy to understand the challenges of supporting that functionality at scale. Vladimir Krdzic, Chief Digital Officer at Petrofac, decided to set the organization on a digital transformation path. “Many of our engineers had been doing the same work for decades and were entrenched in very traditional methods,” he says. “I wanted Petrofac to become a more agile and flexible company that would also attract millennial workers to join our team.”
The complex 3D models that engineers create require specialized desktop devices that cost at least four to five times that of a standard office device often much more. An even bigger challenge lies in the demanding workloads inherent to those models millions of central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) cycles. That dictated a culture of working onsite because every office that works on the same engineering model must sync to the application database daily. This requires bandwidth that isn’t available in many homes in India, where most of the Petrofac engineering team is based. Many engineers don’t have fiber connections, and productivity can suffer in regions where frequent power outages take down internet connections at inopportune moments.
Adding to these demands, large 3D files must be shared between teams that are spread across the globe. Every revision must go through a review cycle, from engineering teams in Mumbai to reviewers in Dubai, possibly cycling back and forth tens to hundreds of times. Other external parties such as Petrofac joint venture partners or clients also need to access the files, and when they store them on personal devices, the amount of data in play grows further.
With multiple concurrent joint ventures, Petrofac often found itself in the position of having to work with companies across multiple continents, creating what Krdzic considers an operational and security burden. “It was time-consuming and unstable; it had the potential to increase cyber-exposure issues,” he says.
We’re using Azure Virtual Desktop to spin up projects very quickly and add as many users as we need without file synchronization issues. That means faster time to market for us. – Vladimir Krdzic: Chief Digital Officer Petrofac
Coordinating people and data
While version control issues might be annoying when collaborating on a Microsoft Word document, getting out of sync when collaborating on a 3D file can result in unnecessary costs for Petrofac if engineers need to rework files. “Our files ping pong between departments and offices, with people in different disciplines layering their contributions to the work on top of each other,” explains Krdzic. “It’s essential that we have everyone focused on the same version to avoid errors and the high cost of rework.”
That need for tight coordination is complicated by the need for highly skilled contract engineers during peak periods of engineering demand. Petrofac relies on contractors to keep projects on schedule when its own teams are at capacity. Because Petrofac engineering teams depended on onsite infrastructure, the company’s choice of contractors has until now been dictated by their proximity to a Petrofac office. If no one in the vicinity was available, that could affect deadlines.
Krdzic needed power and flexibility to bring his vision for agility and centralized governance home. “My strategy was to create an engineering platform that would enable our engineers to work from anywhere, anytime,” he says. When his team began to deploy Azure Virtual Desktop, the Petrofac transformation took off.
Deploying not just a solution, but a better way of working
The team immediately went to work to deploy Azure Virtual Desktop with an FSlogix user profile, the recommended user profile for the service. It added Microsoft 365 management and set up Azure NetApp Files to enable file storage on Azure—a perfect fit for the bulky 3D engineering files that require a high-performance environment. Because Azure NetApp Files is a high-performance, low-latency, and scalable solution, it’s highly cost-effective for Petrofac’s demanding but fluid production needs. Petrofac specified NVv3-series virtual machines, which are designed to support GPU-accelerated graphics and virtual desktops. The increased RAM in the series gives engineers the performance they need for graphics-intensive work.
We definitely see the positive impact on performance, especially with the complex setups inherent to our business. The flexibility to scale to demand and keep business continuity is helping us navigate through difficult times. – Vladimir Krdzic: Chief Digital Officer Petrofac
The team added Nerdio Manager for Enterprise to automate Azure Virtual Desktop management, which further contributed to cost savings. Nerdio Manager for Enterprise fits perfectly into the Petrofac platform as a service environment because it runs in the company’s tenant, helping ensure that data never leaves its Azure subscription. The team uses the dynamic host pool feature to quickly deploy vast pools for user data, easily scaling to demand with Azure Auto-scale. The team set it to scale in resources after business hours, taking advantage of its ability to scale out as needed during business hours for maximum cost savings storage costs through its advanced auto-scaling capabilities.
Finding that old habits might die easily, after all
If Petrofac management had any misgivings about converting engineering teams to Azure Virtual Desktop, they were soon put to rest. Krdzic describes the former method for setting up a 3D-modeling project for engineers as a lengthy, complicated, and expensive endeavor. Separate instances of the project had to deploy to multiple geographic locations with secure connections between those instances and strictly controlled user access. Petrofac made an immediate impact with its Azure Virtual Desktop deployment. “We no longer need to replicate the same model between four or five different offices with our new environment,” says Krdzic. “We’re using Azure Virtual Desktop to spin up projects very quickly and add as many users as we need without file synchronization issues. That means faster time to market for us.”
The solution is popular not just for all these reasons. No longer facing often lengthy commutes, the engineers are delighted with the new freedom to work anywhere and better work-life balance. It’s a game-changer for them and the company. Krdzic’s team has received rave reviews for the solution and its fast work in rolling it out. “Within three weeks, we had all our projects and engineers up and running because we had already tested Azure Virtual Desktop,” says Krdzic. “It was a big win because we achieved a lightning-fast deployment of something that had been culturally and technically unimaginable four or five months earlier.”
