If we are already on Azure, who patches and secures our VMs right now?

You do, technically, even if no one on your team knows it. Microsoft's shared responsibility model puts OS patching, security configuration, and access control on the customer for IaaS. The hypervisor and hardware are theirs. Everything inside the VM is yours.

Will managed IaaS cost more than running our own servers?

Rarely, once you count everything. Add the hardware, replacement cycles, power, downtime, and staff hours to maintain it, and the five-year total usually favors managed cloud. Unmanaged cloud can drift expensive, which is why cost governance is part of the service.

Do you host on your own data center or on Azure and AWS?

We build on Microsoft Azure primarily, with AWS where a workload fits it better. Consilien Data Center is our managed hosting service, not a claim that we run the metal ourselves. You get hyperscale resilience with a single accountable team.

Can you support compliance requirements like CMMC or SOC 2?

Yes. We configure and host your environment against baselines like NIST 800-171 and SOC 2, which handles the infrastructure side of an audit. The full compliance program is a separate Consilien engagement, kept distinct from hosting on purpose.

What happens to our existing servers during migration?

They get migrated, not torched. We map what you are running, design the target environment, and move workloads with a defined cutover and a rollback path. The goal is a boring migration that nobody notices.

How is IaaS hosting priced?

Usually a predictable monthly fee tied to the resources you actually use, meaning compute, storage, and the management around them. That differs from raw pay-as-you-go. We size it during the assessment based on your real workloads.

IaaS Hosting, Fully Managed by Consilien

Your servers already live in the cloud. The patching, the security, the backups, and the bill still land on you. We take that off your plate and put one accountable team behind the whole environment.

Managed IaaS hosting means a provider runs your virtual servers, storage, and networking on cloud infrastructure like Microsoft Azure, and also owns the layers the cloud leaves to you. That means operating-system patching, security configuration, backups, and cost control. You rent the capacity. Someone else keeps it patched, secured, and accountable.

Most companies get half of that and assume they have all of it. That is the gap this page is about.

You moved to Azure a few years ago. Maybe a migration, maybe a slow drift as new apps went up in the cloud instead of the server closet. Either way, the hardware headache went away. Good.

Then a question shows up in a security review, or after a scare. Who is actually patching those VMs? Who checks the backups ran? Who noticed the bill climbed 40% since last year?

Usually the answer is a quiet nobody. Not out of neglect. It is just that the cloud makes it easy to assume the provider handles everything, and Microsoft is explicit that it does not. On IaaS, they secure the building, the hardware, and the hypervisor. Everything inside the virtual machine is yours.

That is where we come in. Consilien runs managed cloud services and IaaS hosting for companies between 20 and 500 users, the kind of mid-market manufacturers, distributors, and professional-services firms that need their infrastructure to just work without hiring a full cloud team to babysit it. We are the guide, not another dashboard you have to learn.

Leave it unowned and the stakes are real. An unpatched VM is how ransomware gets in. An unverified backup is how a bad week becomes a bad quarter.

What Azure covers, and what it quietly leaves to you

When you run Infrastructure as a Service, the provider owns the physical layer and the hypervisor. You own the servers on top: the operating system, the patches, the firewall rules, the data, and the access controls. On raw managed cloud services that is a lot to carry alone. Here is who owns what.

Responsibility	Unmanaged IaaS (you)	With Consilien	Microsoft (always)
Data center, power, cooling	Not your problem	Not your problem	Microsoft
Host hardware and hypervisor	Not your problem	Not your problem	Microsoft
OS patching and updates	You	Consilien	Not covered
Security config and hardening	You	Consilien	Not covered
Firewall, segmentation	You	Consilien	Not covered
Backup and disaster recovery	You	Consilien	Not covered
Cost monitoring, right-sizing	You	Consilien	Not covered
Your data and who can touch it	You	You, we protect it	Not covered

Look down the middle. On unmanaged IaaS, almost all of it is you. That is not a hosting service. That is a rental car with no insurance and no oil changes.

What Consilien manages

The reason companies pick a managed IaaS provider over raw Azure is simple. They want the flexibility of the cloud without owning every job the cloud hands back to them. We take the operational load, so your team spends its time on the business instead of on patch Tuesdays. Here is what that covers.

Managed cloud server stack with security shield and cost gauge, Consilien green

The cost story nobody warns you about

Let us be honest about what IaaS does not solve on its own. Cost.

The pitch is that the cloud saves money. It can. It also quietly does the opposite when nobody is watching. Test servers left running over a weekend. A database provisioned three sizes too big to be safe. Storage tiers that never got cleaned up. It adds up fast.

Research backs this up. Flexera has found, year after year, that organizations waste close to a third of their cloud spend. [VERIFY exact Flexera figure/year before publish] Not because they are careless. Because usage-based billing punishes the exact thing cloud makes easy, which is spinning up resources and forgetting them.

