Cloud Migration & Modernization

We use replication, staged cutovers, rollback plans, and after-hours change windows to keep services online.

Yes. We design hybrid architectures that place sensitive systems in private cloud while using public cloud for burst capacity and innovation.

We right-size workloads, apply reserved/predictable capacity where appropriate, and implement cost governance tooling from day one.

Sensitive data can remain in South African facilities, with options for multi-region resilience as needed.

We apply tagging at the landing zone, set budget alerts at 50%, 80% and 100% by default, provide a monthly consumption summary and a quarterly optimisation review, and apply Reservations or Savings Plans once usage is steady, typically 60–90 days in.

It depends on the workload. Private Cloud suits dedicated, locally hosted virtual infrastructure with predictable building-block costs. Azure suits hyperscale and PaaS workloads. Many organisations use both, connected through private peering.

A tenant readiness review covers your licence mix, identity setup, MFA coverage, conditional access, Defender baseline, Purview and SharePoint permissions. You sign off a prioritised remediation backlog before workload delivery begins.

Yes. FirstNet Private Cloud runs in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town on VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V. We align the target hypervisor to your existing environment to simplify migration.

An Azure landing zone is the foundation your workloads move into: networking, identity, tagging and a security baseline, designed before any migration waves start. FirstNet designs the landing zone and usually moves a first non-production workload to prove the pattern, typically over four to eight weeks. Tagging at this stage makes cost tracking and optimisation useful later. Budget alerts at 50%, 80% and 100% of spend are set by default.

Yes. FirstNet migrates organisations from Google Workspace, on-premises Exchange or older Microsoft 365 setups onto a current set of licences. The work covers a tenant readiness check, identity design, mail and data migration, a security baseline and user adoption support. It usually runs as a pilot group first, then migration waves, then a final cutover. Most migrations start with a pilot that tests identity, security settings and the user experience, typically over three to six weeks.

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365 Cloud PC deliver Windows desktops from the Microsoft cloud instead of from physical machines or legacy VDI. They suit hybrid workers, contractors, BPO seats and situations where data shouldn't leave the cloud. FirstNet designs the landing zone and host pools, manages images and FSLogix profiles, and can run day-to-day operations. Windows 365 is licensed per user per month, much like a Microsoft 365 add-on.

Hybrid identity connects your on-premises Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID, using Entra Connect or Cloud Sync, so people use one identity across on-premises systems and cloud apps. It enables single sign-on, conditional access and multi-factor authentication across your software-as-a-service applications. It is often the first step before a wider Microsoft 365 rollout or security upgrade, because licence assignment, access policies and Copilot all depend on a clean identity foundation.