How to Migrate Azure SQL Databases to Azure Cosmos DB

Business Scenario:

Organizations are considering migrating their relational database objects into Azure Cosmos DB (SQL API) as Cosmos DB offers high availability, throughput, 99.99% read availability, low latency, and consistency across regions.

The legacy database objects don’t have any relationship\ reference with other existing objects, and these objects need to handle massive amounts of data, read and write at a global scale. Some of the challenges include:

  • Data ingestion is massively increasing.
  • Increased cost due to large volume of data storage and scalability.
  • Database performance issues leading to unexpected application outages.

Solution Strategy:

To overcome challenges like massive data ingestion, Performance, scalability, and global scale availability, we suggest migrating current SQL databases to Azure cosmos databases.

To facilitate this, we need to create two pipelines in Azure Data Factory to perform the following.

  1. Initial load of data: Create a pipeline with a copy activity – to copy the entire data from the source data store (Azure SQL Database) to the destination data store (Azure Cosmos DB).
    • Enable change tracking technology (CDC) in the source database in Azure SQL Database.
    • Get the initial value in the database as the baseline to capture changed data using change data capture (CDC) functions.
    • Load complete data from the source database into Azure Cosmos DB.
  2. Incremental load of delta changes: Create pipelines with the following activities and run them periodically:
    • Create a lookup activity to get the change count value on the source using the change data capture (CDC) table and function.
    • Create a conditional activity to capture delta changes.
    • Create one copy activity to copy the inserts and updates, except deletes from Azure SQL Database to Azure Cosmos DB.
    • Load the delta data using the table created as part of the CDC.
    • For deletes, we should refer to the CDC table (the table name has _CT extension to the original table) and _$operation column values for deleted records and manually delete those from the destination.
Migrate Azure SQL Databases to Azure Cosmos DB

Outcome & Benefits:

  • Azure Cosmos DB is a scalable multi-model database providing low latency and high availability.
  • Multi-region writes and data distribution to any Azure region.
  • Supports multiple APIs (Core SQL API)
  • Azure Cosmos DB offers single-digit millisecond response times and automatic and instant scalability.
  • No need for Schema Management.

How to Successfully Migrate Legacy Applications to Azure WebApp Services

Business Scenario:

Consider a business scenario where the organization is running on old legacy applications and their technologies are already outdated, and there is no support from Microsoft. The need of the hour for the client is to upscale the existing systems and move the application to the cloud so that the business can accelerate its growth. At the same time, they want to strategize their risk assessment to avoid any impact on performance and security in the existing application during the transition.

Business Challenges:

  • Microsoft declared the end of support for legacy technologies like VB/ASP, ASP.NET 2.0.
  • Many customers’ legacy applications are still running on their on-premises with old OS like Window Servers 2000, Windows Server 2008, or Windows 7, which are end of support. Also, application agents have installed those servers related to the legacy application like COM+ VB library.
  • The same database may be used by other legacy applications or inter-communication between two or more applications on either DB or application sides.
  • Due to application code complexity or business revenue from any such application, it’s risky to deploy a new setup on the latest supported version of OS on new Azure VMs or Azure Web App (PaaS) without proper research.
  • There is also a risk of keeping these application setups running on unsupported versions of OS as its vulnerable to new threats and issues with performance due to less flexible scalability when loads increase.
  • As on Jan 2023, Microsoft doesn’t have any OOB tool to perform in-place upgrades for such unsupported OS running on the Azure cloud.

 

On Premises Legacy

Solution Strategy:

  • Deploy the Azure Migration tool on the On-Premises server where the legacy application is present for assessing & discovering legacy application dependencies.
  • Review application code to check how many portions of code can be replaced using Visual Studio IDE in the latest .NET framework in Azure WebApp with minimal effort.
  • Identify all the portion of code like COM+ VB which needs to remediate in the same latest .NET framework.
  • Identify security (Authentication & Authorization) related code that needs to change from .NET Window Authentication with Active Directory to token-based OAuth code with Azure AD.
  • If communication is needed between migrated applications and other existing applications, either DB end or application side, then set up a VPN tunnel between Azure Private VN and On-premises for smooth and secure communication.
  • Use the Azure SQL Migration tool to migrate SQL Database to either Azure SQL Database or Azure SQL Manage Instance (in case some other SQL services are required, like any SQL Job, SSIS, or SSRS present or the organization has its SQL Server license).
  • If the Database is huge, it will require configuring Azure data factory for delta data migration between legacy and new.
  • Update the SQL connection string for all the other applications present on-premises that use the same DB after complete migration.
  • Create an app service account in Azure and a web app as required scaling.
  • Stop and deallocate the On-premises legacy application by taking approval for application downtime from business owners.
  • Update existing DNS A-name with new web app azure URL.
  • Check the application functionality in production.

 

Azure Environmant New System

Outcome & Benefits:

  • Minimum application downtime resulting increased productivity.
  • New application functionality and experiences resulting in enhanced user experience.
  • Customers can get support from Microsoft as they have moved to a supported version of the OS.
  • Improved application performance.
  • Secure application

How To Apply Zero Trust Principles to Azure Infrastructure

Business Scenario:

Organizations should start looking toward more advanced approaches like zero-trust model and identity-centric services if they are facing below scenarios.

