Cloud computing is a booming industry and enterprises across the world are experiencing great success with business solutions powered by cloud. Cloud migration is redefining the way enterprises are doing business using secure cloud enabled enterprise applications. To drive business growth and attain great success globally 90% of enterprises are using Azure cloud services. Now businesses can build complex applications with ease be it Azure cloud deep integration, build, deploy or manage simple tasks. Azure supports a wide range of programming languages, frameworks, operating systems, databases and devices and allows businesses to leverage tools and technologies with the trust they have.

For all sizes of businesses, Microsoft Azure is useful whether it is to coordinate connections for IoT devices or to process massive amounts of data through AI. 

Use of Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure have more than 200 applications and offers more than 1000 technical capabilities in a single year alone. It is designed to serve businesses from the cloud and over the internet. Rather than processing, storing and managing data the companies can offload these resources to Azure.

 The three common ways Microsoft Azure helps businesses are:

• Platform as a services which includes development and testing of applications
• Software as a service which access software applications such as salesforce, CRM, Microsoft office 365
• Infrastructure as a service where data is processed on a visual machine.

As Azure works on open source computing, programmers can use their existing code in a variety of languages.

Businesses can use the cloud-based service and applications which fit the business model and can pay for what they use. It makes it very convenient for companies if they want to offload all their computing to the cloud and would retain computing and storage onsite which is called hybrid cloud mode.

Whether it is healthcare, financial services or retail the companies are using Microsoft Azure capabilities to grow their market share and save infrastructure costs.

Here are the top five benefits of Microsoft Azure for your business

Microsoft Azure gives numerous perks to companies as compared to its biggest rival AWS. Selecting the right service depends on a number of factors which includes types of service an enterprise wants and how much it expects to scale in near future and the way it handles billing.

Here are some primary benefits to enjoy when we talk about Azure storage:

• Speed 
• Flexibility
• Integrated timely delivery
• Disaster recovery 
• Security

Each customer of Microsoft Azure will name a different reason to why they are loyal to the brand. The above mentioned five reasons are the most popular reasons for migration to the cloud. 

Speed

When people talk about clouds they consider things like ping rates, jitter, lag and so on. Microsoft’s definition of speed is entirely different as they put emphasis on placing data centers worldwide and give users the best chance of getting their data when they need it. When we talk about speed, there are few things which Microsoft Azure handles very well. Have a look at following

• How fast team can develop, test and deploy new applications
• How quickly a team can scale existing capacity by upgrading services, plans and adding new features.
• How quickly a enterprise can recover data from backups, offsite storage centers and virtual machines
• How quickly a large amount of data can be processed using machine learning and AI and get summarized recommendations from the data and drive useful results.

Automated solutions

Businesses which use power houses like Azure can handle day-to-day data storage and process needs and experience significant improvements in start-to-finish processes. Microsoft has developed most fully-automated solutions that can change what you need at the moment’s notice.

Robust templates

Businesses don’t have to create anything from scratch as they get pre-built tools and templated and best practice guides. This result in quicker market time and whatever we are working on.

Improved flexibility

When it comes to flexibility, Azure shines bright with its simplified scalability. Accessing more resources requires a simple click to upgrade service levels. Companies no longer need extra storage, computing and support and are free to reduce higher levels of service.

Flexible service levels

Companies can avail services as per requirements and thus can experience true sense of freedom to move between tires and maximize budget and ramp resources.

Flexible storage locations

It is a global solution and more than 40 data centers globally azure allows to back up data in more than one place. This diversifies risk and gives options like speed, customer service and compliance in geographical matters.

Flexible coding language

Among the major benefits, the most exciting is the commitment to open source. All languages and frameworks fit into Azure applications. It gives developers latitude to come up with best ways to showcase product, service and app. 

Integrated timely delivery 

There is so much when it goes into creating an amazing digital product or service. Microsoft Azure have pretty much everything and ensures a complete end-to-end suite of services so the work can get done without asking – will it work with what we have already developed?

One of the fatal flaws which we miss about Azure is along with cloud service it works on the concept of full and unified delivery pipeline. Everything from testing to source control to delivery can happen from a single environment. Itis something which is impractical to expect from a homegrown infrastructure of diverse tools. Azure is careful to rollout without disruptions to existing applications and services. The developers think ahead whether upgrading to one cloud service will disrupt functionality to another. They create entire suite of security patches, bulking up features and creating more service levels. 

In other words you don’t have to assume that one Azure service will break other Azure services. Here you can’t guarantee a mix and match application programming interface from different vendors without a unified umbrella like Azure.

Disaster recovery

Whether you want to keep downtime to a minimum or you want a more sophisticated approach to data backups. Disaster recovery of Azure is worth checking. But how does it work? Azure has some leading encryption features in industry and it helps you to stay compliant and improve your continuity plan when something goes wrong. 

Backups

When it comes to backup of complete systems and data the cloud ensures you stay within your target recovery so that your customers does not lag in services and functionality. In addition to your on-site storage plans you can make these backups such as in hybrid methods where you keep all the data safe but you don’t need your own servers to keep data safe. Accessing cloud backups take significantly less time and “tapes” of traditional onsite servers.

Virtual testing system

The most promising benefits of Azure cloud is its testing capabilities. You don’t have to wait for any mishap with your applications or what your customers will do and much loss the company will suffer. To check the worst-case scenario your continuity plans can be tested visually and it gives you information which you need to tweak and revise for your plans.

No surprises

Without affecting users you can run test-dev copies of your workloads and you can test new versions with existing live data for a seamless transition during launch. You can create surprises of the past with all the testing options. Azure also contracts with third -party solutions such as Rackspace and Rubric and can stick with tools you know or love.

Security 

Microsoft Azure invests more than $1 billion each year on cybersecurity research and development. It flabbergasted its security in a way businesses can utilize the power of remote physical data centers without compromising on confidential data. 

Microsoft has created a system with security controls integrated both in hardware and the firmware and customers can get access to the expertise of more than 3500 global cybersecurity experts with intimate knowledge of cloud specific attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). 

The company backs up promises with compliance certificates which include HIPAA, GDPR, IRS, and FERPA. With multi-factor authentication,stringent application password requirements and training latest threats the users are able to protect data on their end. 

Azure sends out timely notifications when users need to upgrade or enable protections. The key vault feature secures passwords, keys and industry secrets in a safe, virtual environment.

Azure security center can assess security standing and give ip a secure score and rates your actions and offers tips for safe data transfer. The security center analytics monitor your activities and uses machine learning to determine threats. This proactive approach helps fight malicious data loss and corruption.

Wrapping up-

Daily tech brings new updates and upgrades and thus race between cloud providers will excite us to see how microsoft will embrace the future with its new initiatives. They have proven that they can meet compliance requirements and are deeply invested in security and thus give major success to corporations and startups. To understand about this new buzz contact our experts at PatternBots.