Cloud Consulting Services for Scalable, Secure Enterprise Systems
Updated
Clients of NeoSOFT
Core Cloud Services
Cloud Consulting
Cloud Migration
Cloud Optimization
Cloud DevOps
Cloud Orchestration
Cloud Security
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Accelerating Cloud Adoption Across the Enterprise
Business Continuity Planning
We design cloud environments with resilience built in. From backup strategies to failover planning, we ensure critical systems remain available, and data is protected under real-world failure scenarios.
Multicloud Management
We help organizations operate across hybrid and multicloud environments without unnecessary complexity. Our approach simplifies management, improves visibility, and ensures workloads run where they make the most sense.
Cloud Autoscaling
Our cloud architectures scale intelligently with demand. By aligning compute, storage, and networking to actual usage patterns, we help teams maintain performance while avoiding unnecessary cost.
Cloud Governance
We establish governance models that balance control with agility. Clear policies, access management, and accountability frameworks help organizations manage risk while enabling teams to move faster.
Cloud Enterprise Applications
We modernize and operate enterprise applications in the cloud. From assessment and migration to ongoing optimization, we help keep cloud-based applications aligned with business goals.
Selected Project Examples
Modernized Supply Chain Operations Using Public Cloud
A resilient cloud infrastructure to support high-volume, time-sensitive supply chain workloads. Migrating critical systems from on-premise to the public cloud improved system reliability, processing speed, and operational visibility.
Modernized Legacy Applications for a Financial Institution
Legacy applications migrated and standardized into a secure private cloud environment. The modernization reduced operational overhead, improved system stability, and enabled teams to release updates faster without compromising compliance.
Cloud-Native Machine Learning Platform for a Global Retailer
A cloud-native machine learning solution to forecast demand and optimize cloud workloads in real time. The platform enabled data-driven decision-making and improved forecasting accuracy at scale.
Buyers arrive with the next move rather than with cloud in the abstract: a landing zone before the first workload lands, a migration that does not take the business down, a bill that stopped being explainable, or an operations model for an estate their team inherited. This section defines the vocabulary at its issuer, sets out what a cloud engagement produces, and says plainly which obligations a consultancy can carry for you and which it cannot.
IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, defined in NIST Special Publication 800-145.
Public, private, community and hybrid. Multi-cloud is not a NIST term at all.
You can change direction at a sprint boundary rather than at the end.
Depending on the seniority and mix of the team, published sitewide.
On this page
- Cloud services, grouped by what you need next
- The cloud vocabulary, defined
- Government and regulated cloud, and what a vendor can and cannot do
- What a cloud engagement produces
- How a cloud engagement runs, step by step
- What moves the cost, and how the work is priced
- What to ask any cloud consultancy
- More questions about cloud consulting
- More about cloud
- Talk to our engineers
Cloud services, grouped by what you need next
The groups below are ordered the way the work usually sequences, and each one points at the Sthenos page that carries it in detail.
Strategy, target architecture and landing zones
Choosing the provider, designing the account and subscription structure, and standing up the landing zone that every later workload inherits: identity, network boundaries, logging, guardrails and the cost model. This is the work that is cheap to do first and expensive to retrofit.
Migration
Moving the workloads themselves, in waves, with a rollback point per wave. The method, the strategy choices and the cost drivers are set out in full on our cloud migration and optimization page.
Cloud native development and DevOps
Building for the platform rather than on top of it: managed services instead of self-run equivalents, pipelines that deploy without a person in the loop, and infrastructure defined in code. Our DevOps services cover CI/CD and infrastructure automation, and our DevOps engineering team works in Terraform, Ansible and CloudFormation.
Containers and Kubernetes
Packaging workloads so they run the same way in every environment, and operating the cluster that schedules them. Sthenos works with Azure Kubernetes Service, described on our Azure services page, and Google Kubernetes Engine, described on our Google Cloud services page. Containerisation on AWS is one of the named engagements on our DevOps page.