Zero Trust is a security strategy. It is not a product or a service, but an approach in designing and implementing the of security principles like: Verify explicitly, use least privileged access, Assume breach.
Implementing the Zero Trust mindset to “assume breach, never trust, always verify” requires changes to cloud infrastructure, deployment strategy, and implementation.

  • The cloud is an essential technology for remote work, but it also comes with risks. poor configuration in the public cloud, particularly relating to access. Organizations can unintentionally grant users too much access or fail to implement the strong access controls.
  • Employees working remotely have expanded attack fronts.
  • Possibility of ransomware attacks increasing in remotely working environment.
  • Users are accessing sensitive data through unsafe Wi-Fi networks.
  • Employees are protecting their accounts with weak passwords.
  • DDoS attack might impact the business by preventing remote workers from accessing services over the internet.

 

Business Challenges:

while implementing below challenges might be encountered.

  • Managing multiple Azure subscription.
  • Managing Azure storage with granular permission.
  • Managing Virtual Machine in terms of identity and access.
  • Managing Spoke and Hub VNets in a secure way.
  • Managing Azure monitor and Defender in a consolidated way.

 

 

Solution Strategy:

Below strategy can be implemented to ensure Zero Trust and overcome the above business challenges.

 

Azure Subscription

  • One or more subscriptions can be managed together using a Management Group.
  • This will give you the capability to apply permissions with role-based access control (RBAC) and Azure policies to a group of subscriptions rather setting up each subscription individually.

Azure Storage

  • Isolate each storage account in a different resource group for more granular permission control.
  • You can deploy one storage account for each type of storage, Blob storage and Azure Files. This gives more granular access control and can enhance performance.
  • To protect data in all three modes: data at rest, data in transit, data in use.
  • Use encryption in transit, often use HTTPS to secure communication over the public internet.
  • Prevent anonymous public read access, to prevent data violations from anonymous access, you should specify who has access to your data.
  • Prevent shared key authorization, this configuration will force the storage account to reject all requests made with a shared key and require Azure AD authorization instead. Azure AD is a more secure choice as you can influence risk-based access mechanisms to harden access to data tiers.
  • Implement a minimum required version of transport layer security (TLS), Implementing a minimum TLS version will reject requests from clients using older versions.
  • Outline the scope for copy operations, restricting copy operations to source storage accounts with private endpoints is the extremely restrictive option.
  • Using customer-managed keys (CMK) provides more abilities to control rotation of the key encryption key or cryptographically erase data.
  • Verify users and control access to storage data with the minimal privileges, Using Role-based Access Control with Storage Accounts allows you to granularly outline access-based job function using OAuth 2.0. You can correspond your granular access to your Conditional Access Policy.
  • Use Defender for Storage for automated threat detection and protection.

Azure Virtual Machines

  • Logical isolation for virtual machines, Deploy virtual machines for workload tiers such as front end, application, and data in different resource groups to further isolate access control.
  • Configure logical isolation for virtual machines; using dedicated resource groups permits you to set policies and permissions that apply to all the virtual machines Inside the resource group.
  • Leverage Role Based Access Control (RBAC), Implement just-in-time and just-enough access (JIT/JEA) based on the user role.
  • Secure virtual machine boot components, Enable Secure boot, enable vTPM, Enable Integrity Monitoring.
  • Enforce customer-managed keys and double encryption ensures that if a disk is exported, it is not readable or able to function.
  • Implement Virtual Machine Applications feature to control the applications that are installed on virtual machines.
  • Implement multi-factor authentication with conditional access within Azure AD. Implement Azure Bastion to secure connections to virtual machines.
  • Set up secure maintenance of virtual machines, Implement anti-malware in virtual machine. Automate the updates using Azure update manger, so that virtual machines are protected from the latest malware and misconfiguration exploits.
  • Enable advanced threat detection and protection, based on Microsoft’s threat intelligence Advanced threat protection verifies the activities occurring on virtual machine.

Azure Spoke Virtual Network

  • Implement Azure AD RBAC built-in roles for network contributors. Set up custom roles to access just what is needed.
  • Isolate infrastructure into its own resource group, with dedicated resource group you can assign a custom role using RBAC for Spoke virtual network.
  • Create a network security group for each subnet, apply a network security group to each subnet.
  • For a multi-tier virtual machine-based application, Enforce dedicated network security group.
  • Implement application security group for each virtual machine role.
  • Secure traffic and resources within the VNet, implement baseline deny rules for network security groups, implement application specific rules for application security groups, project for management traffic in the VNet, Deploy network security group flow logging.
  • Secure access to the VNet and application, enforce multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies for user access to the application.
  • Enable advanced threat detection and protection.

