Cloud Infrastructure
Built to Keep
Your Business Moving
Next Step designs, migrates, and manages cloud infrastructure so that performance, backup, and recovery are handled as one system, not three separate problems.
Keep the Infrastructure Running. Keep Your Team Moving.
With your cloud environment managed by Next Step, monitoring, maintenance, backup and performance are handled proactively, reducing the day-to-day burden on your internal team.
Ageing Servers Are a Risk You're Already Carrying.
On-premise infrastructure rarely fails on schedule.
The longer servers run beyond their intended lifecycle, the greater the risk of hardware failure, performance issues, security gaps and costly downtime. What once felt like a reliable investment can quickly become a growing operational liability.
Moving to the cloud can remove much of that risk, but only when the migration is properly planned. Which workloads should move first? What stays on-premise? How will applications, data, backup and recovery work together? A poorly planned migration can simply replace old infrastructure problems with new ones.
Next Step assesses your existing environment, designs the right cloud architecture, and manages the migration end-to-end. The result is infrastructure that is more resilient, easier to scale and no longer dependent on ageing hardware sitting in a server room.
Let's Talk About Your Infrastructure
What We Cover
Whether you’re migrating off legacy servers, building a private cloud, or optimising an existing setup, this is the full scope of what’s included:
IaaS
Infrastructure delivered and managed as a service, not hardware you have to own.
Managed Private Cloud
A dedicated cloud environment, sized and managed for your business.
Cloud Architecture, Migration & Implementation
Designed around your business, then migrated in a planned, staged way.
Cloud Optimisation
Getting more performance for less cost out of what's already running.
VMware to Proxmox Migration
A clear path off VMware licensing, without a rebuild from scratch.
Backup & Disaster Recovery
Your data recoverable and tested, not just backed up and hoped for.
Veeam Cloud Connect
Offsite backup connectivity built on enterprise-grade tooling.
High Availability & Failover
Redundancy that keeps the business running through a hardware failure.
Microsoft CSP Licensing
Licensing managed and right-sized, not renewed on autopilot.
Cloud Hosted Voice
Phone systems delivered as part of the same managed environment.
Sized to What You Actually Run
Next Step sizes your cloud around real workloads, performance needs and growth, so you get the capacity you need without paying for what you don’t.
Case Study: MFAA
From Legacy to Leading Edge
MFAA moved off legacy, on-premise infrastructure to a secure, cloud-first environment under Next Step’s management: cloud migration, a standardised device environment, and Essential Eight-aligned cybersecurity, delivered as one connected project rather than three separate ones.
If you do not have the IT operations and foundations in place and working well, it becomes much harder to focus on broader organisational priorities.
The value for MFAA is that we now have a more secure, reliable and modern technology environment, and we have confidence that Next Step is managing those foundations effectively.
Evan Thomas
COO, MFAA
Migration in Three Steps
Assess
We map what's running and what's actually worth migrating first.
Migrate on a staged plan
Cutover occurs on a schedule controlled by the business.
Manage under one agreement
Cloud infrastructure, backup and recovery are handled together.
Thirty Years Deep
Next Step has been doing this since 1994. The tools have changed. The commitment to getting it right hasn’t.
Why Businesses Choose Next Step
Full Ownership, Not Just Advice
One team, one relationship, one number to call. We manage your vendors, contracts, and environment so nothing falls through the cracks between suppliers.
Reporting You Can Actually Act On
Technology risk and investment translated into plain language, not technical jargon, so decisions get made with confidence.
Forward Planning as Standard
Every client gets a technology roadmap. You'll always know what's coming, what it costs, and why it matters, before it happens.
Response Times You Can Hold Us To
Every incident is logged, prioritised, and worked to a committed target, not a best-guess.
FAQs
What is managed cloud hosting?
Managed cloud hosting means your servers, storage, and applications run on infrastructure that Next Step designs, migrates, and actively manages, rather than sitting on ageing on-premises hardware your team has to maintain itself.
How long does a cloud migration take?
Timeline depends on the size and complexity of the current environment, but most migrations to cloud-based infrastructure take between two and six months from planning to completion.
What's the difference between IaaS and managed private cloud?
IaaS gives you infrastructure delivered as a service on shared platforms. A managed private cloud is a dedicated environment sized and managed specifically for your business, usually where compliance or performance requirements call for it.
Is cloud hosting more secure than on-premise servers?
Properly configured and monitored, cloud hosting is generally more secure than on-premises infrastructure, since patching, backups, and access controls are managed continuously rather than relying on someone to remember to do them.
Why would we move off VMware to Proxmox?
VMware licensing has changed significantly since Broadcom’s acquisition, and Proxmox offers a clear, lower-cost path off it without a full infrastructure rebuild.
What's included in backup and disaster recovery?
Backup and disaster recovery covers scheduled, tested backups and a documented recovery plan with a defined recovery time, so data loss and downtime are bounded and known in advance, not an open-ended risk.
What happens to our data if the primary system goes down?
A tested disaster recovery plan and a dedicated recovery site mean systems can fail over with a known recovery time, not an open-ended outage.
What is high availability and failover, and do we need it?
High availability and failover means a secondary system takes over automatically if the primary one fails, keeping the business running through a hardware fault. It’s most relevant for businesses that can’t tolerate any outage, and unnecessary cost for those that can.
Can we move to a private cloud instead of a shared platform?
Yes. A managed private cloud provides a dedicated environment rather than shared infrastructure, typically chosen when compliance, performance, or data residency requirements make a shared platform unsuitable.
Do we need to migrate everything to the cloud at once?
No. Migrations are staged, with the highest-risk or highest-value systems moved first, so the business keeps running throughout.
How does cloud hosting cost compare to running our own servers?
Cloud hosting shifts cost from large upfront hardware purchases to a predictable monthly cost tied to what you actually use, which usually works out more evenly over time than a hardware refresh cycle, though the right comparison depends on your current environment.
Talk to Someone Who'll Give You a Straight Answer
No sales script, no pressure to sign today.
Just a clear picture of where your IT stands and what fixing it would actually involve.