We design, build and migrate your AIX and IBM i workloads into

Skytap on Azure

The complete cloud migration and managed service

Build

We design & build a highly available Skytap on Azure infrastructure for your workloads

Effective

We create and execute your fixed price migration plan ensuring efficient and effective migration

Secure

Cyber Essentials, ISO27001, ISM (& ISO9001, ISO20000-1) certification ensuring a secure and robust migration process

Technical

We implement backup services and integrate AIX & IBM i monitoring into Azure Monitor and provide ongoing cloud managed services

L3C Skytap on Azure Migration Experts

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Migration / Infrastructure Pricing

L3C Migration Services are fixed price per LPAR, contact us for more information and to discuss further

Skytap on Azure infrastructure is purchased directly from Microsoft Azure, contact us and we can provide a full quote for your infrastructure and migration services.

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    L3C services on Skytap

    Analysis

    Create a comprehensive view of environment

    We build a complete view on the environments to be migrated in order to avoid pitfalls during migration. Encompasses on-site configurations and Azure footprint. L3C will analyse the current:
    • State of resources within the LPARs – CPU, RAM, disk
    • License state on the LPARs
    • Network configurations – including subnets, IPs, DNS
    • Access to Azure Native (if any)
    • High-availability and disaster recovery
    • Monitoring solution
    • Backup solution
    • Authentication approaches
    Design

    Design entire Skytap landing zone

    We create a holistic design of the Skytap landing zones including its relation to Azure native elements. We create an initial high level design then a detailed low level design Designs will include:
    • Regions in Skytap mapping to regions in Azure
    • Resources in Skytap mapping to current analysis
    • Security architecture
    • Network design
    • Interconnectivity to Azure and on-site offices/data centres
    • Monitoring – including integration into Azure Monitor
    • Backup – CommVault or existing tools into Azure Blob
    • Disaster recovery – template copy, application syncs, backup replications
    Implementation

    Implement Skytap environment

    We implement the entire Skytap landing zone including interconnectivity to Azure native and on premise users. Our unique tooling integrates AIX & IBM i system monitoring into the Azure Monitor dashboard giving you a single view. Implementation of the landing zone consists of:
    • Creating Skytap access
    • Building Skytap environments, LPAR profiles
    • Creating subnets, ICNRs, securing Internet connection
    • Building WANs to Azure/on-site - ExpressRoute or S2S
    • Preparing for HA and DR
    • Setting up monitoring integration into Azure
    • Setting up backup environment and integration into Azure
    • Documenting landzone
    Migration

    Migrate existing workloads

    We migrate your existing AIX, IBM i, Oracle and other databases into Skytap. We establish the most effective way to transfer your data into Skytap either using existing tooling such as Oracle Dataguard or proven replication approaches. Migration Tasks include:
    • Application dependencies
    • Tooling depends on approach - Oracle DG, Mimix, etc.
    • Downtime windows agreed upon business continutiy targets
    • Connectivity and latency tests to assure bandwith planning
    • Ship of data, switchovers, subsequent testing
    • Test of backup/restore, HA, DR
    • Intregation into existing service management tools
    Support

    Support of Skytap, AIX, IBMi, Applications

    L3C optionally provides comprehensive support for your Skytap on Azure environment covering, Operating system, Oracle DB, Commvault backup environment, and DR environment. Support details:
    • SLAs designed for your needs
    • Flexible, direct communication approach
    • Fast resolution times
    • Dedicated account contact
    • Proactive actions including capacity management
    • Regular HA, DR and restore tests
    • Intergation into existing ticketing systems
    • Support of related documentation

    L3C services on Skytap

    Analysis

    Create a comprehensive view of environment

    Build a complete view on the environments to be migrated in order to avoid pitfalls during migration. Encompasses on-site configurations and Azure footprint. L3C will analyse the current:
    • State of resources within the LPARs – CPU, RAM, disk
    • License state on the LPARs
    • Network configurations – including subnets, IPs, DNS
    • Access to Azure Native (if any)
    • High-availability and disaster recovery
    • Monitoring solution
    • Backup solution
    • Authentication approaches
    Design

    Design entire Skytap landing zone

    Create a holistic design of the Skytap landing zones including its relation and reference to Azure parts. Consists of two main parts – high-level and low-level design.  Designs will include:
    • Regions in Skytap mapping to regions in Azure
    • Resources in Skytap mapping to current analysis
    • Security architecture
    • Network design
    • Interconnectivity to Azure and on-site offices/data centres
    • Monitoring – including integration into Azure Monitor
    • Backup – CommVault or existing tools into Azure Blob
    • Disaster recovery – template copy, application syncs, backup replications
    Implementation

    Implement Skytap environment

    Implement entire Skytap landing zone including interconnecitivty to Azure and on-site users. Integrate tools for monitoring of AIX and IBMi into Azure Monitor. Implementations are divided into:
    • Creating Skytap access
    • Building Skytap environments, LPAR profiles
    • Creating subnets, ICNRs, securing Internet connection
    • Building WANs to Azure/on-site - ExpressRoute or S2S
    • Preparing for HA and DR
    • Setting up monitoring integration into Azure
    • Setting up backup environment and integration into Azure
    • Documenting landzone
    Migration

    Migrate existing workloads

    L3C will migrate existing workloads including IBMi, AIX, Oracle, DB2 and others. Existing customer tools can be incorporated during migration - Oracle DG, Mimix, etc. Migrations specifics:
    • Application dependencies
    • Tooling depends on approach - Oracle DG, Mimix, etc.
    • Downtime windows agreed upon business continutiy targets
    • Connectivity and latency tests to assure bandwith planning
    • Ship of data, switchovers, subsequent testing
    • Test of backup/restore, HA, DR
    • Intregation into existing service management tools
    Support

    Support of Skytap, AIX, IBMi, Applications

      L3C can provide comprehensive supoport with focus on AIX, IBMi, Oracle, Progress and CommVault environments. Included tools to monitor and orchestrate your environments in Skytap. Support details:
    • Agreeable SLAs
    • Flexible, direct communication approach
    • Fast resolution times
    • Dedicated account contact
    • Proactive actions including capacity management
    • Regular HA, DR and restore tests
    • Intergation into existing ticketing systems
    • Support of related documentation
    Our answers to your queries

    Frequently Asked Questions

    1. 1
      How do I get an accurate price?