Azure Hub Virtual Network

  • Azure Firewall Premium provides advanced features for examining traffic.
  • Configure Azure Firewall Premium for Zero Trust, Enable Threat Intelligence, Enable TLS inspection, Enable the Intrusion Detection and Prevention System.
  • Deploy Azure DDoS Protection Standard, this increases Zero Trust protection supplied on the Azure Platform. Create a DDoS protection plan, Enable DDoS protection for all virtual networks.
  • Configure network gateway routing to the firewall, configure route tables on various subnets to assure that traffic between spoke VNets and the on-premises networks are inspected by the Azure Firewall.
  • This will accelerate the level of audit and increase the security of your environment.
  • Configure gateway subnet routing, associate the route table to the gateway subnet, configure spoke subnet routing.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Azure Monitor

  • Use Management group as the extent, you will be able to combine in a single portal for all the functioning of Azure Monitor and Defender for Cloud. For example, Secure Score, provided by Defender for Cloud, will be combined for all your subscriptions.
  • Enable Microsoft Defender for cloud to automatically evaluate your storage accounts.

Reference architecture for this Zero Trust

Reference architecture for this Zero Trust

 

Outcome & Benefits:

  • Lowered an organization’s attack surface.
  • Microsegmentation minimize the damage when an attack does occur by limiting the violation to a small area.
  • Low cost of recovery from a security attack.
  • Fewer chances of user credential theft and phishing attacks by needing multiple authentication factors.
  • Elimination of the risk posed by vulnerable devices, including IoT devices.

Guide to Setup Disaster Recovery to Azure for on-premises VMware VMs

Business Case:

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is an excellent option for your Disaster Recovery (DR) needs:

  • If you are running the on-premises data center or physical machine and are worried about the initial cost of new hardware.
  • Setting up on-premises DR procurement and setup is costly and time-consuming.
  • Planning to migrate resources to the cloud in the future.
  • Setting up DR – Offsite or onsite.
  • If you are looking for availability and scalability in the long run

 

Challenges:

You will encounter the following challenges when you plan to have DR offsite.

  • Setting up networking infrastructure and security
  • No KB article is available for the simplest way to configure the ASR server.
  • Downtime to install the software agent on the infrastructure.

Pre-Requisites:

You will need below information to setup the configuration server:

  • Nic with the static IP for the source on-premises infrastructure
  • Azure Admin account to config for Azure
  • VMware On-Prem hostname or IP address
  • vSphere domain admin cred to configure the Azure Site Recovery
  • Port 433 and 9443 need to open for a secure connection between the On-prem and Azure environments.

 

Solution:

When you plan to start Azure Site Recovery, build an on-premises configuration server using Azure Site Recovery for disaster recovery of VMware VMs and physical Machines to Azure. The configuration server must prepare and coordinate communications between on-premises VMware and Azure and manage data replication.

Below are the steps for managing the configuration server after deployment:

  • Create on-premises VM and per recommended by the data size CPU 4core, RAM 12 and HDD 500 GB (Cache the temp data)
  • Register your Configuration server on-premises.
  • Download the Configuration server virtual machine template.
  • Import the Configuration server virtual machine template into your vCenter server using the Deploy OVF Template wizard.
  • Connect to the virtual machine’s console once it has successfully booted up.
  • Complete the Windows Server installation by accepting the license agreement and setting up an Administrator account.
  • Once the Windows installation is complete, install VMware PowerCLI 6.0 on the Configuration server.
  • Launch the Azure Site Recovery Configuration Manager wizard and follow the steps to register your Configuration server with Azure Site Recovery.
  • Sign in to the on-prem VM you created for the config server and Start Azure Site Recovery Configuration Manager from the desktop shortcut.
  • Another way you can access the configuration server remotely is from https://ConfigurationServerName/:44315/. Or you can access the server via RDP Sign in with administrator credentials.
  • After sign-in, select Add vCenter Server/vSphere ESXi server to associate a different VMware server with the configuration server.
  • Please enter the details like vSphere IP address and credential, and then select OK.
  • To update the credentials used to connect to the VMware server for automatic discovery of VMware VMs, choose the account and click Edit after sign-in in.
  • Enter the new credentials created to access the On-prem VM, then select OK.
  • Create the Vault account on Azure and set up the Network between on-premises to Azure.
  • Once the Network and Vault account is set up, install the Agent on the replication server & start the initial replication.
  • Once replication is complete for the protected server, please feel free to initiate the test failed over.
  • After the test failed over, feel free to clean up the test-failed infrastructure and check the recovery vault account health.

 

VMware to Azure replication Architecture

On-Premises

 

Benefits of Azure Site Recovery for DR

Once you set up the ASR using the configuration server and data starts replicating from On-prem VMware infrastructure to Azure, you can quickly fail over and fail back once needed. It will also help you to migrate the workload to the Azure cloud without much effort.

  • Reduces operational and maintenance costs.
  • Easily add/remove the critical server from the replication.
  • No limitation on infrastructure – you can easily upgrade the configuration server and add more servers for replication.
  • Once ASR setup and data start replicating, it’s easy to manage.
  • Replicates the data offsite.
  • In case of DR or ransomware, easily commit the changes for the restore point.
  • RTO/RPO up to 5 seconds to 15 minutes
  • No data loss in the transition
  • When you need to switch the load or think about migrating it from On-prem to Azure, will it help you efficiently cut the load from On-Prem?
  • Replication will be on secure connections 443 and 9443 using the automation account.
  • Maintenance will be low every year or twice a year. ASR Agent and configuration server need to be updated.
  • Set up Azure monitoring in case of failure and integrate it with the ticketing system.
  • Data availability as per Microsoft Azure SLA 99.99 is available.