Data platforms in the cloud
Warehouses, pipelines and the reporting layer above them. The platform choices and the tools we work in are on our data analytics services and big data and analytics pages.
Security, identity and compliance
Identity and access design, encryption in transit and at rest, logging that an auditor can read, and configuration review against a published benchmark. Our cybersecurity services page carries the framework catalog, and our penetration testing services page describes cloud configuration review against CIS Benchmarks, identity and role analysis, storage exposure review across buckets, blobs, snapshots and backups, and infrastructure as code policy checks.
FinOps and cost governance
Making the bill legible before trying to shrink it: tagging so spend can be attributed, rightsizing what was provisioned for a peak that never came, commitment pricing for the part of the estate that is genuinely steady, and a shutdown schedule for everything that does not need to run at three in the morning.
Managed cloud operations
Running the environment after go live. Our managed services page sets out incident, problem, change and release management, service level management, an L1 and L2 help desk and L3 application support, and our infrastructure management services page covers provisioning, monitoring and remediation.
The cloud vocabulary, defined
These terms decide budgets and contracts, and they are used loosely almost everywhere. The definitions below are the issuers' own, cited so you can read the source rather than take ours.
Figure 1. The three service models, and who controls what
Source: NIST Special Publication 800-145, quoted in the definitions immediately below and fetched at csrc.nist.gov. Block heights show the ordering the publication states, most control under IaaS and least under SaaS. They are not a measured share of anything.
IaaS, PaaS and SaaS
The three service models are defined in NIST Special Publication 800-145, the standing federal definition of cloud computing. Under Infrastructure as a Service the consumer provisions processing, storage and networks and "does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications". Under Platform as a Service the consumer deploys their own applications onto the provider's platform. Under Software as a Service the consumer uses the provider's applications and controls almost nothing beneath them. The practical consequence is where your engineering effort goes: IaaS gives you the most control and the most to run yourself.
Public, private, hybrid, community and multi-cloud
The same publication defines four deployment models. A public cloud "is provisioned for open use by the general public". A private cloud is "provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization". A community cloud is provisioned for a specific group of organisations with shared concerns such as mission, security or compliance. A hybrid cloud is "a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures" that stay separate but are bound together. Multi-cloud is not a NIST term at all: it is the operating decision to run workloads on more than one provider, and it costs you a second set of skills, a second billing model and a second security model, which is why it should be a decision rather than an accident.
Lift and shift, re-platform and refactor
AWS publishes seven migration strategies, known as the 7 Rs, in its prescriptive guidance for large migrations. Rehost, "also known as lift and shift", moves the application without changing it. Replatform, "also known as lift, tinker, and shift", moves it and introduces some optimisation, for example moving a database onto a managed service. Refactor or re-architect modifies the architecture to use cloud-native features, and AWS calls it "the most complex and costly of the migration strategies". The full set, including retire, retain, relocate and repurchase, is compared on our migration page.
Landing zone
Google Cloud's architecture guidance defines it directly: "A landing zone, also called a cloud foundation, is a modular and scalable configuration that enables organizations to adopt Google Cloud for their business needs", and notes that it "is often a prerequisite to deploying enterprise workloads in a cloud environment" (landing zone design in Google Cloud). In practice it is the account structure, identity model, network layout, logging and guardrails that every later workload inherits, built once and deliberately.
The shared responsibility model
Every major provider splits security between itself and you. AWS states it as security "of" the cloud against security "in" the cloud: AWS "is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud", while the customer "assumes responsibility and management of the guest operating system (including updates and security patches), other associated application software as well as the configuration of the AWS provided security group firewall" (AWS shared responsibility model). The same page warns that the split "vary depending on the services used". The line moves as you move up the stack, and the customer half is the part a design has to account for.
