Cloud consulting services

Choose an infrastructure model on the numbers, not the trend

HiTechCloud advises on the choice between public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers and hybrid — by measuring real load, calculating total cost of ownership and checking it against each sector's legal constraints.

Consulting scope
Strategy · Architecture · Cost · Compliance
Models compared
Public · Private · Dedicated · Hybrid
Deliverables
A comparison report and a phased roadmap
Infrastructure location
Data centres in Vietnam or overseas
Overview

Not every workload belongs in the cloud

In many of the projects we work on, most infrastructure spend comes from a handful of systems running steadily 24/7 at near-constant load. That is exactly where public cloud's hourly model costs more than a dedicated server — sometimes several times more.

Conversely, systems whose load swings with campaigns, development and test environments, and seasonal workloads, are a good fit for cloud.

So the engagement starts with measurement: each system's real usage over several weeks, not the specification on paper. HiTechCloud runs both cloud and dedicated infrastructure, so we have no reason to push you either way.

Common problems

Infrastructure decisions are usually made without the data

Moving to cloud because competitors did

A decision driven by market pressure rather than by the cost and risk of your own systems.

Cost estimates that only count the servers

Egress bandwidth, backup storage, load balancing, static IPs and monitoring together often dwarf the compute estimate.

Legal constraints overlooked

Some data must be stored in-country. Discovering that after migrating means doing the work twice.

The cost of leaving is never counted

The deeper you go into one vendor's proprietary services, the more it costs to leave.

Services

Consulting scope

Current-state assessment

Inventorying systems, measuring real CPU, memory, storage and bandwidth use, and mapping dependencies.

Comparing infrastructure models

Comparing public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers and hybrid on one shared set of cost, performance and risk criteria.

Calculating total cost of ownership

A three-year cost model covering infrastructure, bandwidth, backup, software licences and operations staff.

Designing the target architecture

Building a target architecture whose availability, headroom and disaster recovery match how critical each system is.

Data compliance review

Identifying data that must stay in-country and designing for it without breaking the overall architecture.

Migration roadmap

Splitting the work into stages you can stop at, each with acceptance criteria and a rollback plan.

A working session between the consulting team and the client's engineers
How we work

We measure first and conclude second

Infrastructure advice is only credible on real operating data. The measurement phase usually takes weeks and is the most important part of the project.

  • Collecting hourly resource-usage data for at least two to four weeks.
  • Analysing load peaks and how often they occur.
  • Comparing what you pay for against what each server actually uses.
  • Quantifying outage risk against the business value of each system.
Process

From survey to decision

  1. 01

    Survey and measurement

    Inventorying the systems, gathering operational data and recording legal, budget and staffing constraints.

  2. 02

    Analysis and comparison

    Modelling the infrastructure options and comparing them on total cost of ownership, outage risk and headroom.

  3. 03

    Presentation and sign-off

    Presenting the findings to both engineering and finance, and agreeing the approach and the budget.

  4. 04

    Building the roadmap

    Splitting the migration into stages, with a system order, acceptance criteria and a rollback plan.

Consultant reviewing a cloud environment on a computer
How we work

Advice based on the real system, not on a description of it

We work in your own account and your own numbers: the running configuration, the last twelve months of billing and the incident log, rather than answering from a generic model.

  • Read-only access, granted for the review period and revoked afterwards.
  • The output is a prioritised list of actions with cost estimates.
  • You keep every document, including if the engagement goes no further.
Customers

Who this service is for

Businesses weighing up a move to cloud

  • Systems running on physical servers in the office or an IDC.
  • You need to know whether migrating actually saves money.
  • You want a phased roadmap rather than a big-bang migration.

Businesses already on cloud whose costs have overrun

  • Monthly bills keep climbing with no clear cause.
  • You need a review to bring some workloads back.
  • You want to optimise before signing another long-term commitment.

Businesses with specific compliance requirements

  • Data that must be stored within Vietnam.
  • Your sector has its own rules on security and record keeping.
  • You need control evidence for an audit or a major partner.
FAQ

FAQ

You sell infrastructure as well as advice — can that be objective?

We provide both cloud and dedicated servers, and also deploy on AWS and other international platforms. The report sets out the full comparison for you to check yourselves — including when the conclusion is to keep what you have.

How long does a consulting project take?

Usually three to six weeks, most of it measurement. For small systems with monitoring already in place, it can be shorter.

Do we have to migrate straight after the consultation?

No. The deliverable is a report and a roadmap. You can implement it yourselves, hire someone else, or wait until budget and staffing allow.

What if the conclusion is to keep the current system?

That is a valid conclusion and we still give it when the numbers point that way, along with small improvements you can make without changing platform.

Put infrastructure decisions back on the numbers

Get in touch and HiTechCloud will survey what you run today and return a cost comparison across infrastructure models for your systems.