      Please submit a form or email us with more details about your environment and a contact number so we can discuss with you directly. You won’t be called by a sales person, it will just be to verify the technical environment and commercial constraints. We can provide the price for the Skytap infrastructure, backup environment including storage in Azure blob, monitoring environment and network charges. We will also provide you a fixed price per LPAR for the L3C migration services.

    2. 2
      Are there any additional costs on Skytap?

      Besides the actual costs of the LPAR resources in Skytap, we also help you size any costs related to Azure Native. These might include:

      • Intel-based instances
      • Azure Monitor charges (very few)
      • Azure Blob charges for backup
      • Network charges for interconnectivity - Azure VPN / ExpressRoute Gateway, Azure Route Server, etc.
    3. 3
      What connectivity is supported for the LPARs?

      By default dynamic VPN connectivity is included in the service for usage. We also offer:

      1. Site-to-site VPN connectivity
      2. Dedicated ExpressRoute and Private Network Connection to Azure/Skytap
      3. Secure public access if required
    4. 4
      Is there a way to predict latency?

      As part of our engagement we will provide general guidance from our depth of experience migrating UK, European and US clients.  We also provide a service that will include testing bandwith and latency accross different services in Skytap and Azure Native, helping you choose the optimal one for you. This will include setting up S2S tunnels, VNET2VNET connections, ExpressRoute, etc. Latency is tested in both sides and output documentation is provided.

    5. 5
      Are the LPARs protected by high-availability?

      We help design the environment with a high available physical nodes design. Also options are provided for configuration and support of PowerHA/HACMP implementations.

    6. 6
      How is the pricing structured?

      The Skytap infrastructure charges are billed through your Azure subscription. You can choose PAYG pricing or 1 year or 3 year reserved capacity to optimise costs.  L3C provides a fixed price per LPAR for the design and build of the Skytap environment and the migration of the workloads giving you certainty over project costs. For our managed services these can be on a month by month basis or committed term based on your needs. For committed term agreements we do not charge annual price increases further enhancing budget predictability.

    7. 7
      What versions of Operating System are supported?

      You can find the supported OS versions on the relevant Skytap page by clicking here.

      Older versions of AIX can be supported under a WPAR.

    8. 8
      How can I transfer my data to Skytap?

      This depends on the amount of data to be transferred and communications links available. L3C will advise you and design the most appropriate method according to your needs. We can utilise existing tooling you may have such as Oracle Dataguard or IBM i replication software (such as Mimix, QuickEDD etc) as well as native operating system commands such as msksysb, rsync or BRMS functionality etc. We can utilise secure S2S VPN connectivity as well as Azure Expressroute connections. Essentially we will create the migration approach based on your allowable downtime, communication mechanisms and amount of data to be transferred.

    9. 9
      Can we test?

      Yes we can set up a proof of concept or sandbox environment for you to test functionality within Skytap but also migration approach(es). Please contact us using the form or email us directly at office@l3c.cloud to discuss further.

    10. 10
      Can there be a DR in a second data center?

      Skytap on Azure is available in multiple data centres worldwide. UK data sovereignty can also be maintained by having primary and secondary locations within the UK. At L3C we will design the landing zones based on your data and DR requirements.

    11. 11
      Can UK data sovereignty be maintained?

      Yes, Skytap on Azure can provide primary and secondary locations within the UK on request. L3C can help with the provisioning of this.

    12. 12
      What are the security considerations?

      The Skytap infrastructure is housed within Microsoft Azure Data Centres worldwide. More details on the security and compliance posture can be found by downloading the Skytap on Azure Security and Compliance paper here.

      At L3C we are Cyber Essentials compliant as well as possessing the following ISO Certifications, ISO27001 (Information Security Management), ISO 20000-1 (IT Service Management) and ISO9001 (Quality Management).

    13. 13
      How is backup handled within Skytap?

      We will implement a backup and retention policy based on your requirements. Typically we utilise Commvault as the backup mechanism but we can also implement native operating system tooling such as BRMS (for IBM i). If you currently utilise other backup products then we can discuss the most appropriate approach with you. This often depends on whether you will continue to support the environment yourself post migration (and therefore prefer to use an existing tool) or whether you require a cloud managed service and therefore the tooling is less of a concern. We will integrate the backup into Azure blob storage to reduce backup storage costs and allow tiering of backup data.

    14. 14
      How is system monitoring handled?

      You can utilise your existing system monitoring tooling for the AIX and IBM i environments. L3C have also developed a unique tool which integrates AIX and IBM i system monitoring into the Azure Monitor dashboard giving you a single view of your whole Azure native and Skytap environment

    15. 15
      What if I have Oracle databases and utilise Oracle RAC on AIX?

      We have migrated many AIX/Oracle environments to Skytap on Azure. Oracle RAC workloads are supported in Skytap through the Multi-Attach Storage feature in Skytap which we have tested and implemented for clients.

    We Also Provide:

    Solaris Cloud Services

    System / Oracle DB Admin

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