How Has The Change In Technology Consumption Affected Us?

In an earlier blog, I discussed how our technology consumption has evolved since we launched the business in 2007. If you haven't seen it, you can check it out here: https://blog.velocitygroup.global/what-has-changed-how-we-use-it-since-2007 

Technology is constantly evolving, and this is more evident today than ever before. We are witnessing a rapid growth in AI capabilities. This is not just from a user standpoint, but the way AI will integrate into all our standard IT functions is truly astonishing. In the next five years, we are just two major updates away from AI capabilities becoming thousands of times more powerful than they are now. It's hard for me to fully grasp that.

So with all this change, how do we fit in? We work with you to navigate this Hybrid Cloud world and make the correct technology decisions.

This means ensuring that your workloads are deployed in the right place and your users have secure and efficient access to them, whether On-Premises or in the Cloud. 

Getting The Basics Right

Without the basics in place you can’t take advantage of new technologies. So all of this means it is really important to have partners in your network to help guide you through this.

I’ll give you some practical examples of where we have stepped in to assist customers. The first and easiest relates back to the previous slide. We had a customer who deployed a web facing application for their customers to self serve. It started out as an idea by a manager, who quickly roped in his friend in the development team to assist with a proof of concept. Out came the credit card and they signed up for an Azure subscription and proved this thing was easy to do. It quickly got moved to production and everything was going nicely. Initial customer feedback was great. As more users started to use the solution, it got slower and slower. They called in DBA’s to check the database. They did code reviews with external developers. No improvements.

Eventually they contacted us to look. It took exactly 5 minutes for the team to work out that the quick and nasty initial deployment of the application servers and database servers hadn’t been done correctly. The application server was breaking out over the internet to talk back to the database server causing a massive bottleneck. A quick VLAN implementation and change and the application was functioning as it was supposed to.

Plumbers And Electricians Are The Heroes!

Let me use a practical example we can all relate to though. The Shard is an architectural masterpiece and a prominent landmark on the London skyline. It is a wonderful piece of design and it is one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the country. If you liken it to the example I just spoke about, the building is the application. Now if you walk into that building and you can’t switch on the lights, use the lifts or even worse, the toilets don’t flush...well I guess you are in deep poo! It's basically a large unusable lump of concrete and steel with millions wasted on it. Kind of reminds me of some IT projects over the last 25 years. I am sure no one reading this has seen "shelf-ware" projects like that around. 

So does that mean we are the plumbers and electricians of the IT world? Absolutely. We make sure the fundamentals are right so that you are able to deliver applications and projects using technology to deliver business value.

Making Sure AI Works 

Copilot involves more than just purchasing licenses. There are several considerations at a foundational level before empowering users with AI capabilities.

When planning to implement Copilot, we must first examine essential aspects such as security, licensing, and the actual likelihood of service usage. We conduct an exercise to address these, and below is some of the report output.

Copilot will extend its reach throughout your environment. Therefore, the first step is to assess your Azure and Microsoft 365 tenant Secure score, seeking ways to enhance it and pinpoint potential issues.

The importance of SharePoint sites and user groups with access cannot be overstated. We certainly don't want HR and salary data inadvertently included in someone's blog post, do we?

It's also crucial to determine who is actually utilising the 365 applications in your setup. There's no sense in licensing Copilot for everyone if some individuals aren't using key aspects of 365.

Without proper planning around and the correct foundations in place, AI (and other technology projects) may become as useful as a toilet that won't flush.

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