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Practices 05 & 06 · Infrastructure & Licensing
Great Microsoft software running on weak infrastructure or over-licensed agreements is expensive and fragile. We design cloud and hybrid environments built to last, and independently audit your Microsoft spend — with no incentive to keep you paying more than you should.
Practice 05 · Cloud & Infrastructure
Cloud Adoption Framework architecture
Enterprise-grade Azure environments designed to the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework — with management groups, subscription hierarchy, policy guardrails, hub-spoke networking, and identity established before the first workload lands.
Bridging the gap safely
Not every workload belongs in the cloud — yet, or ever. We design hybrid architectures that bridge on-premises data centers and Azure with the right connectivity, identity federation, and management plane, without creating two separate and incompatible operating models.
Hyper-V & VMware vSphere
Virtualization platforms designed, implemented and optimized for Dynamics 365 sandbox environments, development workstations, and the legacy application estates that still run on-premises indefinitely.
Zero Trust & access governance
Security architecture aligned to Microsoft's Zero Trust model — Conditional Access, Privileged Identity Management, Defender for Cloud, Sentinel SIEM, and the identity governance controls that make annual audits predictable.
Azure Monitor, observability & runbooks
Infrastructure that runs quietly because it is observed continuously. Azure Monitor, Log Analytics workspaces, Application Insights, alert rules, dashboards, and documented runbooks for every recurring incident pattern.
Tested, documented, reliable
Recovery plans you've actually run. Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, geo-redundant storage, and failover runbooks tested quarterly — with documented RTO / RPO targets tied to real business requirements, not vendor defaults.
Practice 06 · Microsoft Licensing
Microsoft licensing is deliberately complex. Most clients overpay — not from negligence, but because the optimization opportunities are buried in product terms that change twice a year, SKU bundles that shift constantly, and procurement relationships where the advisor has a margin incentive.
Valyra's licensing advisory is fee-for-service. We take no rebates, no reseller margin, and no Microsoft co-sell revenue tied to specific SKU recommendations. What we give you is an honest, documented picture of what you are paying versus what you should be paying — and a negotiation-ready brief for your renewal conversation.
Programs we cover
The dominant vehicle for organizations above ~250 users. We model your EA True-Up exposure, analyze the step-up costs of new products, and produce a baseline that makes your renewal negotiation data-driven rather than reactive.
CSP with New Commerce Experience commitments is increasingly attractive below EA thresholds. We compare monthly-vs-annual NCE pricing, identify which products carry co-term risk, and select a reseller based on technical capability, not rebate structure.
Most clients are paying E3 across the board when a split of E1 + targeted E5 add-ons produces the same effective coverage at a measurably lower cost. We model your user population by role and usage pattern.
D365 licensing interacts badly with customization decisions — custom tables, model-driven apps, and API access all carry license implications. We validate your user population assignment before an audit finds a problem.
The new Power Platform licensing model contains real traps — premium connector requirements, Dataverse capacity overage, Process Mining and AI Builder credits. We model your actual consumption and project the right pool sizes.
Azure MACC commits reduce per-unit cost and count toward EA commitment thresholds. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans on predictable compute workloads consistently reduce bills by 30–60%. We size and term these against your actual consumption baseline, not guesses.
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