Achieving a 91% annual cost saving by moving to Microsoft Azure Cloud
The cloud enables businesses to reduce costs and increase agility. And that’s exactly what we’ve done for Quickstep. With data storage and immediacy being key to Quickstep’s credibility in its market, we recommended Microsoft Azure to guarantee security and reliability.
Client
Quickstep
The Challenge
Images and voice recordings are the lifeblood of Quickstep’s business. With large volumes of evidence being uploaded and stored by each electrician training for NVQ qualifications, the cost of hosting Quickstep’s online assessment centre was adding up. With the fluctuating number of individuals and colleges participating in Quickstep’s scheme, the flexibility to scale resources for busy periods was also a key goal.
The Solution
A cloud readiness assessment tailors your cloud migration strategy based on your business needs. For Quickstep we recommended a phased approach to ensure continued availability of the system throughout the migration. Firstly we moved Quickstep’s data (120GB) from the incumbent hosting provider’s server to Azure. Then the website was upgraded to a newer version of .NET and converted to an Azure Web App. Finally the database was moved to Azure SQL Server completing Quickstep’s cloud migration.
"The saving isn't pennies, it's a substantial saving."
The Outcome
Over the next five years Quickstep will save 91% per year as a direct result of migrating the online assessment system to Azure. This frees up £118,000 to invest in other strategic initiatives. And when new NVQ candidates or colleges come on-board, we can manage resources in the Azure cloud to increase capacity quickly and easily.