The project received an unexpected nudge to hasten the timeline when much of the world went into lockdown. The Petrofac IT team had just completed a series of successful proof of concepts and simulations. “The COVID-19 crisis forced our hand,” says Krdzic. “It made us run faster, and we got much more sponsorship and support for our digital transformation.
That was the silver lining in a very gray cloud. Now we’ve achieved our number one goal of mobility for our engineering teams.” Petrofac was perfectly placed to achieve the survivability it needed when the world abruptly changed. It was realizing significant cost savings at the same time while also taking advantage of better performance. “We definitely see the positive impact on performance, especially with the complex setups inherent to our business,” adds Krdzic. “The flexibility to scale to demand and keep business continuity is helping us navigate through difficult times.”
Within three weeks, we had all our projects and engineers up and running because we had already tested Azure Virtual Desktop. It was a big win because we achieved a lightning-fast deployment of something that had been culturally and technically unimaginable four or five months earlier. – Vladimir Krdzic: Chief Digital Officer Petrofac
Download the application today from the Azure marketplace and begin a free 30-day trial: nerdio.co/nme
Learn how a billion-dollar plastic company used Nerdio Manager to transition to the cloud quickly and easily.
About M.Holland
From healthcare to cars, plastics play a critical role in most of the products we use daily, and M. Holland plays a critical role in the plastics industry. Founded in 1950 and headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois, M. Holland is a leading international distributor of thermoplastic resin. The company helps suppliers identify and leverage the most strategic channels to markets around the world, while also offering sourcing and supply chain solutions. Its product line includes materials that can fit virtually every application, manufacturing process, and market.
M. Holland does over $1 billion in annual sales and sells to more than 4,000 customers. Since 1950, the company has grown steadily through both organic growth and numerous acquisitions. Most important for M. Holland is the deep, on-going relationships that it establishes with clients, through a consultative approach and a focus on long-term partnerships.
Situation
Although M. Holland has been in business in the United States since its founding in 1950, it has recently increased its presence around the world, with branches in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and expansion plans for Europe and Asia. However, the company was reaching the limits of its mostly on-premises IT solutions. Its 350+ employees around the world need access to business-critical systems around the clock. The company’s growth and expansion plans meant that it could no longer afford to have all its IT infrastructure located on premises.
Over the years, M. Holland had built its IT infrastructure around an on-premises Microsoft stack, but that wasn’t keeping up with their requirements in today’s more agile business environment. “With our existing systems, if our office went down, our company was dead in the water,” said Vincent Rocco, System Administrator, M. Holland Company. “We started a transition to more cloud-based systems because we need to keep the business running 24/7, 365 days a year. Our business couldn’t stop if the office went down.”
Solution
Although M. Holland has been in business in the United States since its founding in 1950, it has recently increased its presence around the world, with branches in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and expansion plans for Europe and Asia. However, the company was reaching the limits of its mostly on-premises IT solutions. Its 350+ employees around the world need access to business-critical systems around the clock. The company’s growth and expansion plans meant that it could no longer afford to have all its IT infrastructure located on premises.
“Azure Virtual Desktop is a no brainer for us,” – Vincent Rocco, System Administrator, M. Holland Company.
Over the years, M. Holland had built its IT infrastructure around an on-premises Microsoft stack, but that wasn’t keeping up with their requirements in today’s more agile business environment. “With our existing systems, if our office went down, our company was dead in the water,” said Vincent Rocco, System Administrator, M. Holland Company. “We started a transition to more cloud-based systems because we need to keep the business running 24/7, 365 days a year. Our business couldn’t stop if the office went down.”
Results
For M. Holland, Nerdio Manager is a key component for its transition to more cloud-based solutions. It’s made overall management of M. Holland’s virtual environments much more efficient and easier.
Using Microsoft’s native solutions for managing virtual disks can be cumbersome. According to Rocco, the company would have to go through multiple steps, from creating an image, stopping it, prepping it, deallocating it, and then imaging it.
“Since day one, Nerdio Manager has made Azure Virtual Desktop incredibly simple,” said Rocco. “The biggest value for us has been Nerdio’s ability to do master image creation.”
“I had many issues when I tried to do it natively through Microsoft,” he said. “That’s why we went with Nerdio Manager.”
In addition, M. Holland cites Nerdio’s extensive online, always-available technology resources as a key to easy deployment and ongoing management. “Nerdio has incredible training videos,” said Rocco. “If you want to learn anything, they have a video about it.”
By using Nerdio Manager, M. Holland has been able to turbo-charge their transition to AVD, creating an IT environment that’s much more robust, secure, and available than their previous on-premises solutions. It’s enabling more effective support and easier management of functions like master image creation to help M. Holland continue to grow their business. But for Rocco, it’s not just about what Nerdio Manager for WVD can do for his company, it’s also personal. “Someone with limited knowledge like me can come in, learn Nerdio, and be an Azure WVD guru,” he said. “It’s great.”
But for Rocco, it’s not just about what Nerdio Manager can do for his company, it’s also personal. “Someone with limited knowledge like me can come in, learn Nerdio, and be an AVD guru,” he said. “It’s great.”
“I couldn’t have done what I’ve done without Nerdio and got my company to the point that we’re at without Nerdio,” – Vincent Rocco, System Administrator, M. Holland Company.
Download the application today from the Azure marketplace and begin a free 30-day trial: nerdio.co/nmw.