Security "of" the cloud
The provider's half- AWS "is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud"
Security "in" the cloud
Your half, and the part a design has to account for- "The guest operating system (including updates and security patches)"
- "Other associated application software"
- "The configuration of the AWS provided security group firewall"
On demand, reserved capacity and savings plans
On demand is the default: you pay for what you use, with no commitment. Reserved Instances "are not physical instances, but rather a billing discount applied to the use of On-Demand Instances in your account", and the discount applies only where the instance matches attributes such as type and Region (AWS documentation). Savings Plans "provide savings beyond On-Demand rates in exchange for a commitment of using a specified amount of compute power (measured per hour) for a one or three year period" (AWS documentation). Both are a bet on your own steady-state usage, which is why they belong after a measurement rather than before one.
| Pricing mode | What the provider says it is | What you commit to |
|---|---|---|
| On demand | The default. You pay for what you use. | Nothing. |
| Reserved Instances | "Not physical instances, but rather a billing discount applied to the use of On-Demand Instances in your account." | A matching instance type and Region. |
| Savings Plans | "Savings beyond On-Demand rates in exchange for a commitment of using a specified amount of compute power (measured per hour)." | A one or three year period. |
The engineering terms this page is using
Matching the instance, database or storage class to what the workload actually uses rather than to what was provisioned on day one. It is named on our AWS services and Azure services pages, and as right-sizing on our infrastructure management page.
The environment defined in files, versioned and reviewed like application code, so a rebuild is a run rather than a memory. Our DevOps engineering page names Terraform, Ansible and CloudFormation.
Who can do what, to which resource, under which conditions. Our cybersecurity page describes IAM frameworks with multi-factor authentication, role-based access controls and identity governance.
Two separate controls with two separate key questions: who holds the keys, and who can read the logs of their use.
Published configuration baselines. Our penetration testing page describes AWS, Azure and Google Cloud configuration review against them.
A ceiling is part of the design. Our production readiness checklist puts it plainly: autoscaling limits and cost ceilings are set deliberately, so a traffic spike cannot become an unbounded invoice.
Government and regulated cloud, and what a vendor can and cannot do
Regulated buyers ask cloud questions in a different order, and the recurring confusion is about who holds which obligation.
The government regions
The providers run separate regions for government workloads. We can build for AWS GovCloud, Azure Government and Google Cloud's government offerings when a contract requires them. Our public sector page sets out the framework catalog, and our government IT services page covers how we can be contracted.
FedRAMP authorises the service. Your agency issues the ATO
FedRAMP is established in statute as a "standardized, reusable approach to security assessment and authorization for cloud computing products and services that process unclassified information used by agencies" (44 U.S.C. 3608). The authorisation attaches to the cloud service, not to the integrator who builds on it. The agency still issues its own authorisation to operate: the statute requires that "upon issuance of an agency authorization to operate based on a FedRAMP authorization, the head of the agency shall provide a copy of its authorization to operate letter" to the Administrator, and requires agencies to reuse existing FedRAMP assessment materials where practicable (44 U.S.C. 3613). So a consultancy can build on an already authorised service, assemble the system security plan and the evidence, and run the remediation. It cannot grant you an ATO, and neither can a cloud provider.
Our page on FedRAMP compliant software development sets out what Sthenos does in a build to these controls and what it does not hold.
HIPAA eligible services
The phrase is narrower than it sounds and it is the provider's term, not a certification. AWS states that customers "may use any AWS service in an account designated as a HIPAA account, but they should only process, store, and transmit protected health information (PHI) in the HIPAA-eligible services defined in the Business Associate Addendum (BAA)" (AWS HIPAA compliance). Two consequences follow for a design: the BAA has to be in place, and the architecture has to keep PHI inside the eligible set rather than assuming the whole platform qualifies.
The frameworks a cloud estate has to answer to
NIST SP 800-53 for federal information systems, NIST SP 800-171 where controlled unclassified information sits on a nonfederal system, CJIS Security Policy for criminal justice data, HIPAA for protected health information, PCI DSS where cardholder data is processed, and StateRAMP, now GovRAMP, where a state or local buyer adopts it. Each one is catalogued with its issuer, its authority and whether it is mandatory or voluntary on our public sector and cybersecurity pages, so the same tag means the same thing everywhere on this site.
