Azure PaaS Services
Azure runs the plumbing, you run the application.
We design and build the bit in between.
Platform Services,
Chosen Properly
Paying platform prices for VM-era habits?
PaaS doesn’t remove operations. It changes what operating means. Nobody patches an App Service, but somebody still owns its access restrictions, its TLS settings, its scaling rules and its deployment slots. Get that right and you swap a wide, dull operational burden for a narrow, important one. Get it wrong and you get the worst of both. Most of the PaaS estates we review are somewhere in the middle, and nobody has looked properly.
Trusted by Enterprise Industry Leaders
What our Azure Paas Services include
Application Hosting
Azure App Service for web applications and APIs, and containers where the workload justifies them, including Azure Kubernetes Service. We’re honest about that boundary. Plenty of workloads get put on AKS because it’s fashionable, then carry the operational weight of Kubernetes for no benefit App Service wouldn’t have delivered cheaper.
Data Platform
Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance sizing, deployment and tuning, including elastic pools and serverless tiers where usage patterns suit them. This is a particular depth of ours. Picking the wrong SQL tier is one of the most common and most expensive PaaS mistakes we see, and often the easiest to fix.
Severless and Integration
With our pre-configured environments, businesses can adopt Azure quickly and confidently, scaling seamlessly as they grow. Our automated deployment scripts and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) approach minimize setup time, allowing you to launch workloads in days instead of months while maintaining flexibility for future expansion.
Modernisation from IaaS
We implement advanced security measures from the outset, safeguarding your data, applications, and infrastructure from cyber threats. Our security-first approach includes continuous threat monitoring, identity protection, data encryption, and compliance assessments to keep your business ahead of evolving cyber risks.
Why UK Organisations choose LA Net for Azure platform services
The engineer who reviews your workload is one of the engineers who would build it. No separate delivery team, no handover to someone you’ve never met.
Honest Service Selection
We’ll tell you when a workload shouldn’t move to PaaS at all. Some legacy applications cost more to re-platform than they’ll ever return, and off-the-shelf software usually wants a VM.
Everything Delivered as code
Infrastructure and configuration in version control, with documentation your team can run with. We design nothing that only we can operate.
Built for Regulated Sectors
ISO 27001, ISO 9001, Cyber Essentials Plus and Microsoft Solutions Partner, delivered across NHS Trusts, government bodies and FCA-regulated firms.
From workload review to go-live
ISO 27001, ISO 9001, Cyber Essentials Plus and Microsoft Solutions Partner, delivered across NHS Trusts, government bodies and FCA-regulated firms.
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What you're running, what it costs, what it touches, and whether platform services actually fit it.
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Options ranked by effort and return, including the workloads we'd leave where they are. Fixed price.
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Service selection, architecture, security baseline and cost model, agreed before anything gets built.
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Delivered as code by the engineer who scoped it, in stages that keep the business running.
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Documentation, runbooks and a working session with your team. Or a transition into our managed services, if that's what you want.
What platform as a service actually changes
Worth being precise, because the marketing version misses the point. PaaS shifts the shared responsibility line. With virtual machines, you own everything from the operating system up: patching, hardening, backup agents, licensing, capacity. With PaaS, Microsoft takes the operating system, the runtime and the physical resilience. What’s left to you is smaller but sharper: your configuration, your identities, your data, your code and your costs. Gartner’s much-quoted forecast that nearly all cloud security failures would originate on the customer side of that line has held up, and it applies to PaaS more than anywhere. The platform is secure. The configuration is yours.
When PaaS is the right call, and when it isn’t
An honest section, because this decision gets sold harder than it gets analysed.
PaaS wins when the workload is yours. Applications you develop, databases you own, integrations you control. The operational saving is real and it compounds: no OS patching, no server licensing, resilience built in, scaling on demand.
It’s the wrong call more often than vendors admit. Off-the-shelf software that expects a server usually wants a VM. Some legacy applications cost more to re-platform than they’ll ever return. And a straight lift of a busy database onto the wrong PaaS tier can raise your bill, not cut it.
The comparison most organisations get wrong is price. A PaaS service can look dearer than the equivalent VM on the calculator, and cheaper in reality, because the VM price never includes the patching, the licensing, the backup tooling and the engineer time it consumes. We call it the PaaS premium myth. Cost the whole thing or you’ll conclude the wrong way.
The gains are real when the fit is right though. One pattern we see repeatedly: spiky or office-hours workloads on provisioned SQL tiers, paying around the clock for capacity used eight hours a day. Moving those to serverless or right-sized tiers is often the single biggest saving in the environment, and it’s part of why environments we review typically carry 15 to 30 percent of avoidable spend.
Azure PaaS services for regulated organisations
Most of our work is with organisations where the platform choice has compliance consequences, and PaaS changes a few things there.
Evidence looks different. Auditors used to server patching reports need the shared responsibility model explained and documented. We design PaaS estates so the controls you do own, identity, network restrictions, encryption, logging, are enforced by policy and produce their own evidence.
Data residency needs watching. PaaS services have their own regional footprints, and they’re not identical. For NHS organisations, government bodies and FCA-regulated firms we treat residency as a design input checked service by service, not an assumption inherited from the region name.
