Lunavi Digitally Transforms Businesses Through Cloud Server Migrations, Managed IT Services, and App Development

TL; DR: Lunavi, formerly known as Green House Data, works closely with businesses to streamline IT operations using managed services, advisory consulting, and custom software development. From datacenter solutions to DevOps, the company guides clients throughout the entire digital transformation life cycle. As Microsoft Azure Expert MSP, Lunavi also has the expertise to help businesses implement and manage modern platforms like Azure, Endpoint Manager, and Office 365.

We’ve all heard the Chinese proverb, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” While it’s not often used in reference to digital transformation, it probably should be.

Rather than implement new technologies and walk out the door, the best IT partners guide clients through the entire digital transformation life cycle. From the datacenter all the way to DevOps, such organizations empower businesses to streamline their operations, extend their teams, and boost productivity.

“We’re helping our clients navigate what’s next while keeping business value closely in mind,” said Shawn Mills, President at Lunavi. “We’re moving their businesses forward through innovation. And we do it in an agile fashion, working closely with clients. We teach them how to fish while also fishing alongside them, building cloud-native applications that expedite time to market.”

Lunavi, formerly known as Green House Data, aims to remove the mystery from the digital transformation process. The company works closely with its clients to streamline IT operations through consulting, managed services, and software solutions.

The company serves as an extension of clients’ IT teams, providing guidance throughout the digital transformation life cycle, creating innovative software products, and implementing best practices cloud environments. By helping their employees work efficiently across the right applications and platforms, Lunavi ultimately boosts organizational productivity and drives ROI.

As a bonus, Lunavi is a gold-certified Microsoft solutions provider and an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider —a certification awarded to less than one hundred partners worldwide. The company’s experience in this area makes it easier for businesses to manage popular Microsoft solutions like Azure, Endpoint Manager, and Office 365.

Lunavi was founded nearly 15 years ago and has since evolved into a specialized managed services and software development provider. The company’s mission is “to combine human ingenuity and technology to deliver solutions for today, tomorrow, and the future.”

The company has continued to morph its products and services to meet the changing needs of its customers since we last spoke in 2018. In 2021, more clients than ever before are looking for ways to transform their businesses, whether due to distributed workforces or revenue goals.

“About two years ago, people started to say, ‘Hey, I really want to use my cloud resources in a more effective and efficient way,’” Shawn said.

Many of these clients had assets in their own datacenters or VMware-based private cloud servers, but they wanted to see how Azure and other hyperscalers could fit into the mix. Others may have started their journey in Azure but faced challenges around governance or security.

“While a lift-and-shift approach is an option, it’s not the most efficient use of the cloud resources,” Shawn said. “So, about a year ago, we started really building out our capabilities through an acquisition on the innovation side.”

Today, the company is working to modernize and build modern cloud-native apps.

“We’re modernizing the apps and how they operate while leveraging cognitive tools — machine learning, analytics — that are available now even with a hybrid cloud,” Shawn told us. “With integrated cloud platforms, you don’t have to spend millions of dollars to get the data insights like you once did.”

In addition to software companies, Lunavi is focused on serving small- to mid-sized enterprises.

“In the software company space, we’re rewriting their applications from the ground up to take full advantage of new services inside of the cloud,” Shawn said. “That really helps them get close to their customers and drive fast ROI.”

Lunavi helps organizations implement digital apps and services through a software delivery pipeline that extends from the coding process through infrastructure deployment, testing and staging, and agile feedback loops.

One application modernization case study in this area is particularly illuminating. In 2020, Lunavi partnered with the health software provider i-Function to modernize its FUNSAT assessment and training platform.

Lunavi worked closely with i-Function to build a software platform featuring a browser-based user interface and cloud-based server infrastructure through Microsoft Azure. The result was better availability, security, and performance.

“For organizations like i-Function that have a great vision and a great product but are just getting started, our goal is to create a solution that meets their needs and can grow with them,” explained Mike Douglas, Director of Delivery Engineering at Lunavi. “By building on a platform like Azure, they have ready access to all the app tools and services, reporting capabilities, data analytics — whatever they need without having to go back and rework anything or make a huge upfront investment.”

One key differentiator Lunavi employs is a Delivery Team-as-a-Service (DTaaS) approach. The value-driven guided process includes the people, processes, and technologies that businesses need to create business value through their technology. By working in and alongside client teams, Lunavi shares knowledge and methodology rather than just prescribing a platform.

Over the years, Lunavi has accumulated a good list of products — from custom private, public, and hybrid cloud solutions to managed services and DevOps enablement. It follows that Lunavi’s value proposition is quite multifaceted depending on what type of business the company is serving.

Cost and time savings are nearly universal, but benefits like operational agility and streamlined workflows, for example, are unique to the company’s DevOps services. Shawn said ROI comes from a lot of different places in that respect.

“We focus on the portfolio level, specifically when using agile methodology with our clients,” he told us. “We’re looking at the whole umbrella of services that a company might need from us. We’re building out a backlog that shows how certain initiatives drive ROI and working with clients to help drive the highest business value as quickly as possible.”

Lunavi’s Cloud Automation solutions through Azure, for example, empower different client teams in different ways. The infrastructure team might be able to reduce operational expenses by automating cloud server provisioning, while the applications team can achieve faster development cycles by automating testing and quality assurance.

“When talking ROI, it’s important to unite different parts of the client organization you’re working with, such as the infrastructure and application teams,” Shawn said. “Often ROI to the infrastructure team means shifting CapEx to OpEx, while application teams focus on revenue generation.”

Lunavi’s approach is to tie those teams together and start helping them think about what it means to drive business value as one cohesive tech unit.

Lunavi also helps boost value to businesses through its standing as a gold-certified Microsoft solutions provider.

“We’re super tied in with Microsoft,” Shawn said. “We’re an Azure Expert MSP, around which our hyperscale solution sets are driven. Microsoft has been a great partner of ours, and together we have built a lot of joint go-to-market strategies.”

Lunavi, therefore, is perfect for clients who consider Microsoft the best cloud provider to help solve their problems.

“We pretty much dialed in the journey and how to get there,” Shawn said. “Azure has cemented its place among the hyperscalers; they’re the future for a lot of people.”