IT infrastructure consulting: what it is, how it works and how to hire it

IT infrastructure consulting is the service that diagnoses, designs and operates the environment a company's operations run on: servers, networks, cloud, databases, backup and security. It is most often called in when a technical decision starts to carry business consequences. A poorly sized migration. An outage no one anticipated. A cloud bill that doubled with no explanation.

This guide brings together what the consultancy does day to day, the types that exist, the contracting models, when it pays off more than building an in-house team, how a migration unfolds phase by phase and what to ask before signing a contract. The authors have designed and operated infrastructure for midsize and large companies since 2010, in Brazil and abroad.

Key points

• The work has four parts: diagnosis, design, execution and operation. Help desk and equipment sales are not part of it.
• There are three types: strategic, tactical and technical. An infrastructure project almost always starts out tactical.
• There are four contracting models: fixed scope, recurring and ongoing projects, staff placement and open scope.
• The size of the engagement comes from the diagnosis, not from a price list. What drives it is the volume of assets, the downtime window the business accepts and the service level required afterward.
• Skipping the assessment is the most expensive mistake in a migration. The dependencies end up surfacing at cutover, when fixing them costs the most.
• A backup that has never gone through a restore test is not a backup. It is a scheduled routine.
• Integrity-UX serves clients in Brazil and abroad, in Portuguese, English and Spanish, since October 2010.

What is IT infrastructure consulting?

It is the consulting practice that handles the lower layer of technology, the one that has to be up for the system, the website and the database to work. That includes physical and virtual servers, networks, storage, public and private cloud, backup, monitoring and the security controls of the environment.

Two things get confused with it. The first is with technical support, which serves the end user and the workstation. The second is with reselling, which sells licenses and equipment. When a proposal bundles the three into a single figure, comparing suppliers becomes guesswork.

What does an infrastructure consultancy do in practice?

The work is organized into four parts, which can be contracted together or separately.

• Diagnosis. Surveying what exists: servers, networks, licenses, versions, backup routines and single points of failure. From that survey comes the list of priorities, ordered by risk and not by technical preference.
• Design. Designing the target architecture, sizing it, building the migration plan and the disaster recovery plan. This is where it is decided what changes, in what order, and how to roll back if the cutover does not go well.
• Execution. Migrating, virtualizing, setting up high availability, automating routines and instrumenting monitoring, always in windows agreed with the business areas.
• Operation. Monitoring, handling incidents, applying updates, controlling cloud cost and evolving the environment over time.

A consultancy that delivers only the first part produces a polished report that no one acts on. One that delivers only the third executes without criteria. The result appears when the four move together.

What are the types of IT consulting?

There are three, according to the level of decision the consultancy supports.

• Strategic. A medium and long term technology plan, tied to the budget and to the company's growth. It answers the question of where IT is heading over the next three years.
• Tactical. A project with a beginning and an end: cloud migration, data center change, DRP implementation, network restructuring. It answers how to make the change without stopping the operation.
• Technical. A specific and complex problem, such as a performance bottleneck in a database, an intermittent cluster failure or a cloud bill that doubled with no explanation.

It is common to start with the tactical and discover a strategic agenda along the way. While inventorying the environment for a migration, what should have been decided earlier comes to light.

What are the contracting models?

The same service changes format according to need. Four models cover most situations.

• Fixed-scope projects. Deliverables, deadline and acceptance criteria defined before starting. It is the natural format for a migration, a DRP implementation, a network restructuring and a data center change. From signature onward the client knows what they receive and when.
• Recurring and ongoing projects. Oversight of the environment over time, with scope renewed by period. It accommodates monitoring, sustainment, update management, backup review and architecture evolution, all within an agreed-upon SLA. It is the model for those who want infrastructure looked after permanently without building an in-house team.
• Staff placement. Specialists dedicated to the client's team for a defined period. It suits the company that already has its own IT management and needs a specific skill without opening a permanent position.
• Open scope, or time and materials. The client pays for the hours actually worked and priorities are renegotiated each cycle. There is no locked final deliverable, but rather continuous effort toward the agreed objectives. It works well when requirements change quickly, in continuous improvement work such as automation and evolutionary sustainment.

