If you're planning for your organization to migrate to the Cloud and are considering choosing Microsoft Azure, this article will explain what Microsoft Azure encompasses, what the advantages of the Cloud are, and whether Microsoft Azure is the best choice for your organization. This is a five-minute crash course that will help you understand the main features of Microsoft Azure and Cloud computing in general.
What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s Cloud platform for building, deploying, and managing services and applications. You can use Azure as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This means that your workloads, services, and applications run on a server in one or more Microsoft data centers instead of on your own hardware.
But that’s not all. Azure also offers you many Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. This allows you to use a comprehensive development and deployment environment as well as a comprehensive solution, including the use of hosted applications and apps such as Microsoft Office 365.
Advantages of the Cloud
1. Scalability
Growing companies will also need to adapt their infrastructure to changing needs. If you work on-premise, adapting is a costly and time-consuming job. To keep your environment or application running, you’ll need to scale for peak loads. This means that you’ll have to find more hard drives. But if your normal usage is lower, you’ll have unused resources – and that leads to unnecessary costs!
Cloud computing makes scaling up and down a lot easier.
You can add or remove memory, capacity, and computing power with just a few clicks. This way, you can be sure that your application or environment will continue to run at peak load (useful when you’re launching a campaign or when Black Friday is coming up). You also have no downtime, and you only pay for the resources you need.
2. Security
One of the biggest concerns about switching to the Cloud is security. Because if you can access your data remotely, can’t a cybercriminal as well? There’s no need to worry. The main task of a Cloud provider is to protect your data. The Cloud makes it easier to meet governance and compliance requirements. Microsoft is even over-certified in this area: It invests billions every year to secure its data centers, something a private data center could never achieve.
In addition, Microsoft has several PaaS services with which you can safeguard and tighten your own security and compliance. These tools can be configured in just a few clicks. As Microsoft takes a lot of work off your hands in this respect, you can focus on your core business.
3. Cost savings
If you work on-premise, you have to buy all the hardware yourself. The IT manager or System Administrator must back up, update, and ensure that the machines are up and running at all times (not to mention purchase licenses for the operating system and the necessary software). This represents wasted effort and unnecessary costs for your IT staff, who could be better used to accelerate your organization's digital transition.
If you work in the Cloud, you only pay for what you really need (pay per use) – and you can scale that up and down every month. This also means that you have little or no downtime. All in all, migrating to the Cloud means you can save on unnecessary costs.
4. Mobility
Are your employees regularly on the go or do they like to work from home from time to time? Or do you work with a remote team or freelancers? Working in the Cloud enables you to offer employees more flexibility, giving them access to their familiar work environment anywhere, anytime, and via all devices.
As a result, your organization becomes location-independent and more people-focused. Not only does this enable you to work and collaborate so much more efficiently, but it also helps increase employee satisfaction.
5. Stay Ahead of the Competition
Moving to the Cloud gives you instant access to the latest services and technologies. Pay-as-you-go services and Cloud-business applications ensure that you can respond quickly to new opportunities and unexpected changes. Working in the Cloud also stimulates innovation, improves collaboration, and increases productivity, so you’re always one step ahead of your competition.
If you’d like to know more about Microsoft Azure and how this Cloud solution can help your organization, feel free to contact us or sign up for our Microsoft Azure Cloud Essentials workshop here.