More Than Just Another Partnership, the Azure Expert MSP Is a Unique Source of Pride

As a founder and leader at Lunavi, I’ve seen our organization achieve a lot of big things over the years in our effort to continuously deliver more value in more ways to help our customers succeed.

That said, achieving the distinction of Azure Expert MSP stands out as a particular source of pride. That’s due not only to the incredible, above-and-beyond work our team did to earn this important honor, but also because of what it means for our customers. In a world where 83% of enterprise workloads are in the cloud–and half of those workloads are architected specifically to take advantage of cloud platforms– our customers want and deserve a partner who can help them fully leverage the very best solutions and technology to maximize their cloud success, no matter where they are in their digital transformation journey.

As an Azure Expert MSP, we’re able to give customers the confidence and certainty of working with proven, experienced Azure experts with demonstrated skills and capabilities to create cloud-native applications and take full advantage of the Microsoft Azure suite.

It also means we can offer more than just baseline Azure consulting and managed services. As a top Azure Expert MSP, we also provide end-to-end solutions and capabilities to maximize value throughout the adoption and enablement processes. That includes proprietary implementation guidance that utilizes an Agile approach to delivery to streamline migration and fast-track time to value and innovation.

It’s a distinction you have to work hard to get—and keep

In addition to its Azure Expert MSP status, Lunavi holds 13 Microsoft Gold competencies and has quadrupled its Microsoft certifications over the last three years to 55. I’ve been involved in a number of the audits required to achieve these certifications, but the Azure Expert MSP program is something different.

This certification has only been attained by a small number of Microsoft partners—approximately 85 worldwide. That’s largely due to the effort and skill required to complete it. Microsoft attests that the Azure Expert MSP logo is displayed by those service providers who are among the most capable of handling mission-critical apps, complete data centers, or hybrid environments that take advantage of Azure.

At Lunavi, we underwent a lengthy audit, involving dozens of hours from our team members and a third-party auditor selected by Microsoft, who took a close look at our capabilities around our technical approach, Azure planning and design, cloud migration, modernization, cloud operations, service management, security and governance, Service Level Agreements, customer satisfaction, optimization, monitoring, and reporting.

I should note that the certification is not a one-and-done endeavor. We originally passed our audit in 2019 and re-certification is required each year to ensure partners meet new and changing requirements. Of course, nothing stays static in the world of cloud computing for long, so it’s a good thing to keep our Azure experts on their toes and learning new capabilities!

All Azure Expert MSPs are required to hold Gold Cloud Platform competency and meet prerequisites around Azure consumption, Cloud Solution Provider status, staff certifications, and support.

The benefits extend beyond certification alone

Although demanding, completing this certification process each year drives some important benefits for our organization that go beyond the Expert MSP designation. Audits have a funny way of forcing an organization to codify certain tasks that may have been accomplished “on-the-fly” in the past. When you have an outside party looking on and a checklist in front of you, it becomes very clear where you need to improve and where your areas of strength lie.

Over the past year, for example, the process has prompted us to craft and execute new Azure Assessment and Adoption workshop services, implement automation at scale, document clear repeatable processes around deployment and compliance, and unify our Application Development and Cloud Services divisions around innovation efforts.

I’m extremely proud of the ways our talented team continues to focus on the customer experience and delivering technology solutions and software in a better way. One major driver of our recent rebrand as Lunavi was to bring our organization together as one company, one team with a unified focus and vision for the future. The Azure Expert MSP audit is evidence of a successful effort.

Going forward, I’m actually looking forward to seeing what new wrinkles are added to the Azure Expert MSP program because I know it will help our company continue to grow and develop our capabilities to deliver even more value to our customers today and in the future.

And that’s something we can all take pride in.