The choice between fixed and open scope is a trade-off between predictability and flexibility. The fixed model gives a defined date and deliverable, but resists change, because altering the agreement means renegotiating. The open model absorbs shifts in priority each cycle without touching the whole contract, except that the final date is no longer guaranteed. An environment under transformation usually starts open and closes the scope as the diagnosis matures.

How much does IT infrastructure consulting cost?

The cost comes from the diagnosis, not from a price list. Two companies of the same size can have projects of very different scale, because what weighs is the environment, not the revenue.

Three factors define the effort. The first is the volume of assets involved: servers, databases, sites and integrations. The second is the downtime window the business accepts, since migrating without interruption requires considerably more preparation than migrating over a weekend. The third is the service level required after delivery, because operating continuously under an SLA is a different kind of commitment.

Price ranges circulating on the internet usually come from service marketplaces and reflect small jobs, such as one-off support or a network adjustment. They are no reference for a data center migration, high availability or a disaster recovery plan.

Be wary of a proposal with a closed price before any assessment has been done. At Integrity-UX the assessment of the current environment is free in the cloud, artificial intelligence, data and backup services, and it is from that assessment that the proposal comes, with effort and timeline by phase.

Consultancy, in-house team or outsourcing: which to choose?

It depends on how much of the operation the company wants to keep under its own management, and how many times a year that skill will actually be used.

Midsize and large companies rarely choose only one of the three. The most common arrangement keeps an in-house team for management and contact with the business areas, hires a consultancy for projects and architecture, and leaves monitoring under a recurring contract.

How a cloud migration works, phase by phase

It is the most common infrastructure project today, and the one that most often blows the budget when the first phase is rushed. There are five phases, following the same logic as the Cloud Adoption Framework from Microsoft.

The fifth phase is usually treated as optional, and it is precisely there that the bill comes down. An environment migrated without optimization runs with the capacity sized for the peak of the old data center, which is almost never the actual peak. For the concepts behind these decisions, it is worth reading the guide on what cloud computing is.

At Integrity-UX the assessment of the current environment is free in cloud migration, and the company is a Microsoft partner, with an Azure-certified team.

What changes when the consultancy is a Microsoft CSP partner?

CSP is the Cloud Solution Provider program from Microsoft. Under it the subscription is not bought directly from Microsoft: it goes through a partner, who is accountable for support and for managing the client's environment.

Integrity-UX operates under the indirect model of the program. License billing stays with the distributor, and first-level support is provided by Integrity-UX, with an Azure-certified team.

Three things change for the client. First-line support comes from a team that already knows the environment, in Portuguese, with no international support queue. Consumption can be reviewed over the course of the contract, depending on the subscription type, which avoids paying for idle licenses. And the license and the technical service stay with the same counterpart, instead of becoming two contracts that do not talk to each other.

What usually goes wrong in infrastructure projects

Four failures repeat, from the small project to the one with thousands of servers.

• Incomplete inventory. The dependency no one mapped surfaces at cutover, at the worst possible moment.
• No rollback plan. Without an objective criterion for aborting, the team persists with a cutover that has already failed.
• Backup never tested. A routine that runs successfully is not the same as a validated restore. The difference shows up on the one day it matters.
• Monitoring no one acts on. An alert that fires every day and is ignored has become noise, not monitoring.

Two real cases

Cyberattack in 2017. Integrity-UX supported the rebuilding of the IT environment of a global food manufacturer with 130,000 employees. After that, it worked on the company's information security program, on the privileged access management side. See the full case.

Patch automation at global scale. At a multinational with thousands of Windows and Linux servers, each maintenance window mobilized around 10 professionals on overtime. After automation, the window came to be run by 2 people, and window overruns ended. See the full case.

How to choose an IT consultancy

Ask for evidence, not promises. Six checks settle most of the decision.

