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Cloud & Infrastructure

Hybrid cloud, done right.

Not everything belongs in the cloud. Not everything belongs on-prem. We figure out the right split for your workloads, your budget, and your risk tolerance — then we build and manage it.

What we build

From email to bare metal — and everything between.

Microsoft 365 is almost always the right starting point. From there, it depends on what you're running, what you need to protect, and what your team actually uses.

Microsoft 365 migrations

Full tenant setup, mailbox migration from G Suite or on-prem Exchange, SharePoint document library structure, Teams governance, and license optimization. Provisioned and licensed through Pax8.

AWS infrastructure

EC2, RDS, S3, Route53, and IAM Identity Center; right-size for what actually needs cloud scale. We don't move things to AWS just to bill AWS.

On-prem Proxmox virtualization

When cloud cost doesn't make sense, we build Proxmox clusters on your hardware: VM management, HA, live migration, and an integrated backup target.

Network design & segmentation

VLAN segmentation, firewall policy, managed Wi-Fi, and a network map you can actually read. IoT devices off your main LAN.

Identity & access (Entra ID)

Conditional Access, group-based licensing, self-service password reset, and SSO to third-party apps via SAML or OIDC — plus a centralized SSO layer when you need OIDC/SAML in front of self-hosted apps. One identity layer for everything.

Infrastructure as code

Configuration management, infrastructure templates, and CI/CD pipelines. Every config change is repeatable, auditable, and reversible.

Monitoring & observability

Metrics, logs, and alerting in one pane. SSL cert expiry, disk fill, service health — all in one dashboard, alerts routed to us and to you.

Cloud cost optimization

AWS Cost Explorer + Trusted Advisor recommendations implemented, Microsoft 365 license right-sizing, reserved instances where appropriate, and killing idle workloads.

Our approach

We run our own infrastructure on the same stack we build for clients.

Rainier IT's own systems run on a mix of AWS and on-prem Proxmox behind centralized SSO, with continuous monitoring, infrastructure-as-code automation, and immutable offsite backups. We resell Microsoft 365 and Entra ID through Pax8 — we don't deploy Azure infra ourselves, so when an M365 tenant needs more than Pax8 covers we partner or move the workload to AWS or on-prem. Same playbook, same tools, our gear and yours.

Project work is fixed-price where possible. If the scope can't be defined up-front, we quote T&M with a ceiling and tell you the day we see it coming, not the day we send the invoice.

Discuss your infrastructure
$0

monthly cloud cost for Rainier IT's own production infrastructure — fully self-hosted on the same stack we build for clients.

Stack
Proxmox VE AWS Microsoft 365 Entra ID Pax8 Cloudflare Centralized SSO Infrastructure as Code Observability Immutable Backups
Frequently asked

Common questions about cloud & infrastructure.

What we recommend, what we don't, and why.

Should my business be all-cloud, all on-premises, or hybrid?

Almost always hybrid — the right amount of each, for what you actually do. Email, document collaboration, and identity belong in the cloud (Microsoft 365). Line-of-business apps with big local data sets, latency-sensitive workloads, or per-user-licensed software often stay cheaper on-prem. We don't move things to AWS just so we can bill AWS — and we don't keep things on-prem out of habit if cloud genuinely wins. The first deliverable of any engagement is an honest cost comparison.

Can you migrate us from Google Workspace (G Suite) to Microsoft 365?

Yes. Mailbox, calendar, contacts, Drive content, and shared drives — usually a phased weekend cutover with no downtime windows visible to users. We provision the new tenant through our Pax8 channel, run the data migration with vetted tooling, set up Conditional Access MFA before users log in, and cut DNS over once the mailboxes are verified. Most 25-user G Suite tenants take two weekends end-to-end.

Why do you provision Microsoft 365 through Pax8 instead of letting us buy direct?

Three reasons. First, we get to apply our Cloud Hardened security tier (Conditional Access MFA, Defender for Office 365, DMARC enforcement, geo-fenced sign-ins) — those controls require admin authority on the tenant. Second, Pax8 gives us a single pane of glass for licensing across all clients, so user adds and removes happen the same day they're requested. Third, the per-license pricing through our Pax8 channel is the same or lower than buying direct, with no markup. We're a Pax8 Voyager Alliance Partner.

Do you do AWS, or only Microsoft Azure?

AWS is the cloud we use most heavily. Our own infrastructure runs on it (EC2, RDS, S3, Route53, IAM Identity Center), and it's the default for client cloud projects too — backup off-site replication, immutable storage with S3 Object Lock, disaster-recovery warm sites, and data lakes. We do Azure when there's a strong reason (heavy Microsoft-stack workloads, deep Entra ID integration), but AWS is what we reach for first.

We have on-prem servers we're not ready to retire. Can you help with those?

Yes — on-prem infrastructure is a big chunk of the work we do. We standardize on Proxmox for virtualization (open source, no Broadcom-VMware-style license surprises), and we run VLAN segmentation, structured monitoring (Prometheus + Grafana), and proper backup integration. If the goal is eventually retiring the hardware, we plan the path; if the goal is keeping the on-prem investment running well for another five years, we do that too. Servers are billed per endpoint at $99/month.

Do you do AWS cost optimization?

Yes — and we did it on our own bill first. We exited Google Cloud in early 2026 by moving the workloads to a mix of on-prem Proxmox and AWS, and our cloud bill went from triple-digits monthly to effectively zero. The same patterns (right-sizing, reserved capacity where it makes sense, S3 lifecycle rules, eliminating idle resources) are what we apply in client AWS optimization engagements.

Have a migration or build in mind?

Fixed-price project estimates are free. Tell us what you're trying to move or build and we'll scope it.

Get a project estimate