Client story Hello Customer optimises Microsoft Azure Cloud policies and identifies unnecessary expenses thanks to Insight consultancy
By Insight Editor / 19 Feb 2021
By Insight Editor / 19 Feb 2021
Hello Customer, a European tech company, provides its clients with feedback about their own customers to improve retention rates. Therefore, they collect data and generate insights on a platform that uses Azure Cloud. The organisation contacted Insight because their expenses were much higher than expected.
In this rapidly changing world, it is not easy to keep up with customer expectations. Companies need a compass that helps them steer in the right direction. From its headquarters in Ghent, Hello Customer collects data and converts this information into valuable insights about what satisfies the customers of a client or why they decide to leave. To this end, the company developed a SaaS platform that uses Azure Data Factory, a tool offered by Microsoft Azure Cloud that enables users to quickly collect data that comes from many different sources.
For applications that process huge volumes of data, a cloud environment is the perfect solution. It offers the flexibility to scale up or down whenever this is required. To maximise the benefits of public cloud, however, it is important to understand what is needed. When Hello Customer’s expenses increased significantly over a short period of time, they asked Insight for advice to identify the problem. The company was already working with Insight as their Azure Cloud partner.
“Surprised by the high costs, we were soon able to discover the source of the problem. We then consulted Insight to help us fix the issue and install the right policies to prevent similar shocks in the future.”
Karl Theeten, Cloud Solution Architect at Hello Customer
Hello Customer has in-depth knowledge about Azure Cloud, so they needed Insight to provide high-level expertise. An Azure Governance expert analysed the consumption rate of Hello Customer and helped to identify the source of the high expenses. It appeared that default settings in Azure Data Factory allowed the system to collect much more data than needed for its applications.
When the issue was resolved, Insight provided additional expertise around Azure Data Factory. The Insight expert helped Hello Customer to improve control of their cloud environment and structure user access. Policies were installed to manage operations in Azure Cloud. For example, to ensure that no resources are created outside of Western Europe. Eventually, the system will even send an alert when something requires attention.
Insight also reached out to Microsoft to help Hello Customer retrieve the financial resources lost due to the problem. As soon as it was clear that the company was unaware of the settings, Microsoft agreed to a refund.
Hello Customer will likely continue to work with Insight as they migrate to a new architecture. To avoid vendor lock-in, the company will switch to a multi-cloud strategy. They are looking to introduce AWS (Amazon Web Services) as an additional cloud provider. As with Azure Cloud, Insight has experts who can provide professional guidance when working with other cloud services.
Cost reduction is the main advantage of Insight’s consulting services. As soon as the problem was resolved, Hello Customer’s expense rates returned to normal. Negotiations with Microsoft also resulted in a reimbursement.
Moreover, Hello Customer is now guaranteed that similar problems will not occur in the future as they have better control of their cloud environment.
“Insight was quick to intervene. Without their support, it would have been difficult to ask for a refund from Microsoft.”