1. Buy the diagnosis separately. Before committing to the whole project, contract the first part and assess the quality of what comes back.
2. Ask who will do the work. The name and certification of whoever will be assigned, not just the vendor badge on the cover of the presentation.
3. Define acceptance criteria per phase. What has to be ready at the end of each stage and who signs off on approval.
4. Require the documentation. The environment design and the operating procedures stay with your company at the end of the contract.
5. Ask for references of similar size and sector. A 40-server project does not compare with a 4,000-server one.
6. Agree on the exit at the outset. How knowledge transfer will work when the contract ends.

Frequently asked questions

How much does IT infrastructure consulting cost?

The figure depends on the diagnosis, not on a price list. What drives it is the volume of assets involved, the downtime window the business accepts and the service level required after delivery. At Integrity-UX the assessment of the current environment is free in the cloud, artificial intelligence, data and backup services, and it is from that assessment that the proposal comes, with effort and timeline by phase.

What does an IT infrastructure consultancy do?

It diagnoses the current environment, designs the target architecture and executes the transition, covering servers, networks, cloud, data, backup and security. It can also take on continuous operation, with monitoring and an SLA. It is not to be confused with a help desk or with equipment reselling.

What are the contracting models for an IT consultancy?

There are four. Fixed-scope projects, with defined deliverables and deadline, such as a cloud migration or a DRP implementation. Recurring and ongoing projects, to look after the environment within an SLA. Staff placement, when the company has its own management and needs a specific skill for a period. And open scope, in which the client pays for the hours actually worked and priorities are renegotiated each cycle.

What are the types of IT consulting?

Strategic, which supports the executive technology plan. Tactical, which executes projects with a beginning and an end, such as migrations. And technical, which resolves specific problems of high complexity.

What is the difference between IT consulting and outsourcing?

The consultancy works by project, with scope and deadline, and delivers diagnosis, architecture and execution. Outsourcing takes on day-to-day operation. Nothing prevents combining the two: fixed scope for the project and a recurring contract for sustaining the environment.

Is it better to hire a consultancy or build an in-house team?

An in-house team works for predictable daily operation. A consultancy usually pays off when technical risk is high, the deadline is short or that skill would be used only a few times a year. Most midsize and large companies use both arrangements at the same time.

What is the difference between fixed scope and open scope?

Under fixed scope, deliverables, deadline and acceptance criteria are defined before starting, and changing the agreement requires renegotiation. Under open scope, the client pays for the hours actually worked and priorities are renegotiated each cycle, with no locked final date. The first suits well-defined projects, such as a migration. The second suits work where requirements change quickly.

What does it mean to be a Microsoft CSP partner?

Under Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider program, the subscription goes through a partner instead of being bought directly. Integrity-UX operates under the indirect model: license billing stays with the distributor and first-level support is provided by Integrity-UX, with an Azure-certified team.

How long does a cloud migration take?

It depends on the number of applications and the dependencies between them. The real schedule comes out of the assessment.

How can I tell whether the consultancy understood my environment?

By the diagnosis. A good report lists dependencies the internal team itself had not mapped, identifies single points of failure by name and location, and separates what is risk from what is technical preference.

Does Integrity-UX serve companies outside Brazil?

Yes. The company is Brazilian, headquartered in São Paulo, and serves clients in Brazil and abroad, in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Conclusion

Infrastructure consulting is not chosen by the size of the supplier nor by the number of badges on the presentation. It is chosen by method. Diagnosis before the proposal, scope kept separate from support and from sales, acceptance criteria at each phase, documentation that stays with the client and a rollback plan defined before any cutover. The contracting model comes after that, not before.

Integrity-UX is an IT consultancy specializing in infrastructure, in business since October 2010, headquartered in São Paulo, at Av. Queiroz Filho, 1560, Conjunto 09 Gaivota, Vila Hamburguesa. It serves clients in Brazil and abroad, in Portuguese, English and Spanish. See our specialized consulting or talk to a specialist.