Azure Arc Services:

You don’t have to choose between the cloud and your existing infrastructure

Full cloud migration is the goal for some businesses. For others, it’s never going to be the right answer. Azure works either way. Azure hybrid cloud lets you run workloads where they make sense: cloud where you want scale and flexibility, on-premises where you need control, low latency, or data sovereignty. Braintree helps you design and manage that balance.

The ‘cloud vs on-premises’ question isn’t always the right question

Most discussions about cloud adoption present a binary: migrate everything, or stay where you are. For businesses with complex environments, regulated data, latency-sensitive applications, or infrastructure that still has years of life in it, that framing creates a decision that’s almost impossible to make.

Azure hybrid cloud is built on a different premise: that on-premises and cloud infrastructure can operate as a single environment, managed consistently, with workloads placed where they perform best. You don’t have to decide once. You can evolve your infrastructure as your business changes.

“We want to move to the cloud, but we can't do it all at once”

Full cloud is the goal but you can’t do it in one step. Hybrid is the bridge. Run new workloads in Azure while on-premises systems stay operational. Migrate in controlled phases without disrupting what’s running.

“Some of our systems can never move”

A permanent mixed environment, with some workloads staying put- data residency requirements, manufacturing floor systems, or infrastructure under long-term lease that can’t simply be switched off.

"We've already partially migrated, but the two halves aren't working well together"

Many organisations have moved some services to the cloud but still carry on-premises systems. Hybrid management through Azure Arc brings these environments under consistent governance, security, and monitoring.

What ‘hybrid cloud’ actually means for your infrastructure

Azure migrations are complex. One misconfiguration costs weeks and thousands in remediation. The risk isn’t the technology itself. It’s doing it without a team that’s navigated the edge cases before.

1. Your on-premises and cloud environments are managed as one

Through Azure Arc, you can apply Azure management, security policies, and monitoring to servers and applications running in your own data centre, using the same tools, the same dashboards, and the same governance controls as your Azure workloads. You’re not managing two separate environments, but one environment that spans two locations.

2. Workloads sit where they make sense

A manufacturing business might keep production control systems on-premises (latency-critical, cannot tolerate network dependency) while running ERP, analytics, and collaboration in Azure. A financial services firm might keep regulated customer data on-premises while using Azure for processing, reporting, and DR. Hybrid makes both possible without compromise.

3. You keep sovereignty over your data

For South African businesses with POPIA obligations, data residency requirements from customers, or sector-specific regulatory constraints, hybrid lets you keep sensitive data where governance requires it. Azure services can then be accessed for processing, backup, and analytics.

Azure Arc: the technology that makes it real

Azure Arc is the Microsoft service that extends Azure’s control plane to any infrastructure: your data centre, a colocation facility, or even a remote edge location. It’s what allows Braintree to manage your full hybrid environment as a single system rather than two separate ones bolted together.

Load shedding, POPIA, and legacy infrastructure: the SA-specific case for hybrid

The South African operating environment creates hybrid requirements that don’t always exist for businesses in markets with more mature cloud infrastructure. Several factors push businesses toward hybrid rather than full cloud adoption:

Load shedding and connectivity reliability

On-premises infrastructure with proper UPS and generator backup can be more resilient than cloud-only setups during extended outages. Hybrid architectures can be designed to keep critical operations running locally when connectivity drops, syncing with Azure when it restores.

POPIA and sector-specific data requirements

Personal information, financial records, and health data carry residency and access control obligations. Azure’s Johannesburg and Cape Town regions address residency, but some businesses need physical control over hardware as well. Hybrid accommodates both.

Legacy systems with long remaining life

Replacing working infrastructure purely to achieve cloud purity is expensive and disruptive. If your ERP runs on SQL Server 2019 on hardware that’s three years old, the business case for replacing it isn’t there yet. Hybrid lets you extend Azure capabilities to that infrastructure without replacing it prematurely.

Bandwidth and latency constraints at branch level

Keeping latency-sensitive workloads local while centralising management and reporting in Azure is often the right architecture. This works for businesses with multiple sites, branches, warehouses, or manufacturing plants.