How to upgrade Azure VMs for unsupported OS

Business Scenario:

Consider a scenario where one or all the customer’s VMs are running on Windows Server/Client OS, which is the end of support from Microsoft, and OS upgrade is not supported through update and management tool.

 

Challenges:

  • Microsoft announced the end of support for Windows OS like Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 long ago.
  • Many customers’ client and server systems are still running on these OS on the Azure cloud.
  • There are some complex application setups where the agent is installed on a client OS like windows 7, and the Management engine is on Server OS like Windows Server 2008, which is the end of support.
  • Some complex applications are configured and hosted only on the server running on Server OS, which is the end of support from the Microsoft side.
  • Due to code complexity or business revenue from any such application, it’s risky to deploy a new setup on the latest supported version of OS on new VMs.
  • There is also a risk of keeping these application setups running on an unsupported version of OS as its vulnerable to new threats.
  • As of Jan 2023, Microsoft doesn’t have any OOB tool to perform the in-place upgrade for an unsupported OS running on the Azure cloud.

 

Solution Strategy:

  • Take a backup of VM configurations like NIC, IP, data discs, NSG rules, LAW connection, and more.
  • Ensure complete and latest VM backup is in place.
  • Download the Operating System VHD of the VM in the scope of OS upgrade to an isolated environment.
  • Install the Hyper V feature and connect this VHD to have a VM running on an isolated hyper environment.
  • Download the iso of the latest supported version of the OS you wish to proceed with.
  • Attach this iso to the virtual drive and perform an in-place upgrade.
  • Activate the OS by entering a valid license key.
  • Check the application functionality in an isolated environment.
  • Upload this VHD to Azure and spin a new VM.
  • Check the application functionality in the Azure environment.
  • Stop and deallocate the old VM by approving application downtime from business owners.• Stop and deallocate the old VM by approving application downtime from business owners.
  • Update configuration of new VM as per backup taken for NIC, IP, data discs, NSG rules, and LAW connection.
  • Check the application functionality in production.
  • Delete the old VM and associated resources.

 

How to upgrade Azure VMs for unsupported OS

 

Outcome & Benefits:

  • Minimum application downtime.
  • Minimize risk in terms of security and application functionality.
  • Get support from Microsoft as they have moved to a supported version of OS.
  • Enhanced application performance on the latest platform with additional security features.

How to Migrate WordPress Website to Azure WebApp

Business Scenario:

The following are some reasons why you might want to migrate your WordPress website to the Azure web app:

  • You are developing a WordPress website that you predict will grow in size, and complexity over time and requires a highly scalable infrastructure that can grow with your website.
  • WordPress website is currently hosted on a third-party hosting provider’s data center or on-premises physical machine, and you cannot upgrade hardware because of the unavailability of supported hardware in the market.
  • Moving the website from one to another physical server will take longer time, effort, and cost. Also, you will face the same problem in the future.
  • You would like to host (MySQL) database layer on a separate server or use PaaS service for better performance and stability.

 

Challenges:

  • WordPress and MySQL are open-source products, and because of that, there is yet to be any official support available for migrating WordPress website data from one system to another.
  • The WordPress website and MySQL database are hosted on the same server, which is a single point of failure for both services. If this server is compromised, hackers will easily access both systems.
  • Migrating a WordPress website includes copying all its files and folder structure, its MySQL database, and changing the file to point to the new MySQL database. These tasks are very complicated for a large site and may require specific skills related to website configuration and MySQL database administration.
  • Migrating a WordPress site to a new hosting provider or web server can be complex for any WordPress user. This is understandable since a poorly executed WordPress migration can result in downtime and dataloss.
  • No out-of-the-box solutions are available in Azure to migrate a WordPress website to an Azure Web App.
  • The manual migration (export and import data) method could be more user-friendly, and there are possibilities of human error and data loss.

 

Solution Strategy:

