IT Service Descriptions
      Back to home
      1. Ntiva Service Descriptions
      2. IT Service Descriptions

      Ntiva Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) with Azure

      Ntiva offers a comprehensive range of Microsoft Azure services designed to enhance your cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity posture. Our Azure service offerings encompass various Azure resource types, including Computing, Networking, and Storage.

      Harness the power of Azure's Compute capabilities to deploy and manage virtual machines, ensuring scalability, high availability, and optimal performance for your applications.

      Our Networking services provide a secure and highly connected environment, enabling you to build and manage virtual networks, implement load balancing, and secure your data through Azure Firewall and VPN Gateway. With Azure Storage, you can store and manage data of any scale, optimize costs through tiered storage options, and ensure data durability and security. Experience the powers of computing, networking, and storage on Azure to unlock new possibilities and streamline your IT infrastructure.   

      FEATURES & BENEFITS  

      Azure Virtual Machines 

      Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) offer a wide range of features and benefits that make them a popular choice for businesses and developers looking to run applications and workloads in the cloud. Here are some key features and their associated benefits: 

      Scalability: 
      • Azure VMs can be easily scaled up or down to accommodate changing workloads. 
      • This flexibility allows you to match your infrastructure to your needs, saving costs during low-demand periods and ensuring performance during high-demand times. 
      Multiple Operating Systems: 
      • Azure VMs support various operating systems, including Windows and Linux.
      • You can choose the OS that best fits your application requirements, making it suitable for a wide range of workloads. 
      • Variety of Instance Types: 
        • Azure offers a diverse range of VM instance types optimized for different use cases (e.g., general-purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized, etc.). 
        • You can select the right instance type to meet the specific performance and resource requirements of your applications, ensuring cost-efficiency. 
      • High Availability: 
        • Azure VMs can be configured for high availability using availability sets or availability zones. 
        • This ensures that your applications remain accessible and reliable, even in the face of hardware failures or datacenter outages. 
      • Security Features: 
        • Azure provides robust security features, including Azure Security Center, Network Security Groups (NSGs), and Azure Firewall. 
        • These features help protect your VMs from threats and enable you to implement strong security policies to safeguard your applications and data. 
      • Integration with Azure Services: 
      • Feature:  
      • Azure VMs can easily integrate with other Azure services like Azure Storage, Azure Database, and Azure Virtual Network. 
      • Benefits: 
      •  This seamless integration enables you to build comprehensive solutions and leverage additional Azure services to enhance your applications. 
      • Automated Backup and Disaster Recovery: 
      • Feature:  
      • Azure offers built-in backup and disaster recovery solutions for VMs. 
      • Benefits:  
      • You can create backup policies, automate backups, and implement disaster recovery plans to ensure data protection and business continuity. 
      • Cost Management: 
      • Feature: 
      •  Azure provides tools like Azure Cost Management and Azure Reserved Virtual Machines to help you optimize and manage your VM costs. 
      • Benefits:  
      • These tools assist in controlling expenses, identifying cost-saving opportunities, and ensuring efficient resource utilization. 
      • Global Reach: 
      • Feature:  
      • Azure has data centers in multiple regions around the world. 
      • Benefits:  
      • This global presence allows you to deploy VMs closer to your end-users, reducing latency and ensuring a better user experience. 
      • Pay-as-You-Go Pricing: 
      • Feature:  
      • Azure VMs follow a pay-as-you-go pricing model. 
      • Benefits:  
      • You only pay for the resources you use, which can lead to cost savings compared to maintaining on-premises hardware. 
      • Compliance and Certification: 
      • Feature: 
      •  Azure has a wide range of compliance certifications and adheres to industry standards. 
      • Benefits:  
      • This ensures that your applications hosted on Azure VMs can meet regulatory requirements and maintain data privacy and security. 

       

      By leveraging these features and benefits, businesses and developers can build and manage flexible, secure, and cost-effective infrastructure using Azure Virtual Machines. 

      Azure Networking 

      Azure offers a comprehensive suite of networking components and services that enable organizations to build, secure, and manage their cloud-based networks. Here's a detailed list of features and benefits of Azure networking components: 

