Aim for a full Azure-based cloud environment

Business Finland and its predecessor Finpro have been on a cloud environment journey for 14 years already. From taking Office 365 services to the cloud, they have come a long way and deep into the Azure world. IT Manager Jarmo Jonninen, who has been in this journey all the way, emphasizes, among other things, the importance of a competent partner.

The cloud transition at Business Finland’s began already in 2010–2011, when email, intranet and document management were the first ones to be exported to the SharePoint cloud environment. At that time, the organization had operations in 55 countries, which were to be unified so that the services produced would be uniform for all users. The old on-premise services did not work for this need at all and caused significant data delays, for example.

Jarmo Jonninen, who has worked in the IT operations of Business Finland and its predecessor Finpro for more than 22 years, says that the cooperation with Sulava began already at the beginning of the organization’s cloud journey. Cooperation has intensified over the past four years, when Azure development, for example, has shifted into a higher gear.

”I have learned a lot working with Sulava,” says Jonninen, who is responsible for managing Business Finland’s service providers. “Sulava has many patient and skilled consultants whose teaching skills are incomparable and who are able to explain things in a popular way”

At the beginning of the 2010s, workspaces were also renovated, which made the organization’s collaboration even more efficient and productive. “That’s where the idea started, and the cloud entity has grown rapidly since then,” Jonninen says.

From 0365 to the flexible and comprehensive benefits of Azure

Business Finland’s journey to the cloud first began with O365 services, after which the entity began to be transferred towards Azure. The possibilities of Azure have been continuously explored with the help of Sulava, and various services suitable for Business Finland’s operations have been introduced as they become available.

“Microsoft’s ecosystem in applications and servers, for example, has provided us with an easy transition to Azure. When we have had certain kinds of licenses, it has been sensible and easy to deploy the services. We have always strived to be cost-effective and have not sought services on top of services,” Jonninen describes.

Business Finland’s starting point has been Cloud First thinking. The possibilities of the cloud have always been considered first, taking into account regulations such as GDPR and security while doing it. The flexibility of the Azure ecosystem has worked well for Business Finland’s needs, as capacity can be adjusted according to demand.

“Flexibility and automation are really good in Azure. During peak periods, we can always raise capacities to the necessary level and thus meet demand. Naturally, this makes perfect sense not only from the point of view of management but also from the point of view of costs,” Jonninen says.

Correct classification of information increases data security

Information security issues have been at the core of Business Finland’s long cloud transition from the very beginning. According to Jonninen, data security in the cloud has improved considerably and is now better than in on-premise data centers. When talking about information security, Jonninen first brings up data classification and how the correct classification of data plays a key role in making automations work efficiently.

”This is a long and rocky road,” Jonninen describes. “You need to be able to determine whether a particular thing is secret or not, and how each individual piece of information is classified. In the process, it must also be possible to take automatically, for example, GDPR and different policies into account. After this, various automations can work correctly.”

About five years ago, Business Finland made the decision to introduce Microsoft’s most comprehensive license, and thanks to it, it has been easy to add security-related functionalities to the palette. One example of how data classification and automation works at Business Finland is email: if a user tries to send a personal identity code by email, automation intervenes and states that this is not the right place for such information.

You can’t take everything to the cloud

Even though the level of data security has risen tremendously, not all things can be exported to the cloud this moment, and this is also part of data security. At Business Finland, for example, the classification of business secrets has been considered closely together with Sulava, and the rules and prerequisites for how all information could eventually be taken to the cloud have been considered.

“Security threats are growing rapidly in the world, but Microsoft is investing heavily in countering these threats. Although the company used to be vilified in this area, today it is undoubtedly one of the best players in the world in this field. I myself have a strong trust in the company’s services,” Jonninen praises.

“In the end, however, the success of information security is about how these features and services are utilized and configured. It is not the service or application that is the weakest link, but the configuration and use. Here, a competent partner is important,” Jonninen continues.

A competent partner plays a key role

About four years ago, Business Finland and Sulava collaborated to create a governance model for the introduction of new services. An efficient and functional governance model guides the introduction of new services and facilitates organizing and maintenance. Business Finland uses the Evergreen operating model with Sulava as part of advisory services, which enables service evaluation to be carried out in a controlled and planned manner. Sulava’s consultants present reviews of the future and tell Business Finland about new opportunities. A consultant who knows his client’s environment well is able to recommend the introduction of new features.

“The role of a professional and competent partner cannot be overemphasized. For us, Sulava is a seamless extension of the IT unit, and the consultants’ capabilities and huge amount of prior knowledge are very important to us. One of the key advantages of Sulava’s consultants is that they know how to work and talk to people of different levels. You can talk about the same thing in a very technical way that ordinary people don’t understand, but also in a popular way,” Jonninen describes.

Partnerships are always a two-way street. Jonninen points out that Business Finland uses Azure services very extensively and thus also provides Sulava with an excellent production environment where experts can show their skills.

“Our Azure package includes so many different services that the partner must have very extensive expertise. You can’t be focused on just one thing. Sulava has a really solid team of experts, and I don’t remember many things that we should have asked from Microsoft, for example,” Jonninen says.

“In my opinion, the low hierarchy of Sulava’s organization is also commendable. In many companies, management is in the hierarchy somewhere far away and out of reach. At Sulava, this is not the case. The management also supports the experts and, through that, us.”

How can we help you?

Sulava offers several ready-made packages for IaaS and PaaS services. We offer e.g. governance models, architecture services, migrations and administration services.

But Azure projects can be anything from the migration of hundreds of virtual machines to the design of scalable architectures for modern applications.

At Sulava, you will find a wide range of services for e.g. configuration and implementation of security, audits and governance models. We support your organization in the implementation of services and functionalities and train your personnel. If necessary, we can also take care of the entire monitoring on your behalf. We help your organization ensure that environment configuration and data protection comply with requirements and your needs.

Writer: Juhani Lassila
April 2024