Cloud & infrastructure · Professional services
This professional-services firm ran its production systems in public cloud, where the monthly bill climbed steadily while performance stayed unpredictable. intSignal re-platformed the environment onto dedicated infrastructure it operates and manages end to end — cutting the run-rate by roughly 82% and removing the shared-tenancy penalties that made the cloud both expensive and slow.
The problem
Running production on Azure/AWS with a bill that grew every month and no ceiling in sight.
What we did
Migrated off public cloud onto Proxmox virtual machines running on intSignal-operated dedicated hardware across three regions.
The outcome
Roughly 82% lower monthly infrastructure cost than the equivalent Azure/AWS footprint.
The challenge
Running production on Azure/AWS with a bill that grew every month and no ceiling in sight. Public-cloud vCPU is a shared hyperthread — noisy neighbours and CPU steal made performance unpredictable under load. Network-attached block storage capped IOPS and added latency to every database call. Egress metered per gigabyte, so growth in traffic was punished with a bigger invoice. Backups existed on paper but had never been proven with a real restore, and nothing watched the perimeter.
Public cloud = 100. The same workload on dedicated infrastructure runs at roughly a fifth of the price, measured against list pricing for an equivalent footprint.
The thinking
We don't default clients to public cloud. Public cloud earns its keep for spiky, unpredictable demand — you pay a premium for elasticity, and it's worth it when you genuinely need to scale in minutes. This was a steady, predictable production workload that never used that elasticity, so it was paying the premium for nothing. Dedicated infrastructure we operate gave the firm full physical cores instead of shared vCPU, local NVMe instead of network storage, and no per-gigabyte charge to serve its own users. Matching the platform to the workload, rather than reaching for the default, is where the roughly 82% saving came from.
The approach
Migrated off public cloud onto Proxmox virtual machines running on intSignal-operated dedicated hardware across three regions. Dual-CPU, 32-core hosts with DDR5 ECC memory and enterprise NVMe — full physical cores, no shared-tenant CPU steal, ~10× lower storage latency than network block storage. 10 Gbps symmetrical unmetered connectivity, with VM-to-VM traffic running at host speed. Redundant hosts so a single machine isn't the whole business. Delta and incremental backup with tested restores, plus Cloud Firewall (FWaaS) and continuous monitoring. Microsoft 365 administration and day-to-day MSP support.
Why it works
Underneath the cost saving is a simpler benefit: one team owns the platform, its security, and the support around it. Split hosting, firewall, backup and helpdesk across separate vendors and every outage turns into finger-pointing while the business waits. Here there is one provider accountable end to end — infrastructure, protection and people — so problems get solved instead of triaged between suppliers. And because the engagement is substantial, it's a relationship the provider is genuinely invested in protecting, not a low-margin contract to be serviced at arm's length.
Built to hold up
Restore-tested the new backups before decommissioning anything on the old platform. Staged the migration so business-critical services moved with rehearsed cutover windows. Sized the hosts with headroom so peak load doesn't become a resize ticket. Put FWaaS and monitoring in front of the environment from day one, not after go-live. Documented ownership so a failure has a named responder instead of a group chat.
Outcome
The firm now runs faster than it did on public cloud at a fraction of the cost, with backups that are restore-tested rather than assumed and a firewall and monitoring layer watching the environment around the clock. Infrastructure stopped being a variable line item that grew every month and became a fixed, predictable, defended platform.
Egress stopped being a line item: 10 Gbps symmetrical unmetered instead of paying per gigabyte to talk to your own customers. Local enterprise NVMe replaced provisioned-IOPS block storage — the most expensive way there is to buy performance in public cloud. Delta and incremental backup cut storage consumption and backup windows. Firewall delivered as a service removed appliance purchases and refresh cycles. One accountable provider instead of separate hosting, security, and support vendors.
How these figures were derived
Effort and outcomes are reconstructed from production systems of record — ticket histories, call detail records, dispatch and SOC/NOC telemetry — read end to end rather than sampled. Cost comparisons are indexed to a baseline, never a fee or rate. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured it is labelled as such, and the model is documented and available to defend on request.
Customer
Shown on request. Some engagements remain confidential by contract.
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