Microsoft has a long history as a fast follower, and this second-leading cloud service has proved it yet again as overall Microsoft Azure adoption surged from 26% to 43% of respondents to reduce the market leader AWS (Amazon Web Services) lead, according to the RightScale State of the Cloud Report for 2017.
As businesses continue to migrate to the cloud to exploit the cloud benefits to the best of their abilities, cloud providers are striving hard for the top spot. Recently, Azure – Microsoft’s cloud computing platform – has been gaining traction with high numbers in revenue numbers and customers in the cloud storage and business landscape. Here’s why more companies are making a move to adopting Microsoft Azure:
- 1. Ability to dig into Big Data
The selection of Azure by business is driven most importantly by its efficiency at handling ‘Big Data’. This allows businesses a highly scalable and robust platform to store, manage, analyze and monitor data. Using business analytics solutions, such as demand forecasting and inventory optimization, businesses can focus on finding the real value in the data.
- 2. Truly Consistent hybrid capabilities
Microsoft offers an end-to-end, hybrid data infrastructure to its users on their own terms. Azure’s hybrid approach to cloud helps businesses overcome complexity and optimize existing assets. Azure provides hybrid consistency in application development, management and security, identity management and across the data platform. The ability to support more than one “as a Service” architecture is something companies look forward to.
- 3. Simplified IT Infrastructure Management
Azure has the best IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) service, where it enables companies to outsource their cloud computing infrastructure and pay for only for what they use. In IaaS, everything from hardware upgrades to security updates is taken care of by the cloud provider (read Azure) and the price for this service is included in the IaaS subscription the company pays. This also gives small and mid-sized companies the flexibility in the context of how much they pay and when.
- 4. Fully integrated delivery pipeline
From an enterprise perspective, Azure benefits go beyond mere storage. Azure offers a unified delivery pipeline – source control, unit testing, integration testing, delivery, go live tools. With Azure, companies experience great continuity and reduced risk of integration failure as all tools are available under one authority. Azure’s fully integrated delivery pipeline is designed for efficiency in the case of product updates or any other changes, which creates a convincing business case.
- 5. Companies That Value Security Trust Azure
One of the biggest concerns of companies moving to the cloud is the security. Taking into account the fact that companies adopt cloud computing only if they are confident about the provider’s cloud security measures, Microsoft has designed Azure keeping security in mind. Azure focuses on the three key areas of cloud security: encryption, design and operational security, and identity and access management. Microsoft Azure currently has more security compliance certificates (more than 20) than any cloud service provider, including ISO 27001 and 27018.
- 6. High Availability
Unlike other organizations that have single servers or multiple servers, if that server fails or goes down, the complete process is down. Microsoft Azure offers high availability and redundancy in data not only locally, but across the globe. Azure can offer a SLA (service level agreement) of 99.95% availability i.e., approximately 4.38 hours of downtime per year, which is something that most businesses fail to achieve.
- 7. Azure high scalability leads to cost-effectiveness
Microsoft Azure’s scalable architecture allows for the flexibility to scale up or down your IT resources depending on the workload demands. And, depending on the service that a company chooses, the company can even do so without the downtime. Moreover, the pay-as-you-go model enables companies to save all the upfront expenses of procuring new hardware, a new space and manpower to stand up new servers. Azure is designed to grow businesses, minimizing upfront costs and high maintenance fees, which seem pretty attractive for small and mid-sized businesses.
- 8. Microsoft backing migration to Azure with new tools
To help companies use a hybrid cloud approach and to help them migrate smoothly to its cloud platform, Microsoft has launched a number of tools and resources. An important one among these is the new Cloud Migration Assessment Service. It is a free tool to provide you with detailed information, like how much it will cost, how to size your environment, what virtual machine option to choose, and more, based on the specific configurations of your own datacenter.
Microsoft Azure Is In Demand, But Lacks Skilled Professionals
2017 is set to bring cloud adoption to an all-time high among businesses and this massive adoption will broaden the cloud skills gap. Skill deficiency in cloud platforms like Azure has been a highlight in 2016, when companies realized the benefits of moving to the cloud, but showcased inability to find the right personnel to implement new systems. As the demand for Azure skills is growing, it is time for the properly-trained cloud professionals to capitalize on this skills gap. IT professionals can consider attaining Azure training and hone their existing skills with trusted training vendors, like QuickStart.
QuickStart – A Hub for Cloud Skills Training
Are you looking to become an Azure-skilled professional? Are you a company struggling to implement cloud technology because of lack of qualified professionals? QuickStart is the answer to both of these questions. With over 28 years of experience in the skills training industry, QuickStart is helping businesses and professionals transform career and growth by personalized learning experience through its wide range of online courses.
QuickStart’s Microsoft Azure Fundamentals course is an excellent opportunity for IT professionals to get hands-on instruction and training on implementing Microsoft Azure. This two-day Microsoft official course will cover basic cloud computing concepts as well as specific Azure features applied in cloud resource administration.
This Microsoft Azure Fundamentals online course is a perfect training course for IT personnel who want to learn Azure and understand cloud concepts. Developers, server and database admins, or individuals who want to evaluate the use of MS Azure can take this course. It will also serve as the base for other courses like 20532A Microsoft Azure for Developers, or course 20533A Microsoft Azure for IT Professionals.
QuickStart provides students with the best grade industry-knowledge learning material and instructor lead training and high impact mentoring with Microsoft Azure experts & instructors. Certified Azure professionals from QuickStart have been key assets for top technology companies worldwide.