The “Big 3” Paths to Cloud Management

I get a really consistent question whenever I talk to our customers about how they are pursuing their digital transformation: “If I’m already using ConfigMgr, what is my best path to the cloud?”

I’ve seen that move to the cloud take a lot of shapes and follow a lot of different routes, but, when I consider what the most successful modernizations have in common, there are 3 important steps that are a fundamental part of any digital transformation journey:

Cloud management gateway (CMG)

• This extends the capabilities of your Windows device management and resolves VPN contentions – all without disrupting current workflows, and without the added on-premises infrastructure you would otherwise need to manage.

Tenant Attach

• This is the simplest way to add value to what you already have by simply extending the investment in your on-premises environment to the cloud, with the added benefit that it doesn’t require you to recreate a net-new configuration. With tenant attach you also gain actions and insights to devices on-premises or off-premises from the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center.

Co-Management

• When you set up Co-Management you get access to a stunning number of cloud-based tools and services. By connecting an on-prem setup to cloud-based services you get new functionality like Conditional Access, or you can begin to transition existing workloads to the cloud at your own pace.

There’s certainly no pre-defined order to these three items, but there is a common path that we see the majority of organizations successfully take on this transformative journey.

This post is part of a new blog series authored by Danny Guillory who works on our Customer Acceleration Team, and he has helped countless customers successfully modernize with these three steps. Few people have quite as much depth on this topic as Danny – and he’s developed this expertise not only from his years here on the team, but from the time he spent as a Microsoft customer modernizing his own companies from the inside out.

Part 1 of this series is here, and you now you can now read part 2 to learn more about how he helps customers take these critical steps to modernize – whether that org is just starting their transformation or is well underway but getting bogged down along the way. I think you will really enjoy this, and I hope you learn as much as I did when you read it.