SHI achieves Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status

It’s official: Following a two-day rigorous audit, SHI has been designated a Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP) – a status bestowed on only 62 companies globally! In fact, SHI is one of only 23 companies in the world that are both Azure Expert MSP certified and AWS MSP certified.

We couldn’t be prouder to achieve this accreditation, which provides third-party validation that we have the talent, technology, and services to guide customers in their cloud journey. Plus, we can now extend new benefits to customers that come as a result of receiving the certification.

Read on to learn more about the process we went through to achieve this status and how SHI can support or manage your organization’s Azure infrastructure.

What’s it take to become an Azure Expert MSP?

Before SHI could be named an Azure Expert MSP, we had to undergo an audit from a third-party Microsoft auditor. The auditor examined all parts of our Azure Professional and Managed Services – capabilities, people, processes, and technology – to determine our ability to offer managed services of complex Azure environments. Specifically, they looked at SHI’s:

• Standard business health
• Proven expertise performing assessments and designing Azure environments
• Best practices for building and migrating customers to Azure
• Operational processes for our managed services customers, including monitoring, incident management, problem management, and change management
• Cost optimization program
• Cloud Management Platform and the associated tooling we use to support and manage customer environments

The certification is an important milestone that confirms SHI’s technical knowledge and skills meet the bar set by Microsoft. It demonstrates proven customer success, as documented by public case studies and private references, and recognizes our direct engagement to Microsoft Support and Azure engineering groups.

What are the benefits to SHI’s customers?

Aside from the validation that comes from the badge itself, there are a couple of key values SHI can now bring to customers thanks to achieving this certification:

• Access to special Microsoft programs to help customers accelerate their journey to Azure, such as the Azure Migrate Program
• Access to funding and Azure incentives that are exclusive to Azure Expert MSP partners
• Exclusive access to Microsoft Azure engineering teams, so SHI teams can stay up to date on the latest product announcements and Azure innovations

How can SHI help me with my Azure migration or existing Azure environment?

SHI has a full portfolio of Azure Professional and Managed Services that can help customers at any point of their cloud journey. This includes:

• Azure Economic Assessments: These Microsoft-funded or partially funded engagements help you understand the cost of moving their on-premises infrastructure to Azure. If you’re looking to make a multi-cloud choice, SHI can provide agnostic cloud assessments that review the costs and benefits of moving to Azure or AWS.
• Professional Design & Build services: Founded on best practices and guidelines from Microsoft, such as the Cloud Adoption Framework, SHI’s initial build out and governance services help if you’re just getting started with Azure.
• Migration: Whether you’re planning a lift-and-shift migration or would prefer to refactor your applications and infrastructure as you move to the cloud, SHI can assist. We have experience with numerous migration tools and platforms including all those available within the Azure platform.
• Modernization: If you’ve already lift and shifted to the cloud, you’ve probably realized that it can be more expensive than on-premises if not properly managed. SHI can help you review your applications, databases, and architectures to better leverage cloud-native capabilities such as platform as a service, managed instances, and architectural design patterns that remove the need for idle compute costs.
• Management and optimization: SHI has multiple options to support and manage your Azure environment. SHI’s professional support tier provides access to our cloud engineering team when you have a problem and is coupled with SHI Technical Account Manager support for proactive recommendations. By enabling you to offload the management and monitoring of your Azure infrastructure, SHI’s Azure Managed service allows you to focus on the IT projects that are most critical to your business. SHI’s Cloud Optimization services can proactively help you ensure you’re not wasting your money on non-reserved instances, old un-deleted backups, or zombie Azure VMs.

Next steps

If you’re considering a migration to Azure or AWS, or if you’re already in Azure and looking for a partner to help manage or optimize your environment, SHI can help.

Ask your SHI Account Executive about SHI’s cloud services capabilities.