NCompas delivers end-to-end cloud migration to Azure, AWS, and GCP — from the discovery assessment that maps every dependency, to the landing zone that makes it safe, to the FinOps governance that keeps it affordable after go-live.
Why NCompas
Every cloud migration failure traces back to the same three causes: insufficient discovery, no landing zone before workloads, and no FinOps governance until the first bill arrives. We solve all three before we migrate anything.
We never recommend a cloud target architecture before we've mapped your application estate, dependencies, and data flows. Every migration starts with discovery — because surprises mid-migration are the leading cause of blown budgets and missed timelines.
Every production workload migration is designed for zero downtime — continuous replication, parallel run periods, and automated rollback procedures. We've never had to invoke a rollback, because we design so that the rollback is never needed.
Our architects hold Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, and GCP Professional Cloud Architect certifications — not as background credentials, but as evidence of the depth we bring to every migration design.
Cloud bills that shock CFOs are the result of migrations that never had cost governance designed in. We configure Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, rightsizing, and auto-scaling policies before the first workload goes live — so the bill on day one is the bill forever.
Landing zone, network segmentation, identity governance, and encryption in transit and at rest are configured before the first production workload migrates. Security baseline is a prerequisite, not a phase 2 follow-up.
Every migration engagement includes IaC in Terraform or Bicep so the infrastructure is version-controlled and repeatable, runbooks for every operational scenario, and hands-on knowledge transfer so your team manages the cloud estate independently after go-live.
The 6 Rs of cloud migration
The migration strategy determines the cost, speed, risk, and long-term savings. We assess every workload against all six strategies and recommend based on your business constraints — not what's easiest for us to deliver.
Make targeted optimisations during migration — swap to managed databases, containerise applications, or move to PaaS — without re-architecting the core. Balances speed and long-term efficiency.
Common workloads
Move workloads to the cloud with minimal changes — same architecture, new infrastructure. The fastest path to cloud for stable, non-critical workloads. Best for rapid data centre exits with a defined sunset date.
Make targeted optimisations during migration — swap to managed databases, containerise applications, or move to PaaS — without re-architecting the core. Balances speed and long-term efficiency.
Replace existing on-prem software with a SaaS alternative — the most common path for CRM, HR, and collaboration workloads. Eliminates infrastructure responsibility entirely and shifts to OpEx.
Redesign applications to fully exploit cloud-native capabilities — microservices, serverless, event-driven architectures, and managed AI services. The highest-effort, highest-reward migration strategy.
Deliberately keep some workloads on-premises — latency-sensitive systems, regulatory-constrained data, recent capital expenditure, or systems mid-development. A hybrid cloud is a valid architecture, not a compromise.
Identify and decommission applications that are no longer needed — the most underused migration strategy. Typical discovery finds 10–20% of an estate eligible for retirement, delivering immediate cost savings before a single workload is migrated.
Six core capabilities
Cloud migration is not a single service — it's six interconnected capabilities. Every NCompas migration engagement covers all six, with no gaps that become problems six months after go-live.
End-to-end Azure migration — Azure Migrate, Azure Site Recovery, Azure Database Migration Service — covering VMs, SQL databases, web applications, and legacy Windows workloads with zero-downtime cutover and post-migration optimisation.
A structured discovery that gives you a complete view of your application estate, infrastructure dependencies, total cost of ownership, and recommended migration strategy per workload — before you spend a pound on cloud.
End-to-end Azure migration — Azure Migrate, Azure Site Recovery, Azure Database Migration Service — covering VMs, SQL databases, web applications, and legacy Windows workloads with zero-downtime cutover and post-migration optimisation.
AWS migration using AWS Application Migration Service (MGN), AWS Database Migration Service, and the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Workloads migrated with validated security controls, cost-optimised instance selection, and Savings Plans from day one.
Complex database migrations — Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL — to cloud-managed databases with schema conversion, data validation, and minimal downtime using continuous replication during cutover.