Procurement is covered. LA NET is an HM Government G-Cloud Supplier, so public sector organisations can buy through the Crown Commercial Service marketplace. We hold ISO 27001, ISO 9001, Cyber Essentials Plus and Microsoft Solutions Partner status, and we’ve delivered for NHS Trusts, government departments and regulated financial services firms.
The SchoolGrid platform is a worked example: a SaaS product built on Azure platform services and sold into the education sector, security questionnaires and all. The Logistyx platform shows the same pattern in a commercial setting. If you want strategic advice on the wider platform rather than the workloads themselves, our Microsoft Azure consultants page covers that, and our Azure managed service page covers running it day to day.
What our Clients Are Saying
Straight answers and measurable results, starting with a free 60-minute consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Azure PaaS services?
Platform as a service offerings where Microsoft runs the infrastructure and you run your application or data on top. The main ones we build with are Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure Functions, Azure Kubernetes Service, Logic Apps, Service Bus and API Management. Our Azure PaaS services cover choosing between them, building on them and moving existing workloads onto them.
What's the difference between Iaas and Paas?
IaaS gives you virtual machines and you own everything from the operating system up. PaaS gives you a running platform and you own your configuration, code and data. Less operational burden, more dependence on getting the configuration right.
Does PaaS mean we have no operations work left?
No, it means different operations work. Nobody patches an App Service, but somebody still owns access restrictions, TLS settings, scaling rules, deployment slots and cost. The burden gets narrower, not absent.
Which Azure platform services do you work with most?
App Service, Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance, Functions, AKS, Logic Apps, Service Bus and API Management. Azure SQL is a particular depth of ours, and it’s where we most often find money.
Is PaaS more expensive than running VMS?
Sometimes on the calculator, rarely in practice. The VM price doesn’t include patching, server licensing, backup tooling and the engineer time those consume. But a workload put on the wrong PaaS tier can absolutely cost more, which is why we review before we recommend.
When would you tell us not to move to PaaS?
Off-the-shelf software that expects a server usually wants a VM. Some legacy applications cost more to re-platform than they’ll ever return. If that’s your situation we’ll say so in the review rather than build something you didn’t need.
App service or AKS, which should we use?
App Service for most web applications and APIs. AKS when you genuinely need container orchestration, multiple services with complex networking, or portability requirements. Plenty of workloads end up on AKS because it’s fashionable, then carry the operational weight of Kubernetes for no benefit.
How do we know if our Azure SQL tier is right?
Compare provisioned capacity against observed utilisation over a full month, including out of hours. Office-hours workloads on provisioned tiers pay around the clock for capacity used eight hours a day. Serverless or right-sized tiers usually fix it, and it’s often the biggest single saving in an environment.
Can our existing applications move to PaaS without a rewrite?
Often, yes. Many .NET and web applications move to App Service with modest changes, and SQL Server databases to Azure SQL with little or none. Some can’t be moved economically, and we’ll tell you which are which before anything gets committed.
How long does a PaaS migration take?
It depends on the workload count and how tangled the integrations are. A single application is usually weeks. An estate is months, delivered in stages so the business keeps running. We give a credible timeline after the review rather than before it.
What do we actually recieve?
Infrastructure and configuration as code in version control, documentation, runbooks and a working session with your team. Everything is built to be handed over, so another provider could pick it up if you ever wanted them to.
Can you review a PaaS design we've already had proposed?
Yes, and it’s often money well spent. A second opinion on service selection before it’s built costs a fraction of correcting it afterwards. We’ll put our view in writing, including where the proposal is sound.
How does PaaS change our security responsibilities?
The line moves. Microsoft takes the operating system, runtime and physical resilience. You keep configuration, identity, data and code. Narrower, but the parts you keep matter more, because a misconfigured platform service is exposed straight away.
How do you handle audit evidence for PaaS estates?
We design so the controls you own, identity, network restrictions, encryption and logging, are enforced by policy and produce their own evidence. Auditors used to server patching reports usually need the shared responsibility model documented, so we do that too.
Do PaaS services meet UK data residency requirements?
Usually, but it has to be checked service by service. PaaS services have their own regional footprints and they aren’t identical. We treat residency as a design input rather than an assumption inherited from the region name.
What certifications do LA Net hold?
ISO 27001, ISO 9001, Cyber Essentials Plus and Microsoft Solutions Partner status. We’re also an HM Government G-Cloud Supplier, so public sector organisations can buy through the Crown Commercial Service marketplace.
Who looks after the environment once it's built?
Whoever you want. Some clients run it themselves with the documentation and code we hand over. Others move it under our Azure managed service for continuous security, cost and platform management.
Do PaaS workloads still need cost managements?
Yes, arguably more. Scaling rules, tier selection and idle services drift the same way VM estates do, just faster because creating a new service takes seconds. Environments we review typically carry 15 to 30 percent of avoidable spend.
Will the platform scale as we grow?
That’s most of the point of PaaS, provided scaling rules are tuned against real load rather than left on defaults. We set them against observed patterns and document what triggers what.
Can you help our developers work with the platform?
Yes. Handover includes a working session, and the deployment pipelines and configuration are all in code your team can read. We’d rather your developers own it confidently than depend on us for routine changes.
Talk to an engineer about our Azure PaaS Services
If you’re weighing up App Service against AKS, wondering why your Azure SQL bill looks the way it does, or planning a move off virtual machines, the conversation costs nothing and we’ll tell you plainly what we’d do. There are no call centres. You’ll speak to an engineer.
