Sponsor: Rackspace, Ltd.

Migrating applications is a subject that can strike fear into the heart of even the most seasoned IT professional. Stories of poorly executed migrations abound, and they often cost businesses dearly in terms of time and money. As organizations consider migrating applications out of their own data centers and into the cloud, the level of anxiety can grow exponentially.

However, moving an enterprise application to the cloud doesn’t have to be a nerve-wracking experience. By following some simple guidelines, you can easily determine the best strategy for migrating your applications and taking maximum advantage of the cloud.

This white paper examines the most common application migration issues and offers guidance on how to manage them.

Some people think Azure is just Windows in the cloud or that AD, Azure and AAD are all Microsoft, so it all works together. They need to think again.

The cloud doesn’t run itself. It’s true that AD, Azure and AAD all come from Microsoft, but they don’t all automagically work together. You must decide how you want them to interoperate, then set them up correctly. The first time you do that it’s not simple. There are tricks and traps that people only learn from experience working with Azure.

In the whitepaper, you’ll find all of the details and guidelines for custom implementation and much more, including:

• Information on defining your cloud goals
• Calculating financial return
• Determining a cloud identity strategy
• Securing your cloud environment
• Evaluating complexity

Today, almost everyone talks about moving to the cloud. But a question people rarely raise is: Which specific cloud types are most appropriate for a given company? And it's not immediately clear which kinds of application re-architecting are required for a successful cloud computing implementation. Building applications in the cloud is always easier than moving enterprise apps in the cloud, but which ones need re-architecting?

Join renowned Microsoft experts Jeff DeVerter and Kent Kingery, both of Rackspace, as they discuss a repeatable evolutionary pattern for moving enterprise apps to the cloud. They'll cover several applications, along with real-world use cases where enterprises have leveraged the cloud as a change agent and catalyst to transform their interactions with customers.

Have you decided to move to the cloud, but asking yourself where should we locate our cloud resources? Better yet, what workloads should I move and when? Do I have the expertise to migrate my workloads to the cloud and then manage it without disrupting my IT environment?

Join our featured speakers, Rackspace and 10th Magnitude, on a round table discussion on the concepts of cloud form factors leading to hybrid cloud, the advantages of using hybrid cloud technologies, and a look at how the Microsoft Azure platform enables efficient and effective hybrid cloud computing. See how organizations are reducing complexity and management costs by leveraging managed hosting in hybrid cloud environments through real-world use cases.

Today, thousands of applications are being ported to the cloud, and enterprises are faced with making decisions about how to treat each application. Should you lift and shift, partially refactor, or completely refactor your apps when porting to the cloud?

Join our panel of featured speakers from Rackspace and 10th Magnitude for an in-depth discussion centered on real world cloud transformation examples. See how organizations like yours are adapting their applications for Microsoft Azure to drive up performance, drive down cost and operate at cloud scale.

Defend against today's security threats by moving beyond yesterday's tools and protections, including passwords and firewalls. Discover what Rackspace Security experts know is key in keeping your organization's environment, business and bottom line, safe.

Watch our free on-demand webinar, Azure Security and Identity Management Best Practices, and learn how to:

• Develop an identity and authentication cloud strategy
• Use Azure as your base Infrastructure
• Develop a core set of VM Best Practices
• Leverage Security Managed Services for Security Operations & Compliance Assistance

Join us, and leverage our expertise to utilize best practices built up over years of implementing and managing thousands of cloud customers across multiple cloud platforms.

The biggest challenges around cloud adoption aren't the technologies involved but rather involve finding the people that can effectively leverage those technologies to provide the best outcome for an organization. Learn how to implement a cheaper and faster cloud by understanding:

• The challenges of a hybrid, managed and DIY cloud
• How cloud providers are better at detecting attacks
• DIY versus managed hosted clouds

There’s a lot of discussion going on lately about identity. In fact, it’s a very hot topic among most of the organizations today. However, identity is not a new topic, there are just better technologies available to manage identity and more companies providing identity solutions. Azure Active Directory is a comprehensive identity and access management cloud solution that provides a robust set of capabilities to manage your users and groups.

Join our featured speaker from Rackspace, Benjamin Villanueva, a Microsoft Certified Master in Directory Services, and a Microsoft Certified Solutions Master in Directory Services as we discuss and answer some burning questions that many of you may have:

• How do I manage identities in the public cloud with Azure Active Directory?
• What are the benefits of identity-as-a-service?
• How do I streamline my existing Azure Active Directory implementation?

• Enabling self-service.
• Federating your Microsoft® Cloud Platform.
• Taking advantage of software-defined networking.
• Messaging services.
• Database as a Service (DBaaS) and its advantages.

• How the Microsoft Private Cloud enables you to exceed the cost effectiveness of a standard virtualized infrastructure.
• The challenges of managing a Microsoft Private Cloud.
• The moving parts involved in establishing IT-as-a-service using Microsoft Private Cloud.
• Features of the Microsoft® Cloud Platform powered by Rackspace©.

• Lower costs
• Reduced complexity
• Faster roll-out of new apps and capacity
• Streamlined processes