What Braintree delivers in a hybrid engagement

Hybrid infrastructure requires design, implementation, and ongoing management. Braintree covers all three — and the ongoing management is where most of the operational value sits.

Architecture design

We assess your current environment, your workload requirements, and your constraints — regulatory, latency, budget, and timeline. Output: a hybrid architecture that places workloads correctly and is operationally manageable, not just technically sound.

Implementation and integration

Azure Arc deployment, network configuration, identity integration across on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD, security policy alignment, and monitoring setup across both environments. Done without disrupting what’s running.

Ongoing managed operations

Hybrid environments need active management — patching, security monitoring, performance optimisation, and governance enforcement across both layers. Braintree provides this as a managed service, so your internal team isn’t carrying the operational burden of running two environments.

Hybrid forever, or hybrid for now?

Not every organisation needs a permanent hybrid environment. For some, hybrid is a transitional state on the way to full Azure adoption. For others, it’s the right long-term architecture. These questions help clarify which applies to you.

Hybrid is your long-term architecture if you have:

Regulatory obligations that require on-premises data storage or processing.
Manufacturing or operational technology systems that cannot tolerate network dependency.
Infrastructure under long-term contract or hardware that’s still within its useful life.
Operations across multiple sites with varying connectivity reliability.

Hybrid is your stop on the way to full migration if:

You want to reach full Azure adoption but can’t disrupt operations with a single cutover.
You have multiple legacy systems with different migration readiness.
You want to start realising Azure benefits on new workloads before committing to full infrastructure migration.
You’re mid-migration and need a stable mixed environment while you complete the transition.

Tell us what you're working with. We'll tell you what makes sense

If you’re sure which applies to you, Braintree’s infrastructure assessment will clarify the answer for you. One session maps your environment, your constraints, and your options.

FAQs

Is hybrid cloud more expensive than full cloud migration?

It depends on what you’re comparing. If you have on-premises infrastructure that still has useful life, hybrid avoids the cost of premature replacement. If you’re buying new on-premises hardware specifically to stay hybrid, the economics are different. Braintree models both scenarios as part of the infrastructure assessment so you’re comparing actual numbers, not assumptions.

Can we manage a hybrid environment with our existing IT team?

Some organisations can, depending on team size and skillset. Azure Arc significantly reduces the operational complexity of hybrid management, but it still requires consistent attention through patching, security monitoring, policy enforcement across both layers. Braintree’s managed service option is designed for organisations where the internal team doesn’t have the bandwidth or the Azure expertise to carry this alongside their day-to-day responsibilities.

What happens to our Active Directory in a hybrid setup?

In most hybrid deployments, on-premises Active Directory remains the identity authority and is synchronised with Azure Active Directory (Entra ID) through Azure AD Connect. Your users authenticate against the same identity, with access policies applied consistently across on-premises and cloud resources. No rebuilding, no re-provisioning.

How do we handle security across two environments?

Azure Arc allows you to apply Azure security policies, Microsoft Defender for Cloud monitoring, and compliance controls to your on-premises servers as well as your Azure workloads. This means a consistent security posture across the full environment rather than two separate security regimes that need to be aligned manually.

What does load shedding mean for a hybrid environment?

It depends on your architecture. Braintree designs hybrid environments with SA-specific resilience in mind: local UPS and generator coverage for on-premises workloads, Azure availability zones for cloud workloads, and failover configuration that keeps operations running locally when connectivity is interrupted. This is part of the architecture design phase, not an afterthought.

How long does a hybrid infrastructure deployment take?

Initial hybrid setup (Azure Arc deployment, network configuration, identity integration, monitoring) typically runs four to eight weeks depending on environment complexity. This doesn’t include any workload migration, which is sequenced separately. Braintree provides a specific timeline after the infrastructure assessment.

Stability and change have to coexist

Modernising on Azure does not require starting over. It requires understanding what already exists and designing for what comes next.

If you want to explore how Azure can support your organisation without destabilising the systems you rely on, we are happy to have that conversation.