Network Outsourcing for Medium-size Businesses

Amazon is a pioneer in the cloud computing market and is the leading provider of public cloud computing services. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a wide range of cloud-based services including Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for on-demand compute capacity via virtual servers, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for scalable cloud storage, and Amazon Glacier for long-term backup and archiving. These Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions allow businesses of any size to move some or all of their network infrastructure to the cloud, using a pay-for-use model to cut capital costs while simplifying management overhead and reducing the time required to deploy IT solutions.

For most organizations, whether to use public cloud services at all has become less of an issue than how and how much. Many mid-size businesses have legacy applications which are not easily migrated to cloud environments. Companies may also have performance-driven OLTP database applications which require on-premises systems to deliver maximum throughput. In addition, company culture or policies may demand more direct control over certain IT resources than is possible with a public cloud. In these and other cases, hybrid solutions, which combine local and cloud-based resources, are often the best network model. Amazon AWS also competes with many other vendors of cloud services including Microsoft, whose Azure products offer IaaS services as well as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model optimized for Windows-based environments. Basically, it requires careful research and planning for any organization to determine the optimum cloud solution.

Progent has years of experience helping businesses build and maintain cloud-centric and hybrid environments, and Progent offers affordable online and onsite expertise to help you evaluate, design, deploy, manage and troubleshoot an IT ecosystem that incorporates Amazon AWS so as to maximize the business value of your network. Progent can help you compare the costs and benefits of various cloud services, migrate applications to Amazon AWS, develop backup and disaster recovery solutions that leverage Amazon AWS cloud storage technology, and troubleshoot firewall and VPN connectivity issues. Progent can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers and other network infrastructure experts to help you create and manage secure, high-availability connectivity mechanisms for accessing Amazon AWS from desktop and mobile devices so your network users have a consistent experience whether they are working at central or branch offices, at home, or on the road.

Popular Amazon AWS Services
The Amazon AWS cloud platform includes more than 70 infrastructure services that cover computing, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobility, development, management, Internet of Things (IoT), security and enterprise applications. Amazon AWS cloud services that are popular with organizations of all sizes and for which Progent offers comprehensive support include:

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a virtual server hosting service that allows you to provision, scale and manage cloud-based virtual servers, known as EC2 instances. You can commission any number of instances and you pay just for the resources you actually use. You can control the server and cluster level functions of a variety of operating system, deploy your hosted applications, and manage network access permissions. You also manage your own software licenses based on a BYOL (Bring Your Own License) model. You can use a standard Amazon Machine Image (AMI) template and go online immediately or you can build your own AMI that includes your applications, libraries, data, and configurations. Amazon EC2 can scale compute resources immediately to accommodate up or down spikes in usage, eliminating the need for complex capacity planning. You also have the options of geographically separate hosting sites for high availability or using static IP endpoints to accommodate your application environment.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a cloud storage service that provides affordable, high-performance storage for any amount of data of almost any type or format. Amazon S3 scales easily and you pay only for the storage you actually use. Amazon S3 is often deployed as offsite storage for disaster recovery but is also appropriate for high-demand applications, most notably Amazon's retail web site. Amazon S3's web service interface supports multiple storage classes intended for different use cases. These include Amazon S3 Standard for general-purpose storage of frequently accessed data, Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access for long-lived but less frequently accessed data, and Amazon Glacier for long-term archive. You can also define custom lifecycle policies so your S3 data automatically and transparently migrates to a different storage class without requiring modifications to your applications. Amazon S3 can be used with Amazon EC2 or as an independent cloud service.

Amazon Glacier is a cloud storage service designed to provide affordable data archiving and long-term backup for data that is rarely accessed. Glacier does not offer the performance of Amazon S3 cloud storage and is not suitable for online applications. But although recovery time is glacially slow and can take hours, storage costs are less than one cent per gigabyte per month, which is less expensive than on-premises storage. In addition, You can also cut overall storage costs by defining lifeycycle rules to archive sets of Amazon S3 objects automatically to Glacier. Amazon Glacier can also help companies comply with regulatory requirements for archival data by providing ultra-reliable offsite backup with features that include regular, systematic data integrity checks and automatic self-healing capability.