  • After examining various methods, we discovered the All-In-One WP Migration application, which automates the migration of the MySQL database and the content of WordPress websites while supporting all third-party plugins. With this migration strategy, you can keep using the existing WordPress site.
  • Create a new WordPress app using azure WordPress on Linux App Service template.
  • Create a new MySQL database server on Azure for MySQL. It is a fully managed (PaaS) MySQL database service.
  • Install All-in-One WP Migration Plugin on Source and destination WordPress sites.
  • Install and add all extensions and plugins running on the source site.
  • Install All-in-One WP Migration Plugin on Azure WebApp WordPress Website.
  • Export production or existing WordPress website data from the source site
    1. Launch the WordPress Admin page and Open All-In-One WP Migration plugin.
    2. Click on the ‘Export’ option and specify the export type as a file.
    3. This bundles the contents of the plugins, themes, database, and media files into a single file, which can then be downloaded.
  • Import WordPress website data to the destination site (Azure WebApp WordPress website).
    1. Launch the WordPress Admin page and Open All-In-One WP Migration plugin.
    2. Click on the import option on the destination site, and upload the file downloaded in the previous section.
    3. Empty the caches in the W3TC plugin (or any other caches) and validate the site’s content.
  • Update WordPress web-config as per azure web app environment variable strings.
  • Update path and hyperlinks with new host server (Azure WebApp) information in PHP code, wp-content, and database using plugins like Search and Replace to update the database records.
  • Install recommended plugins like Local Redis CacheAzure CDN, and Azure Blob Storage
  • Configure Custom domain, create A and Cname record for azure web app hosted website in your existing domain (GoDaddy) service provider, and Mapped custom domain to migrated Azure WordPress Webapp site.
  • Update existing SSL Certificate to migrated Azure WordPress Webapp site.

 

Migrate WordPress Website to Azure WebApp

 

Outcome & Benefits:

  • WordPress website hosted on Azure Web App is resilient, secure, and cost-optimized.
  • You are utilizing managed host facility with High availability and auto-patching.
  • Easy to manage and deploy the website application.
  • Easy to back up and restore website data.
  • Built-in auto scale and load balancing service
  • SaaS benefits like easy cloning and cert management
  • Website database on Azure Database for MySQL is cost-effective and easy to set up, operate, and scale.
  • Advanced security, same-zone or zone-redundant high availability, and a service-level agreement (SLA) of up to 99.99 percent
  • Improved database and website performance three times faster than the earlier
  • You will see a cost reduction in monthly invoices after this migration.

How to Migrate MySQL to Azure Database

Business Scenario:

Consider a scenario where a client wants to migrate\modernize their legacy business-critical large size database server to Azure, which is stored on MySQL 5.6 Community Edition and Linux 4.4 in an on-prem data center. The technology is outdated and has no further support from vendors regarding backup and recovery tools, patching, bug fixes, etc. The database migration process could foresee the following challenges because of outdated software specifications:

 

Business Challenges:

  • MySQL 5.6 and Linux 4.4 were both obsoleted long ago.
  • The MySQL community edition is open-source and has no support from MySQL to use the Enterprise backup tool.
  • Native MySQL dump and restore options don’t work because of the large database size.
  • No database backup and recovery solutions were implemented because of the database size.
  • Azure Migrate doesn’t support lift and Shift because Linux Image starts from 5+ later versions on Azure.
  • There will be many dependency issues while installing any third party\open-source backup tools (Ex: PerconaXtrabackup, MyDumper-MyLoader) due OS version on the on-premises (source) server.
  • Many other challenges like the end of the data center agreement, the Existing server being non-compliant, etc.

 

Solution Strategy:

  • Ensure the server is ready on Azure with available Linux images and MySQL 5.6 community edition.
  • We should use other third-party or open-source tools to accomplish this migration since there are no native tools from MySQL\Azure to support this migration process because of obsolete versions of the database and OS versions.
  • There are many open-source tools available in the market, but for these types of migrations with large-size databases and no native tools support, the best fit is My Dumper \My Loader.
  • My Dumper \My Loader is an open-source backup tool that helps to take backup of MySQL databases with TBs in size by using the multi-thread process to speed up the backup and restore process.
  • This tool has a lot of additional parameters that help to optimize backup and restore the performance of the large-size tables in small chunks like weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly and append it later in one go to the database to have the required data.
  • Install My Dumper\My Loader on different Linux servers (the middle layer between the source and Azure) where the source server is located datacenter.
  • From the middle layer, the server connects to the source server remotely to dump the backups on Azure file share and download the files from file share to the Azure server(destination) using Azcopy.
  • Once files are available on the azure server, restore those files as databases.
  • We can split the backup into one-month chunks with multiple files and later append all the data in one database from all files. This tool’s beauty is that we can create smaller backup files and merge them later as needed.
  • We must match the data on both servers with database size and row count to avoid data loss.

 

On-Prem Data Center

 

Outcome & Benefits:

  • Implementing the above solution allows us to migrate large MySQL databases to obsolete versions without significant issues.
  • This will save the cost of migration as we are not using any licensed software and hosting costs on Azure.
  • We can implement a strong database backup and restore strategy post-migration using PerconaXtrabackup.
  • We can improve the database performance by implementing the best disk configuration methods suggested by Microsoft.

Dynamics 365 CRM & ERP Applications

In today’s digital economy, customers are modernizing their applications to optimize processes and operations, increase customer engagement to gain competitive advantage and improve employee experience through innovative collaborative tools.

Dynamics 365 brings together CRM and ERP applications as a cloud-based solutions to streamline processes and elevate customer experience. D365 applications seamlessly integrates with Office 365, LinkedIn, and other third-party applications.

 

Dynamics 365 ERP Applications:

ERP systems help organizations efficiently manage their businesses by integrating finance, manufacturing, retail, supply chain, warehouse, and inventory.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP Applications are standalone business applications that allow you to improve financial transactions, operational proficiency, and project management. It includes following modules.

