Founded in Taiwan during 2006, this middle size corporation of 50 employees is a publishing house catered to the taste of knowledgeable individuals of working age.

This corporation has published books in various categories and genres such as inspirational, art design, business management, literary novel, and information technology. Embracing the responsibility to share knowledges to the public, this corporation hopes combine technology and humanism and deliver its readers a high-quality and enjoyable reading experience.

Challenge

This publishing house is facing a rise in the number of visitors accessing their current website, which includes e-commerce options and book previews. However, the response time of their website cannot respond to a larger audience. Therefore, they wish to migrate their website to Azure to utilize scalability functions of cloud. Some requirements include code re-designing without diminishing current functions and the addition of monitoring systems.

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

About a year ago, Microsoft Azure has launched a new web apps migration choice-Azure Migrate for the migration of .NET web applications to Azure App Service simply with the help of Migration Assistant tool.

Solution

We could segment our solution into three parts, compute, design, and database.

Our proposed solution for the computation aspect is to migrate on-premises website to Azure and altering into an App Service. The App Service allow the use of Azure Backup alongside scalability and high availability custom settings. The design of our solution is to use Azure Key Vault for privacy control, use Managed Identity to save the retrieved data from Key Vault, and adopt suggested ASP.NET website settings according to App Service Migration Tool. Lastly, database is not altered since other on-premises integrated systems includes the use of current SQL Server, but a Hybrid Connection is deployed for the connection of Intranet and Azure.

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A small size company of 20 employees was found in 2018, headquared in Taiwan, is a technology consultant and service company focusing on living space, atmosphere, and lifestyle improvement. Services of this corporation include multiple workspace platform, and various apps on App Store and Google Play.

Since modern working environment has gone through drastic change, this company have developed online operation platforms and sharing systems. This company also embrace collaborations with Internet of Things, mobile payment, and other service partners, aiming to create a new economic model between working and living space.

Challenge

This company aims to adapt to Cloud-Native technology for their community service integration platform, adding new functions to their current platform, and alter it into web application without changing their core system structures.

For cloud adaptation, they wish to migrate their on-premises platform to Azure. For security, they would like to adopt API for password management. Requirements for additional functions include large batch email-based notification to inform their community, adaptation of CI/CD, and more measures for monitoring this platform. 

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

About a year ago, Microsoft Azure has launched a new web apps migration choice-Azure Migrate for the migration of .NET web applications to Azure App Service simply with the help of Migration Assistant tool.

Solution

Our proposed solution for web application adaptation is to migrate Windows and SQL server to SQL Databse, Windows and Web server to App Service, and Windows and API server to App Service.

Security measures include web server configuration, app service networking settings, and dynamic encryption. On-site emails are sent through Sendgrid purchased through Azure Marketplace. Version control and CI/CD is achieved through Azure DevOps Repository and Pipelines. Lastly, using App Insights to monitor web server, web page, API, and performance.

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This small yet promising startup of 20 employees is a custom-made hat company founded in USA in 2019. The core business of this startup is the production of custom handmade hats, caps, and patches and with over hundreds of varieties. This company gives its customers the choice to customize their very own hat through selecting patches and hats individually while they combine your choices to make a unique hat.

Challenge

The most recent goal of this corporation is to introduce IT systems and systematic approaches into their business. As this corporation expand in both human resources and overseas sales, they require a stronger system to satisfy customer demand within limited processing time. Therefore, several months ago they have started adopting Redmine for project management, collaboration, and issue control.

Now they would like to strengthen their security and backup system through Azure migration while updating Redmine to the latest version.

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

According to Microsoft research, they had proudly stated that 50% of new VMs running in Azure were running Linux and Linux-based image cores comprise 60% of Azure Marketplace Images. In addition, organizations can enjoy scalable storage, stronger data security, task automation, and plenty of cloud services while utilizing Microsoft Azure to meet each company’s cloud usage demands.

Solution

After consulting with this corporation, we have provided a solution integrating both Redmine and other services that satisfies their future needs while fulfilling their security and backup requirements. The solution we propose includes the use of Redmine Certified for Bitnami built on top of Debian Linux configured for Production Environment.

Redmine, PHP, Apache, MySQL, and Ruby has been integrated and secured using SSL Certification of Let’s Encrypt. More security configurations include a convenient point-to-site VPN Gateway for SSH login and Network Security Group setting allowing only Redmine Administrator to access Linux VM through SSH.

Customer Benefits

The adaptation of Linux Migration has leveraged the optimized Redmine solution, decreased customer’s time spent by approximately 30% for security check and manual updates, which also leads to the decrease managerial cost. The improved security settings becomes less of a concern since Bitnami is configured to automatically update images on marketplace during security breaches. 