As of September 2026 Sthenos is not SOC 2 attested and holds no attestation of its own against any of these frameworks. We build to the controls, produce the evidence an assessor asks for, and say so plainly rather than putting a badge on a slide.
What a cloud engagement produces
Naming the artefacts is one way to tell a consultancy apart from a reseller. A cloud consulting engagement with us produces some or all of the following, agreed in scope before it starts:
- A current-state assessment. The workload inventory, what each one depends on, where the data lives, and which items have no owner.
- A target architecture. The provider, the account and subscription structure, the network layout and the managed services chosen, with the reasons written down.
- A landing zone design. Identity, network boundaries, logging, guardrails and the tagging standard, in a form that can be built from code.
- An identity and access model. Roles, boundaries and the joiner, mover and leaver path, rather than a list of people with administrator rights.
- A security baseline. Encryption, logging and configuration standards mapped to whichever framework your contract names.
- A cost model with a rightsizing plan. The projected monthly run rate, the tagging scheme that will make it attributable, and the commitments worth making once usage is measured.
- A migration plan. Workloads grouped into waves, each with a strategy, a rollback point and a downtime window agreed in advance.
- Infrastructure as code. The environment in Terraform, Ansible or CloudFormation, in your repository, so it can be rebuilt without us.
- Runbooks and an operations model. Who is paged, what they do, and what the monitoring is actually watching.
- A phased roadmap. What happens next, in what order, with the decisions that would change it named.
The repository and the cloud accounts are in your name. That is the same ownership position we publish on our custom software development page, and it applies to cloud work without exception.
How a cloud engagement runs, step by step
- DiscoveryWe read what exists: the inventory, the bill, the network, the identity estate and the contracts already in place. What is not found here is paid for later.
- Constraints and success criteriaData residency, the frameworks your contract names, the change windows the business will accept, and the one measure that decides whether this worked.
- Target architecture and provider decisionA written recommendation with the tradeoffs visible, including the case for staying where you are.
- Landing zone buildIdentity, network, logging, guardrails and tagging, defined in code and reviewed like code.
- A first workloadSomething real but low risk, taken end to end to prove the pattern and the runbook before anything critical moves.
- Scale outThe remaining workloads in waves, each with its own rollback point.
- Optimise and hand overRightsizing against measured usage, commitments where the usage is genuinely steady, and a documented operating model handed to whoever will run it.
We work in two week sprints, so progress arrives at a fixed cadence and you can change direction at a sprint boundary rather than at the end. That cadence is the same one published on our about us page and it does not change for cloud work.
What moves the cost, and how the work is priced
Two numbers matter and they behave differently. The engagement is a one off. The running bill is forever, and it is the one worth modelling first.
What moves the engagement cost
| Driver | Why it moves the number |
|---|---|
| How many workloads are in scope | And how many of them nobody currently owns. |
| How coupled they are | A system with documented interfaces moves quickly. One where a scheduled job on a forgotten server writes to a share that three other systems read does not. |
| How much downtime the business will accept | A narrow window buys rehearsal, tooling and out of hours work. |
| How deep the modernisation goes | Moving as is, moving onto managed services and rebuilding for the platform are three different projects. |
| How many environments you have to support | And whether the non-production ones have to run around the clock. |
| Which framework your contract names | The evidence and the review cycles are work in their own right. |
What moves the running bill
Capacity gets chosen for a launch peak and then never revisited, which is what makes measurement the first step.
Including snapshots and backups nobody has looked at since they were created.
Rarely modelled up front, and multi-region and multi-cloud designs quietly increase it.
For a team that works office hours.
When a managed equivalent would have removed it.