Microsoft Dynamics 365—intelligent business solutions that seamlessly integrate ERP capabilities can help you transform your business. Dynamics 365 apps, which are hosted in the cloud, assist in breaking down silos within your organization by providing your team with a unified view of operations.

Dynamics 365 ERP Applications

 

Features of Dynamics 365 ERP Applications

  • Routine tasks should be automated
    Spend your time on what is most important by automating tasks that previously required time, effort, and resources. Set trigger and alerts for reports and assign tasks to the appropriate team members.

    Enterprise resource planning systems are an important tool for unifying operations across the numerous departments that businesses must manage. Enterprise resource planning systems provide insight and visibility across your business, replacing disparate processes, communication challenges between departments, and outdated systems.

  • Provide a centralized intelligence source Regardless of your customers’ or partners’ needs, enterprise resource planning systems help you stay aligned across your assets, employees, and goals, allowing your team to work more effectively.
  • Combine operations Connect your warehouses, suppliers, subsidiaries, and teams through a unified system to gain global visibility of your supply chain.
  • Determine which areas require assistance Complete visibility into your business operations allows you to quickly identify trends, downturns, or operational challenges that require your attention, assisting you in keeping your business running at peak efficiency.

 

Benefits of Dynamics 365 ERP Applications

In addition to improving visibility and insight, enterprise resource planning systems can provide your company with the following additional benefits:

  • Improved operational efficiency Real-time insights and predictive intelligence work together to help you quickly identify and resolve that are impeding optimal operations.
  • Lower costs Improved efficiencies, budget control, and financial process automation enable you to keep a close eye on costs and identify areas for improvement.
  • Best practices Connected departments make knowledge sharing easier than ever, allowing all departments to perform at their peak.
  • Increased team output Smoother operations and a centralized source of information increase productivity by bringing people, data, and processes together.
  • Better strategies Connected data takes you beyond outdated spreadsheets, allowing you to plan future strategic opportunities using dynamic views of the future.

 

Dynamics 365 CRM Applications

Dynamics 365 CRM applications cover all aspects of the customer relationship management process – Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service, and Project operations. These applications help your business to drive more qualified leads, optimize marketing campaigns, increase revenue, and build stronger customer relationships.

Dynamics 365 CRM Applications

 

  • Dynamics 365 Sales:
    Dynamics 365 Sales provides a 360-degree view of your interactions with prospects and customers, allowing your team to plan and forecast future interactions. It gives your sales, marketing, and account management teams a single source of truth.
  • Dynamics 365 Marketing:
    To acquire and retain customers, boost your marketing efforts by creating nurture campaigns, calculating lead scores, and providing insights for the next steps.
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Service:
    Increase the effectiveness of your customer service team by tracking customer complaints, returns, warranty claims, SLAs, and entitlements, as well as how your team handles each of these transactions.
  • Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation:
    Ideal for organizations that offer professional services at a fixed price or on a time and material basis (e.g., engineering, consultative services). Resource scheduling, time entry, and expense submissions are all available. These licenses also include sales capabilities.
  • Dynamics 365 Field Service:
    Excellent for any organization where your team performs services offsite (for example, at a customer’s location or on your field equipment). Customer service functionality is also included in these licenses.

You can use any combination of these apps with your ERP and Office 365. Your Microsoft Dynamics partner can assist you in matching your business processes and strategy to the appropriate licenses.

 

Implement Dynamics 365 in Collaboration with a Partner

Because these apps are constantly evolving and connect to your entire business, you need expert advice to determine which apps best suit your needs and strategy.

You will also require expert assistance to configure them properly for your business processes and to support you as your business and technology evolve.

Cambay Consulting Project Solutions, a Microsoft Dynamics Partner, is helping customers from consulting to implementation to support.

As a business leader, you must decide which Dynamics 365 apps to use. But who you partner with is an even more important consideration. Your Partner can assist you in assessing your business needs and then implementing, training, and supporting the best apps to meet your business needs.

 

Conclusion

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has added significant new capabilities to the business applications. However, there are so many new options each year that it can be challenging to keep up.

Schedule consultation to explore our Dynamics 365 ERP and CRM services.

Intelligent Health Marketing Platform

Does this sound familiar? Your healthcare system would love to do targeted marketing but there are problems every step of the way. You cannot micro-target because of security requirements. You would like to follow marketing best practices and do highly specific, pre-emptive campaigns but you have no ability to target based on disease propensities. And neither your marketing platform nor your analytics platform feel like they were custom designed for your unique healthcare needs.

We hear you! And that is why we built the Cambay Intelligent Health Marketing Solution using the latest Microsoft Technologies. We also have a strategic partnership with one of the leading healthcare AI vendors. We have created an end-to-end solution that will let your healthcare marketing reach its full potential. This solution will help your healthcare organization to reconnect with past patients while also finding new people, offering pre-emptive end-to-end care. From identification to outreach, events management, and more, we help your organization to drive additional revenue while addressing client care through propensity modeling.