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A mid-size big data corporation founded in 2014 with 80+ big data pioneers, headquartered in San Francisco, California has developed a data infrastructure solution that allows customers to deploy, scale, manage and explore your data across hybrid infrastructures in one centralized interface.

This corporation also have operation teams in London, Switzerland, Taiwan, Australia, and UAE. The data pioneer utilized its expertise to generate simple storytelling visualization analytics solutions out of complex data associations and relationships.

Challenge

This corporation has won a government bid for the creation of a public-facing promotion website. The requirements of this website include public access availability incorporating a Content Management System. Therefore, they have already built an on-premises WordPress CMS website prototype built upon Ubuntu Linux. Features of their prototype includes ImageMagick, a transcoding/resizing program that resizes photos and PDFs before passing onto My SQL database.

Their next goal was to migrate to Azure to satisfy the needs of public access, high data traffic, storage, scalability, and several additional demands. The main additional demand is customized adaptation and storage of various files (images and PDFs) in preparation of their future App Service conversion project. Since they wish to preserve their use of certain Linux WordPress plugins, they have made the decision to conduct Linux OS migration to Azure with the help of Caloudi.

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

According to Microsoft research, they had proudly stated that 50% of new VMs running in Azure were running Linux and Linux-based image cores comprise 60% of Azure Marketplace Images. In addition, organizations can enjoy scalable storage, stronger data security, task automation, and plenty of cloud services while utilizing Microsoft Azure to meet each company’s cloud usage demands.

Solution

To achieve a secure, on-demand, public-facing, CMS-based promotion website, we have planned a migration solution catered to migrate their CMS-based website to Azure.

We have segmented our solution into three parts: computation, network, and security. For computation, On-premises Linux Server is migrated to Azure and becomes Ubuntu Server. Applications such as Apache, WordPress, PHP, ImageMagick has been installed to the Ubuntu VM. Whereas images and documents are stored in both disk and storage account. Other custom settings include Azure Backup for auto-backups and VM Scale Set for Salability and High Availability settings. Next, network solution includes isolated database using Azure Database for MySQL with Azure Firewall for IP protection. Lastly, we have deployed Azure Bastion Service with the setting of Network Security Group to secure remote access.

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Founded in 2015, a leading technology corporation merged with AR/VR Research Group of one of the most prestigious research institute of Taiwan, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). After the merge, this corporation with a head count over 100 received fund by internationally recognized ventures and development funds including National Development Fund, Alibaba Entepreneurs Fund, Taya Venture, etc. Headquartered in Taiwan, with approximately 50 members, this corporation has branched in Silicon Valley of US, Europe, China, and Hongkong.

Their cutting-edge expertise in AR/VR content platforms leads to their global strategic partnership with Google, Intel, ARM, Microsoft, ASUS, etc. Services of this corporation includes AR/VR adaptation in the real estate, design, furnishing, e-commerce, and tourism industry, expanding their global market to 20+ countries in North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, and Middle East.

Challenge

This corporation’s technical employees frequently travel overseas to support their customers. Therefore, a secure easy-access network to their company’s resources such as virtual machines is crucial to their customer success objective. Their most recent approach is to connect to the company VPN/SSH for VM access, but this method is cumbersome to their employees.

Their VMs are split between various regions of VNet, which drastically increases the complexity of resource access. Other than the inconvenience of the current approach, this corporation has concern about the possible security breach during the pandemic. As more companies began to work at home, more attacks on company network is anticipated. Therefore, they deliver this difficulty to the Caloudi Migration team.

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

According to Microsoft research, organizations save up to 80% of their spending on Windows server and increase 25% in IT productivity using Microsoft Azure. In addition, organizations can enjoy scalable storage, stronger data security, task automation, and plenty of cloud services while utilizing Microsoft Azure to meet each company’s cloud usage demands.

Solution

We proposed Azure Bastion solution in order to tackle this global on-demand accessibility and security issue.

Our plan of approach involves the deployment of Bastion Resource in VNet and using RDP/SSH to connect to VM. Since Bastion Resource allow the use of entirely private company VM without the use of Public IP diminishes the possibility of successful cyber-attacks. This solution introduces simplicity, mobility, and automation to VM access. Members of this corporation can simply connect to VM through Azure Portal using any browser that supports HTML5.

A click on the “connect” button after selecting RDP/SSH connection option is all that is needed to access VM with minimal cost and secured connection. During times where VM connection is no longer needed, Bastion Resource can be cancelled effortlessly and re-deployed at ease using ARM template.

