AWS and Azure cloud consulting, from foundations to day-to-day operations

Cloud is as much about organisation as technology

Opening an AWS account or an Azure subscription takes a few minutes. Building a cloud that can run a company’s critical applications, keep its bill under control and pass a security audit requires other decisions: who is allowed to create what, how environments are isolated, where logs go, and who tracks costs under which rules.

The problems we see most often are not technical limits of the providers. They are foundations laid too quickly: accounts created project by project with no shared structure, administrator rights that are too broad, infrastructure built by hand in the console that nobody can reproduce, and a bill that nobody can explain line by line.

Feekr is a cloud consulting firm based in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, in the Lille metropolitan area (northern France). We work on AWS and Azure to lay these foundations, migrate the applications that need to move, and make the platform something your teams can operate over the long term.

What a cloud consultant should leave you with

Useful cloud consulting is judged by what remains with you once the engagement ends. In practice, we aim for four outcomes:

• Reasoned, documented decisions. Choice of provider, account or subscription structure, migration strategy for each application: every decision is recorded with its alternatives and its rationale, so it can be reviewed and revised.
• Infrastructure described as code. Networks, identities, security policies and application resources are versioned (Terraform or OpenTofu), reviewed and deployed through a pipeline. This is what makes an environment reproducible and auditable.
• Readable costs. Tagging, budgets, alerts and reports by team or product, so that every euro spent has an owner.
• Self-sufficient teams. Documentation, runbooks and knowledge-transfer sessions are part of the deliverable, not an optional extra.

Our experience comes from the field: designing and running AWS infrastructure entirely as code, including in regulated settings such as HDS (Hébergement de Données de Santé, the French certification for hosting health data). We apply the same rigour to every project, regulated or not.

Our cloud services

Each area below has its own detailed page. They often go together: a migration needs a secure foundation, and a well-built platform still needs its costs managed.

Cloud migration

Moving applications from a data centre, a hosting provider or a VMware estate to AWS or Azure is planned application by application: should it move as is, be modernised, be replaced by a SaaS product or be decommissioned? We build the inventory, the wave plan, the rehearsals and the rollback plan. See our approach to cloud migration to AWS and Azure.

AWS

Multi-account organisation, landing zone, architecture reviews against the Well-Architected Framework, security and costs: we audit existing environments and build clean AWS foundations. Details on our AWS consulting and AWS audit page.

Azure

A landing zone aligned with Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework, a management group hierarchy, hub-and-spoke networking, integration with Entra ID and Microsoft 365, and hybrid scenarios. See our Azure consulting page.

FinOps

A cloud bill is not reduced by a one-off audit but by an ongoing practice: visibility, cost allocation, resource optimisation, pricing commitments and governance. We measure potential savings on your own billing data, with no flat-rate promises. Discover our FinOps consulting for AWS and Azure.

Security and governance

Identity and access management, organisation-level guardrails, centralised logging, threat detection, encryption and reversibility: security is designed with the architecture, not added afterwards. See our approach to cloud security and governance.

Terraform and Infrastructure as Code

Describing infrastructure as code, structuring modules, managing state, and setting up deployment pipelines with review and automated checks. This is the basis of everything we deliver. Learn more about our Terraform and Infrastructure as Code consulting.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is powerful but expensive to run. We help you decide whether it is justified, then design and operate managed clusters (EKS, AKS) that are secure, observable and maintainable. See our Kubernetes consulting page.

Choosing a cloud provider: the criteria that matter

We work on AWS and Azure alike, and we have no interest in steering you towards one rather than the other. The right choice depends on your context, not on a general ranking. These are the criteria we review with you.

Criterion	Questions to ask
Existing ecosystem	Do you use Microsoft 365 and Entra ID? Do you have reusable Windows Server or SQL Server licences? Are your teams already trained on one of the two?
Required services	Are your needs (managed databases, analytics, generative AI, containers) covered equally well, in the regions you care about?
Regulatory constraints	Health data, personal data, sector-specific requirements: which services and regions are covered by the certifications you need?
Skills and hiring	Who will run the platform in two years’ time? Which skills can you find in your hiring market?
Real costs	Costs are compared on a specific target architecture, including pricing commitments and support, not on a generic price list.
Reversibility	How much of the architecture relies on proprietary services? What would it cost to leave?