We’ve had many conversations with health care organizations that feel they can only market broadly and with very little detailed targeting. Quite rightly, they don’t want to be seen incorrectly using patient data. They are the keepers of so much clinical data that they don’t want to even be close to the edge when it comes to healthcare marketing.

The truth is that there is so much opportunity for targeted intelligent marketing in healthcare. Many organizations are not capitalizing on the majority of what Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can do for their healthcare marketing efforts.

 

Better Marketing Through Technology

With the Cambay intelligent Health Marketing Solution, the barriers to targeted marketing are gone.

With our solution, we pull data targeted to individuals in a way that will make even the strictest Security and Compliance Officer happy. We help your healthcare organization target your marketing campaigns based on population-level health propensities. Using the latest in advanced analytics, we can help micro-target your population using a variety of datasets. In this way, we can work with your organization to do the smartest marketing possible.

 

Case Study

Here is a typical scenario. A hospital wants to do a Breast Health campaign for the communities they serve. They are looking to target the larger community, not just patients. And they want to micro-target both geographically as well as by population to drive attendance for smaller events they will have in satellite locations. Because they have offices across a large part of the state, they want to be as targeted as possible to minimize costs.

Before the Cambay Intelligent Health Marketing platform, they might possibly buy lists for where they want to send emails. They could also buy billboards or do broad social media. They could also just send emails to specific demographic groups from within their patient lists. None of these options are ideal. They are either too broad (and expensive) or too specific and small.

With the Cambay Intelligent Health Marketing Solution, they build a list of women in the specific zip codes they want to target who have a higher-than-average propensity for interest in mammography and breast health. Once this list is created, they can merge it with their EMR data to take out anyone who has indicated they do not want to be contacted. They can also take out all existing patients since they will be part of a different, patient-centric campaign. They can enrich this merged dataset with brand affinities to allow for targeted ad placements. And finally, they can target the campaign based on local office locations so that the message is tailored to their specific community.

In addition, they can identify the zip codes with the highest concentration of people likely to respond to Facebook and other social media ads. And then they can micro-target a campaign in these areas to determine effectiveness.

And finally, as the mailings and social media campaigns are in full swing, they can monitor and make changes based on the dashboards and business intelligence reports. End-to-end, using the Cambay Intelligent Health Marketing Solution, they have the control to drive the best outcomes possible.

 

What does the Cambay Intelligent Health Marketing platform look like?

Intelligent Health Marketing Platform

Prospect targeting and segmentation

Finding the right patients has never been easier. We’ve partnered with one of the leading healthcare AI vendors so that no matter where we need to look in the US, we can find patients that meet various clinical and behavioral criteria.

Looking to do a Facebook campaign for people that might be interested in learning more about an osteoporosis program? We can geo-target patients and non-patients alike. Hoping to also do a breast-health email campaign in the region served by owned physician practices? We can help create very detailed marketing segments.

With our strategic health AI capabilities, we already have amazing targeting capabilities. But that is just the beginning. Through a combination of machine learning and data connectivity, we can also bring in third party data such as consumer and purchasing behaviors. We can bring in your own data such as EMR and other health data. We can bring in purchased data such as Experian. And we can unify all this data into a single patient and prospect record. From there, we can build custom analytics, segmentation for marketing, and even custom machine learning models.

We build a complete, easily accessible personal record that includes all the various data sources. Even if this data does not share an existing relationship or key structure, we can use machine learning to bring this data together.

Marketing

Once all this data is combined, what can be done with it? We offer a highly sophisticated marketing platform built using best-in-class Microsoft technologies. We can help develop drip campaigns and Customer Journeys that turn prospects into patients. Whether we are talking event management, social media, physical mail, email, texting, or other communications, we can use segmentation and targeting to make sure every dollar is put to good use.

If we know that a certain percentage of your population is unlikely to respond to e-mail, we can skip them. But if we know that they are more likely to respond to a phone campaign, we can immediately transition them to targeted phone calls through, for example, your Care Coordination office.

We can also combine targeting. For example, if you have a particularly high-value segment and you know they are concentrated in a couple of zip codes, you can combine mail, targeted Facebook Ads, and an email campaign. And with unified analytics, there is no guessing if things are working out.

Analytics

It is time to put all this amazing data to work! At this point, we not only have all the patient and prospect targeting data, but we also have all the wonderful data generated during marketing. Microsoft offers best-in-class analytics. From BI and visualization to advanced analytics and data science modelling, there are no limits to what we can do. But to start it all off, we have insightful dashboards.

We deliver actionable patient, marketing, and outcomes analytics from day 1. Whether we are talking about how to improve marketing, how to improve health outcomes for specific segments and groups, or ways to maximize campaign ROI, we are ready.

And the best part? When we incorporate all those analytics in the targeting and segmentation step, we make marketing even smarter. We use what we’ve learned to be even more targeted. We turn that intelligence into meaningful strategy.

 

Next Steps

By partnering with Cambay Consulting Project Solutions, we can bring your health care system’s marketing not just into the present but into the future. The Cambay Intelligent Health Marketing Platform doesn’t just let you find and market to patients or future patients, but it also makes your organization smarter in the process.