How the work is priced
Figure 2. The published rate band
Source: the rate already published sitewide and on our about page, depending on the seniority and mix of the team.
| Pricing model | Best for |
|---|---|
| Time and materials | Where scope is genuinely open, such as an estate nobody has inventoried. Our rates are $150 to $250 per hour, depending on the seniority and mix of the team, and that is published sitewide. |
| Fixed price for a defined outcome | An assessment, a landing zone design or a roadmap, where the deliverable can be described precisely before it starts. |
| Retainer | Optimisation and managed operations, which are continuous rather than a project with an end. |
| Per workload for migration | Once the inventory exists, because the unit is countable and the price can follow the wave plan. |
What to ask any cloud consultancy
These questions work on us and on everyone else you are considering, which is the point of publishing them.
- Do you resell the infrastructure you are recommending? If the answer is yes, ask how the margin is disclosed and whether the recommendation would change without it.
- Whose name is on the cloud account and the repository? Anything other than yours is a dependency you did not agree to.
- What is your estimate of our monthly run rate after the move, and what assumptions is it built on? A vendor who will only quote the project is quoting the smaller number.
- Which workload will you move first, and why that one? A credible answer names a low risk workload and explains what it is meant to prove.
- What happens if a cutover window overruns? The answer should already exist in writing, because it is a much worse decision to take at three in the morning.
- Show me the landing zone as code. If the environment was built by hand it cannot be rebuilt, reviewed or audited the same way twice.
- Which framework are you building to, and what evidence will I be able to hand my auditor? Ask for the artefact, not the assurance.
- What is your own attestation status? Ask for the report rather than accepting a logo. We will tell you plainly that we hold none.
- Who operates this after go live, and under what terms? A design nobody can run is not finished.
More questions about cloud consulting
What is a landing zone, and do we need one?
It is the account structure, identity model, network layout, logging and guardrails that every later workload inherits. Google Cloud calls it a cloud foundation and describes it as often a prerequisite to deploying enterprise workloads. You need one before the second workload, and retrofitting it later is the expensive path.
What does the shared responsibility model make us responsible for?
More than the phrase suggests. AWS is responsible for the infrastructure running its services; the customer keeps the guest operating system, patching, application software and firewall configuration. The split shifts as you move up the stack, so it has to be read per service rather than assumed once.
Can you make us FedRAMP authorised?
No, and neither can any consultancy. FedRAMP authorisation attaches to a cloud service, and your agency issues its own authorisation to operate on top of it. What we can do is build on services that already hold one, assemble the security plan and evidence, and run the remediation.
Can we stay hybrid rather than moving everything?
Yes, and for some estates it is the right answer. NIST defines hybrid as two or more distinct cloud infrastructures bound together while staying separate. The cost is that you keep two operating models, so it is worth choosing deliberately rather than arriving there by leaving things behind.
How do you reduce our cloud bill?
By measuring before cutting. Tagging so spend can be attributed, rightsizing what was provisioned for a peak that never came, lifecycling storage and snapshots, scheduling non-production environments off outside working hours, and only then buying commitment pricing for usage that is genuinely steady.
Do you manage the environment after go live?
Yes. Our managed services cover incident, problem, change and release management, service level management, an L1 and L2 help desk and L3 application support, and our infrastructure management services cover provisioning, monitoring and remediation.
What do we receive at the end of a cloud assessment?
A workload inventory with dependencies, a target architecture with the reasons written down, a landing zone design, a cost model with a rightsizing plan, a security baseline mapped to the framework your contract names, and a phased roadmap. All of it in your repository, in your name.
More about cloud
Services: Cloud migration and optimization, DevOps services, Managed services, Infrastructure management, Cybersecurity services, IT consulting services.
Platforms and sectors: AWS services, Azure services, Google Cloud services, Public sector, Government IT services, SaaS development.
Reading: Cloud cost optimisation strategies, What cloud migration costs, Multi-tenancy in cloud architecture, Production readiness checklist, Penetration testing services.
Ready to talk about your estate? Bring the workload inventory and last month's bill, and we will tell you what a landing zone, a migration or a cost review would actually involve. Talk to our engineers.