Multi-cloud is not a goal in itself. Running two platforms duplicates part of the skills, tooling and guardrails to maintain. It is justified when a specific need demands it, rarely on principle.

Our method: scope, build, industrialise, improve

We follow the same path on every cloud engagement, whatever its size.

1. Scope. We start from your business priorities, your existing technical estate, and your security and budget constraints. The result is a realistic scope, written decisions and a plan broken down into verifiable stages.
2. Build. We deliver a first concrete scope: a landing zone, a first migration wave, a cost dashboard. It serves as proof and as a shared working base.
3. Industrialise. Infrastructure as Code, deployment pipelines, monitoring, incident procedures and governance rules make the solution workable day to day, not just demonstrable.
4. Improve. We measure, adjust and transfer skills. The goal is for your teams to evolve the platform without us.

At every stage, decisions are shared with your teams and the deliverables belong to them: code, documentation, architecture diagrams and procedures.

Our commitments

• No flat-rate savings promises. Savings are measured on your billing and usage data, not on a percentage announced before anyone has looked.
• Security and governance by design. Identities, logging, encryption and guardrails are part of the foundation, not a later workstream.
• Your teams’ autonomy. We document, explain our choices and pair with your engineers.
• Neutrality between AWS and Azure. We recommend the provider and services that fit your context.

Who we work with, and when to call us

We work with small and mid-sized businesses, IT departments structuring their platform, and product teams that need a reliable cloud base. The most common situations:

• you are preparing to exit a data centre, a hosting provider or a VMware estate;
• your cloud accounts or subscriptions have multiplied without shared rules;
• your cloud bill keeps rising and nobody really knows why;
• a security audit, a customer or a regulation requires you to prove you are in control;
• your infrastructure mostly exists in the heads of one or two people;
• you are preparing AI projects for production and need a suitable cloud foundation, alongside our AI expertise.

If any of these sounds familiar, the simplest step is to talk: we will tell you honestly whether and how we can help. You can also book a 15-minute call.

AWS and Azure cloud consulting in Lille and across Hauts-de-France

Feekr is based in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, in the Lille metropolitan area. We run these engagements for organisations in Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Marcq-en-Barœul and the rest of the metropolitan area, and across the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments: workshops on site when they matter, build work remotely. Elsewhere in France, we work remotely with planned visits.

Cloud and AI consulting in Lille · Our work across Hauts-de-France

[ YOUR QUESTIONS ]

Frequently asked questions

What does a cloud consultant do?

A cloud consultant helps a company decide on, design and implement its use of the cloud: choice of provider, architecture, migration, security, cost control and automation. At Feekr, we also build alongside your teams and hand over what they need to run the platform without depending on us.

Why move to the cloud?

The strongest reasons are usually practical: an ageing data centre or hardware reaching end of life, a need for elasticity, access to managed services (databases, AI, security), or faster releases. The cloud is not automatically cheaper: it becomes so when architecture and cost governance are designed in from the start.

Is the cloud suitable for a small or mid-sized business?

Yes, provided the ambition is sized correctly. A small business does not need a complex multi-account organisation on day one, but it does need a clean base: centralised identities, backups, logging, budgets and alerts. That base prevents cost and security drift as usage grows.

Should we choose AWS or Azure?

There is no universal answer. The deciding factors are your existing ecosystem (Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Windows and SQL Server licences), your teams’ skills, the services you need and your regulatory constraints. We work on both and have no interest in steering you towards one rather than the other.

What is a hybrid cloud?

A hybrid cloud is a set-up where some systems stay on premises or in private hosting while others run in a public cloud, with shared connectivity and identity management. It is common during a migration, and sometimes permanent for reasons of latency, licensing or regulation.