How Progent Can Help You Benefit from Amazon AWS Services
If you are planning to incorporate Amazon's AWS cloud services into your business using either a fully cloud-based or a hybrid model, Progent can help you assess the business benefits of the Amazon AWS cloud platform vs. competing cloud solutions. Progent can help you with every phase of your migration including needs analysis, preparedness assessment, system design, pilot testing, deployment, administration, performance optimization, software license management, disaster recovery planning, and security and compliance.

Progent can help you determine which of your applications are suitable for Amazon AWS and can help you update legacy applications so they can be migrated to the cloud. Progent offers affordable online and onsite consulting and can provide as-needed expertise to help you resolve occasional technical bottlenecks, or Progent can provide comprehensive project management outsourcing or co-sourcing to make sure you complete your cloud migration on schedule and on budget.

Many of the technical issues encountered while integrating your network with Amazon AWS, or any other cloud platform, is setting up secure access for various devices located either within or outside your corporate firewall. Progent offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers as well as firewall consultants certified by Symantec, Barracuda, SonicWall, WatchGuard, Check Point and others to help you configure and manage firewalls for accessing Amazon AWS. Progent also offers the support of iPhone and iPad technology consultants, Android integration experts and RIM BlackBerry specialists to help you configure secure mobile endpoints for your Amazon AWS solution.

Typical examples of online integration support provided by Progent to help companies incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services include:

• Review system architecture for hybrid systems with EC2 and S3
• Build and test AMI images for Windows or Linux servers and applications
• Set up Java AMI tools
• Configure and troubleshoot firewalls from Cisco, Symantec, SonicWall and others
• Integrate Cisco AnyConnect and Symantec AWS Gateway Service
• Set up and troubleshoot VPN access to AWS
• Design and validate backup and restore solutions with Amazon S3
• Set up and verify security rules
• Resolve elastic and static IP issues
• Debug DNS and load balancing issues
• Configure NATs for both main and remote offices
• Write PHP code for signing AWS requests
• Create AD LDS instances for EC2
• Help with Amazon SQS service

Additional Cloud Integration Services Available from Progent
Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) is an extensive library of APIs that enable companies selling through Amazon to streamline their business by automating critical sales processes including listings, orders, payments, fulfillment, and reports. By integrating internal applications and workflows with Amazon's vast online sales network, businesses can expand their markets, reduce overhead, improve responsiveness to customers, and increase their profits. For information about Progent's development services for Amazon MWS, see Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS) Integration Consulting.

Microsoft has put significant effort into enabling you to build hybrid networks that integrate cloud-based Microsoft 365 Exchange Online with on-premises Exchange organizations. This hybrid solution allows you to locate specified Exchange mailboxes at your on-premises datacenter while other mailboxes are hosted in the cloud by Microsoft 365 Exchange Online. Progent's Microsoft-certified Exchange consultants can help your company with any phase of planning, deploying and troubleshooting your hybrid Microsoft 365 and on-premises Exchange ecosystem. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide timely expertise when you need help solving difficult technical problems, or Progent can provide full-service project management support to make sure your initiative to integrate Microsoft 365 Exchange Online with on-premises Exchange is a success. For details about Progent's consulting services for hybrid Microsoft 365 and on-premises Exchange solutions, see Microsoft 365 integration with on-premises Exchange.

Progent can help your business seamlessly integrate your IT resources with public cloud services on Microsoft Azure. Progent can assist you to provision and deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, set up offsite storage using Azure Storage, centralize identity management and provide single sign-on (SSO) across cloud-hosted and local applications with Azure Active Directory, and create reliable and compliant backup/restore mechanisms with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to configure and troubleshoot firewalls and IPsec VPN tunnels for safe access to Azure resources. For more information about Progent's integration support for Microsoft Azure, refer to Microsoft Azure integration consulting services.

Progent's Google Cloud Platform planning and integration experts offer cost-effective remote and on-premises consulting to assist businesses to migrate any part of their core IT infrastructure to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This can save time and hardware costs and enable the use of Google's cutting edge AI and machine learning tools. Progent can help your IT team with every phase of Google Cloud Platform migration and troubleshooting including needs analysis, readiness assessment, system design and review, testing, configuration, centralized administration, performance optimization, licensing management, disaster recovery mechanisms, and security strategies.