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Customer About

Founded in 2015, this leading corporation has merged with AR/VR Research Group of one of the most prestigious research institute of Taiwan, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). After the merge, this corporation with a head count over 100 became a mid-size corporation and was then funded by internationally recognized ventures and development funds including National Development Fund, Alibaba Entepreneurs Fund, Taya Venture, etc.

Headquartered in Taiwan, this corporation has branched in Silicon Valley of US, Europe, China, and Hongkong. Their cutting-edge expertise in AR/VR content platforms has led to their global strategic partnership with Google, Intel, ARM, Microsoft, ASUS, etc. Services of iStaging includes AR/VR adaptation in the real estate, design, furnishing, e-commerce, and tourism industry, expanding their global market to 20+ countries in North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, and Middle East.

Challenge

Due to the pandemic, global demand of AR/VR/MR applications has drastically increased. Many companies reached a high in its workload and traffic for their web applications. As an AR/VR/MR professional, the leading corporation has predicted a high in its workload and traffic with their applications in the construction of a wholesome experience of luxury flagships.

During research and development stage, they started with on-premises environment but this would not be the end goal. Their 360 AR/VR application should satisfy the requirements for secure public access, ability to withstand traffic, and uninterrupted on-demand access with minimal cost. They have delivered their concerns and requirements to Caloudi for a migration plan.

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

According to Microsoft research, organizations save up to 80% of their spending on Windows server and increase 25% in IT productivity using Microsoft Azure. In addition, organizations can enjoy scalable storage, stronger data security, task automation, and plenty of cloud services while utilizing Microsoft Azure to meet each company’s cloud usage demands.

Solution

Caloudi has proposed a cloud migration strategy for this leading corporation to move from on-premises to Azure in order to leverage the deployment of Azure services while taking high availability and scalability into consideration. This corporation’s current infrastructure design is a 4-layer structure with only a single host.

To tackle their challenge, our cloud migration plan includes a 4-tier structure that has multiple databases, application servers, and web servers. Whereas their current on-premises SQL server and API server becomes multiple SQL Databases and API servers incorporating always-on availability group, 99.99% SLA, with zone redundancy when applicable. Whereas their on-premises ASP.NET web application becomes multiple app services, one per customer with its appropriate app service plan depending on its customer needs. This solution has migrated this corporation’s initial research onto the cloud, prepared for large scale public access.

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Customer About

A mid-size corporation of 120 employees, founded in 1990 and headquartered in New Jersey of USA, has been known for its competency in systems integration of network, software, and communications.

Since its establishment, this corporation has been committed to the software development of the internal management systems of government agencies. It has deployed systems integration services for police, justice, intelligence, and fire departments of New Jersey, Hawaii, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oklahoma state government agencies. The core business of this corporation revolves around integrating software systems that integrates case, file, personnel, image processing, and crime analysis management.

Aligned with United States’ current homeland security strategy, this corporation has worked with forensics expert Dr. Henry Lee to develop a smart crime detection, prevention, and security systems that can be used by police departments.

Challenge

This corporation has started a financial fraud detection and prevention project using forecasting and anomaly detection of time-series data. They have completed their initial research and development stage, with the final goal of allowing secure public access to this research.

During this stage, this corporation strives to develop an on-demand access, secure client-facing, API and SQL server during pilot testing. In addition, they would like to construct an environment to simplify their development process and leverage cloud services for future research purposes.

Choice of Cloud Migration- Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a smart, cost-effective public cloud that assists organizations to remain competitive and profitable. By adopting Microsoft Azure, organizations can optimize cost, speed up the delivery of solutions, and focus on higher impact work.

According to Microsoft research, organizations save up to 80% of their spending on Windows server and increase 25% in IT productivity using Microsoft Azure. In addition, organizations can enjoy scalable storage, stronger data security, task automation, and plenty of cloud services while utilizing Microsoft Azure to meet each company’s cloud usage demands.

Solution

To achieve a secure, on-demand, client-facing API and SQL server, we proposed an Azure Windows and SQL server migration solution for this corporation. After client engagement, we’ve understood that currently, this corporation uses VMware vSphere ESXi to manage their VMs and wishes to adopt the use of Azure for cloud migration and use many PaaS-based azure services in the future.

The main step of our migration plan involves the migration of SQL Server to Azure SQL Database, API server to Windows server VM with RDP Support, with the adoption of VPN Gateway and On-premises strengthened workstation. This solution allowed this corporation to be prepared for secure public access, implementation of high availability service with guaranteed uptime, and future Azure service adaptation.

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