So a real managed IaaS engagement includes someone actually reading the invoice. We monitor spend, flag the drift, right-size instances, and plan reserved capacity where it makes sense. The goal is not the cheapest possible bill. It is a predictable one you understand.

A common pattern. A company comes to us convinced the cloud is too expensive, and the real problem turns out to be $4,000 a month of stuff nobody remembers turning on.

Compliance-aware hosting for regulated work

Some of the companies we host for do not get to treat security as optional. A contract manufacturer handling defense work has CMMC on the line. A firm processing cardholder data has PCI. A business chasing enterprise deals gets asked for a SOC 2 report.

Where your data physically lives, how it is segmented, who can reach it, and whether every access is logged all become part of the audit. Generic hosting ignores this. We do not.

We configure environments against recognized baselines. The NIST 800-171 control set, for example, spells out exactly how controlled information has to be protected, and a lot of it comes down to how the infrastructure is built and monitored. That is infrastructure work, which is our job.

One honest caveat. Compliance is its own engagement at Consilien, not a checkbox thrown into a hosting fee. Hosting gets your environment audit-ready. The compliance program gets you through the audit. Two different things, and we keep them that way on purpose.

How managed IaaS hosting starts

No mystery to how this begins. Four steps, and the first one tells you the truth about what you are running today.

Assess and map ownership

We inventory what you are running, where it lives, and who owns each layer right now. Most companies learn something uncomfortable here. That is the point.

Architect and migrate

We design the target environment, size it correctly, and move workloads with a plan for cutover and rollback. Existing servers get migrated, not abandoned mid-flight.

Manage and secure

Patching, monitoring, backups, and security configuration run on a schedule from day one. You stop being the person who should probably check on that.

Optimize and report

Every month we right-size, review spend, and send a plain report on what changed and why. No jargon wall. Just what you are running and what it costs.

Who this is for, and who it is not

You are a strong fit if you are:

A company between 20 and 500 users, already on Azure or heading there, without a dedicated cloud engineering team.
A manufacturer, distributor, food-processing, real-estate, media, or professional-services firm that needs infrastructure to stay stable and secure without becoming a second job.
Regulated. CMMC, PCI, or SOC 2 means your hosting has to survive an audit, not just run.
Done buying a new server every four years and ready to leave the closet behind.

You are probably not the right fit if you:

Already have an in-house cloud platform team that owns patching, security, and cost governance. You do not need us for that.
Just want the cheapest possible unmanaged VMs and plan to run everything yourself. Valid choice. It is not this one.
Run a sub-20-user shop where a couple of Microsoft 365 apps cover the whole business.

Full disclosure. We are an IT company, and we make money when you host with us. So here is the honest version. If you have got the in-house talent to own all of this well, keep doing it. If you do not, that gap does not stay empty. It fills with risk.

Managed IaaS versus self-managed cloud, two-path illustration

Before you decide

Managed IaaS hosting is a service where a provider runs your virtual servers, storage, and networking on cloud infrastructure and takes ownership of patching, security, backups, and cost management. You get cloud flexibility without running the day-to-day operations yourself.

Now the questions that actually come up when a buyer is close.

At this point the conversations sound about the same.

Is this going to cost more than my server closet? Will you touch my existing setup or rebuild it from scratch? What happens the first time something breaks at midnight?

Fair questions. Short version. On a five-year view, owning and refreshing hardware usually costs more than managed cloud once you count the box, the power, the downtime, and the staff hours nobody logs. We migrate what you have rather than forcing a rebuild. And when something breaks at 2 a.m., it is our on-call problem, not a voicemail you leave for yourself.

The trust concern is the real one. You are handing over the keys. That is why step one is an assessment, not a contract, and why every month you get a report showing exactly what we did and what it cost. No black box.

Patched on schedule

Windows and Linux VMs updated on a tested cadence, closing the most common ransomware door.

Restores that actually work

We test the backups instead of assuming them, with a recovery plan built for a bad day.

A bill you understand

Active cost monitoring and right-sizing, so the invoice stops being a monthly surprise.

Common questions about IaaS hosting

What is the difference between IaaS and fully managed IaaS?

IaaS gives you the virtual servers. Fully managed IaaS gives you the servers plus someone to run them, meaning patching, security, backups, and cost control. Plain IaaS hands those jobs back to you. Managed IaaS keeps them. The infrastructure is identical. What changes is who is responsible when a patch is missing or a backup fails.

Put one team behind your cloud

Every month those VMs go unpatched and that bill goes unread, the risk compounds. If you would rather have one team own it, let us talk.

Speak to a Expert

Call 866.680.3388