      • Virtual Networks (VNets): 
      • Features: 
      • Isolation: VNets provide network isolation and segmentation for your resources in Azure. 
      • Subnetting: You can divide VNets into multiple subnets for better resource organization. 
      • Custom IP Addressing: VNets allow custom IP address space definition. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Secure Segmentation: VNets help isolate resources for security and compliance. 
      • Efficient Resource Management: Subnets enable efficient resource allocation within the VNet. 
      • Customization: Custom IP addressing allows tailoring the network to your specific needs. 
      • Azure Load Balancer: 
      • Features: 
      • Load Balancing: Distributes incoming traffic across multiple VM instances or services. 
      • High Availability: Ensures the availability of your applications by directing traffic to healthy instances. 
      • Health Probes: Monitors the health of backend instances and routes traffic accordingly. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Scalability: Scales applications horizontally to handle increased traffic. 
      • Improved Reliability: Ensures applications are highly available and fault-tolerant. 
      • Efficient Resource Utilization: Optimizes resource usage by evenly distributing traffic. 
      • Virtual Network Peering: 
      • Features: 
      • Connects VNets: Allows VNets to communicate with each other securely. 
      • Hub-and-Spoke Architecture: Facilitates centralized and decentralized network architectures. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Network Expansion: Easily connect and expand networks within Azure. 
      • Simplified Architecture: Streamlines network topologies for better management. 
      • VPN Gateway and ExpressRoute: 
      • Features: 
      • VPN Connectivity: Establishes secure site-to-site and remote access VPN connections. 
      • ExpressRoute: Offers dedicated private connections to Azure data centers. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Secure Connectivity: Ensures secure and reliable connections to Azure resources. 
      • High-Performance Connectivity: ExpressRoute provides consistent network performance. 
      • Azure Firewall: 
      • Features: 
      • Network Security: Provides centralized network security policy enforcement. 
      • Application FQDN Filtering: Filters traffic based on fully qualified domain names. 
      • Threat Intelligence Integration: Blocks known malicious IPs and domains. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Network Security: Protects network traffic from threats and attacks. 
      • Application Layer Filtering: Allows fine-grained control over outbound traffic. 
      • Threat Prevention: Integrates threat intelligence to enhance security. 
      • Network Security Groups (NSGs): 
      • Features: 
      • Access Control: Filters inbound and outbound traffic to and from resources. 
      • Application Security: Enforces security rules based on source and destination IP, port, and protocol. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Micro-Segmentation: Enables granular control over network traffic. 
      • Security Enforcement: Helps implement network-level security policies. 
      • Azure Bastion: 
      • Features: 
      • Secure Remote Access: Provides secure RDP and SSH access to VMs over the Azure portal. 
      • No Public IP Requirement: Removes the need for public IP addresses on VMs. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Improved Security: Reduces exposure to the public internet. 
      • Simplified Remote Management: Streamlines remote access to VMs. 
      • Traffic Manager: 
      • Features: 
      • Global Load Balancing: Distributes traffic across Azure regions and external endpoints. 
      • DNS-Based Routing: Routes traffic to the closest and healthiest endpoint. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Global Availability: Improves application availability and responsiveness worldwide. 
      • Traffic Shaping: Enables intelligent routing based on endpoints' health and proximity. 
      • Azure DNS: 
      • Features: 
      • Custom DNS Domain Names for your Azure resources, applications, and websites, allowing you to tailor DNS configurations to your specific needs. 
      • Azure DNS supports private DNS zones, enabling secure and isolated DNS resolution within your virtual network, improving security and compliance. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Azure DNS is available in multiple Azure regions worldwide, ensuring low-latency DNS resolution for your applications and services across the globe. 
      • Seamlessly integrates with other Azure services, allowing you to manage DNS records for your Azure-hosted resources and services in one place. 
      • Azure NAT Gateway: 
      • Features: 
      • Azure NAT Gateway performs Source NAT, translating the source IP address of outbound traffic from private IP addresses to a public IP address. This allows internal resources to access the internet while appearing to have the same public IP address. 
      • NAT Gateway is designed for high availability, with redundant instances in different Availability Zones to ensure resilience and minimal downtime. 
      • It dynamically allocates outbound ports, helping in accommodating multiple concurrent outbound connections from resources in the virtual network. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Azure NAT Gateway allows resources in a virtual network to initiate outbound connections to the internet while keeping the internal resources hidden behind private IP addresses. This enhances security by reducing exposure to the public internet. 
      • NAT Gateway can handle a high volume of outbound traffic, making it suitable for scenarios with high scalability requirements. You can increase the instance count to meet your performance needs. 
      • NAT Gateway simplifies network architecture by providing a central point for outbound traffic. This eliminates the need for individually configuring Network Security Group (NSG) rules on each resource. 

       

      Azure's networking components offer a wide range of features and benefits, providing organizations with the tools needed to build secure, scalable, and highly available cloud networks. 

       

      Azure Storage 

      Azure offers various storage components, each with its own set of benefits to cater to different storage and data management needs. Here are the benefits of some key Azure storage components: 

