Houlder specialise in engineering design, clean technology and technical consultancy for marine and offshore environments. Through their global network, their projects can be found around the world in locations such as the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, West Africa and Singapore. In addition to this, Houlder are committed to supporting professionals from the beginning for their careers, which has earned them the “Work Placement of the Year – Best SME” award from the National Council of Work Experience.

Houlder set their sights on a shift towards a modernised workspace, with an emphasis on providing an agile working culture that would also support the growth ambitions of the business. Having decided to discontinue their offices, in favour of a flexible and hybrid working model, their pre-existing on premise infrastructure was no longer a suitable solution.

The solution was a migration of all on-premise infrastructure to the Cloud. Bytes met with Houlder and through a Cloud Discovery Workshop:

• Reviewed Houlder’s business requirements and objectives
• Identified potential blockers and gaps that may impact the cloud migration
• Reviewed the entire migration strategy
• Established criteria and metrics for success

Bytes Cloud specialists and business leaders at Houlder agreed that Microsoft Azure was the best solution for the business, due to a number of benefits such as:

• Security - all data is stored on Microsoft’s highly secure servers, which are protected with two-tier authentication, proxy card access readers, biometric readers and a global incident response team.
• Agility - developing applications in Azure is faster, meaning dev teams can be more iterative, gain feedback quicker and deliver projects on time, to customer requirements. This is helped by two inbuilt features - Virtual Studio and Virtual Machines.
• Scalability - Azure can be scaled to grow with the company at the click of a button and they’ll only need to pay for what they use.
• Backup and recovery - disaster recovery and backup are built in, with six copies of data being backed up across two datacentres, real-time mirroring and snapshots taken at critical intervals.
• Reduced cost and energy - Azure eliminates the need for physical datacentres, meaning companies can dramatically reduce both their capital expenditure and carbon footprint.

In addition to their migration to Azure, Houlder shifted from a CAPEX to OPEX model for their infrastructure. To support this, Bytes supplied their unique cloud platform tool, Bytes Quantum, which enables Houlder to track and optimise their cloud consumption levels now and accurately forecast future cloud usage and manage on-going spend.

Migrating to Azure has enabled Houlder to progress towards their business goals. With Microsoft Azure, Houlder are equipped with a platform that has the tools and scalability to match, as they continue to grow their global network of sustainability projects. Bytes flexible consultancy services will also assist Houlder where required, to enable them to best utilise their Azure Infrastructure. Using Bytes Quantum for Azure will bring further commercial benefits to Houlder Ltd, providing greater visibility and helping them to monitor their cloud consumption with ease. In addition, Bytes Cloud Essentials service is being considered, to provide Houlder with complete support for their newly established, cloud based enterprise.