Design and deploy a production-ready multi-account cloud landing zone — network topology, identity federation, security baselines, policy guardrails, and cost governance — before migrating a single workload. The foundation that makes everything else safe.
Cloud migration without cost governance is just moving your problem. We embed FinOps practices from day one — Reserved Instance and Savings Plan purchasing, rightsizing, auto-scaling policies, storage lifecycle rules, and monthly cost reviews.
Platforms & tools we deploy
How we work
Six phases from discovery to decommission. Every milestone has defined acceptance criteria. Nothing moves to the next phase until the current one passes validation.
Automated and manual discovery of every application, server, database, and network dependency. Output: a complete application portfolio with risk ratings, dependency graphs, and decommission candidates identified before we design anything.
Target cloud platform selection (Azure, AWS, GCP, or hybrid), migration strategy per workload (the 6 Rs), wave sequencing plan, TCO vs. cloud cost model, and a board-ready business case with payback period and 5-year NPV.
Production-ready cloud foundation deployed before migration begins — multi-account structure, network topology, identity federation, security controls, and FinOps governance. The landing zone is the foundation everything runs on.
Phased migration in waves starting with lowest-risk workloads. Each wave: pre-migration validation, replication setup, parallel run, cutover, and hypercare period. Lessons from each wave applied to the next.
Post-migration validation against defined acceptance criteria — performance, availability, data integrity, security posture. Instance rightsizing, Reserved Instance purchasing, and auto-scaling policy tuning. Cloud-native feature adoption where viable.
On-premises infrastructure decommissioned and contracts cancelled in sequence with cloud go-live. Full documentation, runbooks, monitoring configuration, and team enablement. 90-day hypercare with on-call support.
Migration results
Four industries, four migrations. Every outcome metric is from a completed production migration — not a projected business case.
The Challenge
Regional bank with 3 ageing data centres, £2.4M/year maintenance contracts expiring, and a board mandate to exit physical infrastructure within 18 months. 180 applications, 60% undocumented. Complex regulatory requirements around data residency and audit trails.
What We Delivered
12-week discovery and dependency mapping of all 180 applications, producing a risk-stratified migration plan across 8 waves. Azure Landing Zone deployed in week 8. 60% of applications rehosted, 30% replatformed to Azure PaaS, 10% retired. Zero-downtime cutover for all production systems.
Regional bank with 3 ageing data centres, £2.4M/year maintenance contracts expiring, and a board mandate to exit physical infrastructure within 18 months. 180 applications, 60% undocumented. Complex regulatory requirements around data residency and audit trails.
NHS Trust with on-premises clinical systems, 400TB of patient data, DSPT compliance obligations, and a mandate to move to N3/HSCN-connected cloud. Zero tolerance for downtime on clinical systems. Previous migration attempt abandoned after 6 months due to complexity.
Global manufacturer with 12 factories across 8 countries, each running a local ERP instance on physical servers. No centralised identity or security controls. 15 on-prem SQL Server databases, 3 approaching end of support. OT/IT convergence required for Industry 4.0 roadmap.
E-commerce platform on ageing on-prem infrastructure unable to handle peak trading. Black Friday causing 6-8 hour outages two years running. Elasticity impossible on fixed hardware. Monolithic .NET application with 400,000 lines of code.
of cloud migrations exceed their original budget — almost entirely due to insufficient discovery, missing dependency maps, and no FinOps governance before the first workload migrates.
average cost reduction when organisations optimise simultaneously with migration — organisations that lift-and-shift first and optimise later save only 8–12% in year one.
the year Gartner projects 85% of enterprise infrastructure will be cloud-hosted — organisations still planning migration in 2025 are entering the final window before competitors have a permanent velocity advantage.
faster new feature delivery for organisations that complete cloud migration and adopt cloud-native services vs. those still managing on-premises infrastructure — the compounding innovation advantage.
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Start with a free Cloud Migration Readiness Assessment — we'll map your application estate, identify dependencies and risks, model the cloud cost vs. on-prem TCO, and give you a wave plan and timeline you can take to your board.