      • Azure Disk Storage: 
      • Features: 
      • Azure Disk Storage offers various types of managed disks, including Standard HDD, Standard SSD, Premium SSD, and Ultra Disk, to cater to different performance and cost requirements. 
      • You can take point-in-time snapshots of disks for data backup and recovery purposes. 
      • Azure Disk Storage integrates seamlessly with Availability Sets, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance for virtual machines. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Different disk types allow you to choose the right level of performance for your workloads, from standard to high-performance SSDs. 
      • Snapshots provide data protection and recovery options without the need for complex backup solutions. 
      • When used with Availability Sets, Azure Disk Storage ensures that your virtual machines remain available even during hardware failures. 
      • Azure Blob Storage: 
      • Features: 
      • Blob Storage offers hot, cool, and archive tiers to store data cost-effectively based on access patterns. 
      • Data Lake Storage Gen2 Integration: It combines object storage capabilities with a hierarchical file system for big data analytics. 
      • You can define policies to automatically transition or delete objects based on criteria like age or access frequency. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Blob Tiers allow you to optimize storage costs by matching data access patterns to the appropriate tier. 
      • Blob Storage is highly scalable, making it suitable for applications with varying data storage needs. 
      • Integration with Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 simplifies big data analytics and data lake solutions. 
      • Azure Files: 
      • Features: 
      • Azure Files supports SMB, making it easy to mount file shares on Windows and Linux VMs. 
      • You can access Azure Files using REST APIs for programmatic file operations. 
      • Securely manage access to file shares using Azure AD credentials. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Azure Files simplifies file sharing across VMs and services in Azure and provides an alternative to traditional file servers. 
      • Azure Files offers built-in redundancy for data, ensuring availability and data integrity. 
      • Integration with Azure AD enhances security and simplifies access control. 
      • Azure File Sync: 
      • Features: 
      • Automatically moves rarely used files to the cloud, reducing on-premises storage costs. 
      • Allows synchronization of files across multiple locations, improving data availability and disaster recovery. 
      • Provides backup and recovery capabilities for file shares. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Cloud tiering helps optimize on-premises storage usage by moving cold data to Azure. 
      • Multi-site sync enhances data availability and ensures access even during local outages. 
      • Integration with Azure Backup offers reliable data protection and recovery options. 
      • Azure Data Box: 
      • Features: 
      • Data Box devices enable offline transfer of large volumes of data to Azure data centers. 
      • Data Box ensures data security during transit and at rest with encryption and tamper-evident seals. 
      • Extends Azure services to the edge, allowing processing of data at the edge before transferring to Azure. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Data Box accelerates data migration and eliminates the need for high-bandwidth internet connections. 
      • Ensures data security and compliance with industry standards during data transfer. 
      • Data Box Edge brings Azure capabilities closer to where data is generated, enabling real-time processing. 
      • Azure Backups: 
      • Features: 
      • Azure Backup offers automated backup of Azure VMs, on-premises servers, and data stored in Azure Blob Storage. 
      • You can define retention policies to control how long backups are retained. 
      • Application Consistency: Supports application-consistent backups for Microsoft applications. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Azure Backup helps protect critical data and applications against accidental deletion, corruption, or disasters. 
      • Pay only for the storage used by backups, with no upfront costs, and optimize costs through retention policies. 
      • Backup a wide range of resources, including VMs, SQL databases, and file shares, across hybrid environments. 
      • Azure Site Recovery: 
      • Features: 
      • Provides disaster recovery orchestration for on-premises and Azure-based workloads. 
      • Replicates VMs and physical servers to Azure for failover and recovery. 
      • Allows you to test failovers and automate recovery processes. 
      • Benefits: 
      • Ensures business continuity by providing a robust disaster recovery solution. 
      • Minimizes downtime during outages or disasters by failing over to Azure resources. 
      • Supports regular testing of disaster recovery scenarios to validate recovery plans. 

      Each of these Azure services offers unique features and benefits to cater to different storage, backup, and disaster recovery requirements. 

      Service Workflow 

      • Needs Assessment and Planning: 
      • Engage with the client to understand their specific business needs and requirements for Azure. 
      • Evaluate the client's existing infrastructure, workloads, and applications to identify opportunities for Azure adoption. 
      • Solution Architecture:  
      • Design a tailored Azure solution based on the client's requirements, including VM sizes, Storage configurations, and networking considerations. 
      • Cost Analysis:  
      • Provide a cost analysis to help the client understand the potential cost savings and benefits of migrating to Azure. 
      • Migration Planning: 
      • Develop a migration plan, including data migration strategies, downtime minimization, and resource scaling. 
      • Deployment: 
      • Deploy Azure according to the finalized design and migration plan, ensuring a smooth transition. 
      • Performance Monitoring: 
      •  Implement monitoring solutions to continuously track the performance of Azure and applications. 
      • 24/7 Support:  
      • Provide ongoing support and troubleshooting services deployed by Ntiva to address any issues and ensure the reliability of Azure services. 

      Service Assumptions 

      • The client’s service agreement will cover the labor costs for normal operations. 
      • Any additional Azure services will require a project request through Ntiva’s standard service workflow.  
      • The client is responsible for obtaining the Microsoft Azure Subscription directly from Microsoft or through Ntiva Azure distributor. 
      • If a client obtains Azure subscription purchased directly from Microsoft Ntiva will have limited ability to escalate support issues if they arise with Microsoft. 
      • If a client obtains Azure subscriptions from Ntiva’s distributor, Ntiva will be able to follow normal Microsoft escalation paths for support issues. 
      • Ntiva must have Contributor or owner access to support and deploy services into clients Azure subscription 
      • Client is responsible for all charges on Microsoft Azure subscription