This is a complete solution to help healthcare organizations be better at targeting, better at marketing, and better at finding actionable intelligence, which will result in positive revenue, higher patient satisfaction, and greater satisfaction amongst staff and physicians.

It is an enterprise-grade solution that is built on technologies that have been tested across countless users and organizations. These technologies are best in class but have never quite been used this way in the healthcare space.

Get in touch for a demo and to see how we can help your organization.

SharePoint On-Premises to SharePoint Online Migration – Benefits

Microsoft SharePoint Online is a collection of cloud and web-based technologies that help businesses easily store, share, and manage digital information. SharePoint Online’s three hubs are Newsfeed, OneDrive, and Sites.

A new microblogging feature in the Newsfeed allows users to engage in conversations, “like” posts, including photos, videos, and documents, and mention other users. SharePoint Sites for mobile devices are simple to customize and configure.

Collaboration with third-party users, such as vendors and customers, is also possible with SharePoint Online. SharePoint online is available as a separate product and as part of the Office 365 / Microsoft 365 suite.

The SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) is a free and simple migration solution that can assist you in migrating content from on-premises SharePoint sites to Microsoft 365.
Migrate your SharePoint Server sites and content to Microsoft 365 to take advantage of the most recent collaboration, intelligence, and security solutions. Microsoft SharePoint’s modern experience features are compelling, flexible, and performant.

 

SPMT supports migration from the following platforms to SharePoint, One Drive, and Teams:

  • SharePoint Server 2010, 2013, and 2016
  • SharePoint Foundation 2010 and 2013

 

Migration to SharePoint Online – Advantages

Here are some advantages if you are considering migrating from a SharePoint On-premises server to SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Online Migration

 

  1. SharePoint upgrades and migrations save IT resources: Many SharePoint on-premises users overlook the cost of maintaining data centers and on-premises storage. You’ll be relieved to learn that migrating to SharePoint Online can help you save money on on-premises operations.

    By migrating to the cloud, you can avoid data backup, SharePoint patches, and maintenance tasks. Your IT team will be grateful for your decision because it will allow them to focus on the business rather than spending hours supporting outdated technologies.

  2. SharePoint Enhances Data Security and Compliance
    Security and compliance should be your top priorities when migrating to SharePoint Online, especially if you’re dealing with mission-critical and confidential data. Microsoft ensures that SharePoint Online complies with all current compliance standards.

    It also protects data centers with multiple layers of physical security.

    Aside from the security measures mentioned above, SharePoint Online users can also benefit from multiple backups, data mining protection, multifactor authentication and more.

  3. Access business data from any device, from any location
    Working from anywhere is essential in today’s work culture, and it also necessitates that you be available for work even when on the move. SharePoint Online is a component of Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 cloud-based suite.

    SharePoint online enables employees to work from anywhere, and on any device. Because team members are not restricted to using a single device or network, they enjoy greater flexibility and work more efficiently.

    They can even work on the documents offline and sync them to SharePoint Online once their internet connection is restored. With the robust mobile app, SharePoint Online users can also enjoy mobility.

  4. A single copy in a single location
    In SharePoint, you store your document in a single location; colleagues can access the document rather than sending it all over the place.

    This means multiple copies of the same file will no longer be backed up in different people’s inboxes or on their hard drives. The single version is in the correct location, which provides great clarity for your entire team.

  5. All things in moderation
    You can appoint a team leader or another individual to manage and moderate the content in each library. Users with access can view and work on company data, and this is critical in an era when compliance and regulation are becoming increasingly important.

    You should be able to see the benefits of storing your file shares on SharePoint by now. Are you looking to migrate SharePoint on-premises to SharePoint online? Please get in touch with the Cambay team for consulting.

  6. Simple Updates with No Downtime
    SharePoint Online updates itself automatically in the background, and Microsoft hosts the software on its cloud platform and handles all software maintenance. This helps you to get the most recent version of SharePoint without interrupting operations.

    These updates do not affect SharePoint site customization but help secure your SharePoint ecosystem. Organizations do not have to wait because the most recent features and security patches are immediately available to SharePoint Online users.

    On the contrary, a SharePoint on-premises farm necessitates highly skilled personnel, extensive planning, data auditing, and error-prone manual tasks. If a SharePoint workflow needs to be rebuilt on the new version, you may need to shut down a portion of the business process.

Cambay Consulting Provides Stress-Free SharePoint Online Migration Services

The benefits of migrating from SharePoint on-premises to SharePoint Online are mentioned above. Migrating from on-premises to SharePoint online is not easy, and enterprises should leverage Partners to help with the transition.

Cambay, a Microsoft Partner and deep expertise in SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams, is helping customers modernize their collaboration initiatives.

Cambay will help you migrate all on-premises SharePoint data to the online platform without data loss. We also allow your workforce to return to their work quickly and with minimal downtime. Our effective SharePoint Online migration procedure includes the following steps:

  • Analysis of existing SharePoint Farm implementations and expert recommendations based on your business niche
  • Ensure no workflow, functionality, or data is lost during the migration process.
  • Assist in testing the migrated solution to eliminate any unexpected hiccups.