A global technology organization with a growing reliance on cloud infrastructure, Microsoft 365, analytics, and data platforms to support its operations. Its evolving environment required greater governance, security, performance, and operational consistency across an increasingly complex technology ecosystem.
Ontario, Canada
Technology
Managed IT Services
A global technology organization partnered with Gibraltar Solutions to modernize, secure, and operationalize its cloud, data, and analytics platforms.
What began as a focused managed backup engagement evolved into a multi-year, multi-discipline transformation covering Azure infrastructure, Microsoft 365, Power BI and Microsoft Fabric, DevOps, network security, and managed services operations.
Across more than a dozen strategic and tactical initiatives, Gibraltar Solutions helped the organization reduce operational risk, improve performance and governance, modernize analytics delivery, and establish a scalable operating model for the future.
As the organization increased its reliance on Azure, Microsoft 365, Power BI, and other cloud technologies, it faced a growing set of operational and technical challenges:
The organization needed a partner capable of solving immediate technical issues while helping establish a sustainable long-term operational framework.
Rather than treating each initiative as an isolated project, Gibraltar applied a layered, lifecycle-based approach:
Stabilize and Protect
Strengthen backup, security posture, and operational monitoring.
Modernize Platforms
Improve Azure architecture, Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, and DevOps.
Operationalize
Establish managed services, governance, and automation.
Optimize and Scale
Improve cost control, performance, and future-ready design.
This allowed the organization to address immediate priorities while progressively building a more cohesive and scalable technology architecture.
The engagement began with a Managed Backup Service covering Microsoft 365 and Azure workloads with defined backup and restore processes. This provided a foundation for broader managed services adoption and greater operational consistency.
Gibraltar subsequently established Managed Services v2.0, providing ongoing operational support across Azure, Microsoft 365, and network environments. Services included monitoring, cost optimization, security posture management, and incident response.
This became the organization’s long-term operating model for its IT environment.
Gibraltar designed and deployed a dedicated Azure Storage architecture that addressed segregation of billing, access, and network dependencies while enabling scalable data access for downstream SQL and reporting workloads.
The team also supported network reconfiguration as the organization transitioned from Cloudflare Enterprise to Palo Alto capabilities. Work focused on SQL and SFTP access, firewall policy, and security trade-offs while identifying opportunities for a broader network redesign.
Gibraltar conducted a deep technical review of the organization’s Power BI Premium P1 environment, identifying performance bottlenecks, architectural gaps, and optimization opportunities.
The team then assessed DevOps maturity across Azure, Power BI, ETL processes, and CI/CD pipelines and delivered a structured modernization roadmap.
During the subsequent Power BI DevOps Phase 2 engagement, Gibraltar implemented Azure DevOps-based version control and deployment automation. This enabled structured promotion across Development, UAT, and Production environments while introducing supporting governance, training, and documentation.
Finally, the organization was successfully migrated from Power BI Premium P1 to Microsoft Fabric. The engagement included workload migration, validation, performance optimization, Fabric capacity right-sizing, and knowledge transfer to support operational stability following the migration.
Gibraltar designed a Microsoft-native security approach to replace Sophos and CyberArk, leveraging Microsoft Defender, Intune, privilege management, and endpoint protection.
The approach improved security integration while positioning the organization for cost optimization.
Gibraltar also delivered external penetration testing, managing scope clarification, retesting, and final reporting. The engagement achieved 10/10 CSAT and formal project acceptance.
Gibraltar implemented Power BI monitoring to provide proactive visibility into performance, usage, and issue detection, extending reporting capabilities beyond the development lifecycle.
A Server Reboot Automation proof of concept also validated automated SQL server reboots and assessed the feasibility of post-reboot health checks and automated service validation, helping prepare the organization for additional automation initiatives.
Through the broader transformation, the organization achieved:
