Migration to the Azure cloud

Azure is one of the leading cloud platforms that allows you to use a wide range of services to keep your applications and infrastructure running smoothly, reliably and securely.

The results of a survey conducted by investment bank Goldman Sachs in 2020 showed that Microsoft is the most popular cloud service provider and is steadily gaining a bigger market share compared to large competitors like Amazon.

For Ukrainian companies, SMART business offers special conditions for the implementation of Microsoft Azure solutions: find the list of offers here.

What is Azure cloud?

Microsoft announced Windows Azure at the Professional Developers Conference in October 2008, but the platform was released in February 2010. Later, in March 2014, Microsoft renamed the platform from Windows Azure to Microsoft Azure to reflect the wider range of services provided by the platform, in particular support not only for Windows products, but also for various operating systems and other technologies.

Today, Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform. Moving to the Azure cloud helps you manage and maintain hardware, infrastructure, and resources in your data center. Some individuals and companies may access these assets over the Internet for free or on a per-use basis.

If you are planning to migrate to the Microsoft Azure cloud, SMART business experts are ready to consult you on building a cloud architecture and selecting solutions that will help your business achieve its goals.

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How does Microsoft Azure work?

Azure has over 60 available regions worldwide, over 160 physical data centers, multiple availability zones, and millions of users.

Azure regions are strategically placed around the world to reach as many potential cloud customers as possible. Microsoft recently announced the opening of a new Azure cloud region, the first in Central and Eastern Europe, located in Poland.

Each region consists of one or more data centers and availability zones, which consist of one or more data centers equipped with independent cooling, power, and networking. This means that a service in an availability zone will continue to function if one part of the zone becomes unavailable.

One of the key features of Azure is that it supports many different operating systems, programming languages, and platforms, including .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, and more. Azure also supports various types of virtual machines that can be configured based on the needs of the user.

Azure also provides the ability to monitor and manage cloud resources using Azure Portal, command line, or API. In addition, Azure offers a variety of security features such as network policies, authentication and authorization, data encryption, malicious activity monitoring, and more to keep cloud applications and services secure.

Why do companies use Azure?

Here are some ways a business can use Azure:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Azure allows you to virtualize your physical servers and other infrastructure components into virtual machines in the cloud. This allows you to scale your infrastructure as needed and reduce maintenance costs.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): Azure has a set of PaaS services, such as the Azure App Service, that enable you to build, deploy, and scale web, mobile, and other solutions without having to manage infrastructure.
• Analytics and data mining: Azure has services for collecting, processing and analyzing data, such as Azure Stream Analytics, Azure HDInsight, Azure Machine Learning, etc. This allows you to get valuable insights from your data and make better data-driven decisions.
• Integration and extension: Azure allows you to integrate applications and services with other Azure services such as Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, Azure API Management, and so on. This allows you to quickly build and extend your applications and services.

10 benefits of Microsoft Azure for a business

1. Scale on demand

Azure has built-in scale features that make it easy to increase or decrease the amount of resources used to service programs based on load. This is called scale on demand and is one of the main benefits of cloud computing.

For example, if you need to serve a large number of users over a period of time, you can easily increase the amount of resources used to process requests and reduce them back after that period. This saves money because you only pay for the resources you use and don’t overpay for unused resources.

Azure provides various scale options, including scaling vertically (increasing resources on a single server) and horizontally (adding new servers). In addition, Azure has intelligent scaling mechanisms that can automatically analyze the load on your applications and predict the need for additional resources.

2. Data backup and disaster recovery

Azure offers various levels of support for data backup and recovery, including application, operating system, and data level backups. With Azure Backup, you can automate the backup and recovery process, as well as provide protection for data stored in Azure, including virtual machines, databases, file storage, and other services.

In addition, Azure offers services such as Azure Site Recovery, which allows you to resume applications after an external disaster or virtual machine failure.

Azure has over 50 world-class certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC 1 and SOC 2, HIPAA, FedRAMP, HITRUST and many more. This indicates that the cloud platform meets high standards of security, reliability and data privacy.

Azure also offers a 99-year data retention commitment. This gives you additional confidence that your data will be available and protected for a long time.

Thus, Microsoft Azure opens up the possibility of using a wide range of tools for backup and disaster recovery, which allows you to ensure the safety and reliability of your business data.

3. Secure Identity and Access Management (IAM)

IAM (Identity and Access Management) is a system that allows you to manage the identification and access of users to various resources and applications in an organization. Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is a cloud service that provides IAM capabilities for users and programs in the Azure cloud.

You can greatly reduce the risk of hacking with Azure Active Directory and its IAM capabilities. Identity and access management solutions protect your resources and applications with advanced features such as multi-factor authentication, program proxy, and conditional access policies.

IAM also eliminates downtime for your IT staff to set up accounts and passwords on SaaS applications: users can simply sign in and access data or programs using only their company credentials.

4. Improved analytics

Azure makes it easy to access key data through its SQL and NoSQL data services, and provides built-in support. This allows users to quickly and easily access their data and perform various processing and analysis tasks.

Azure also integrates with Microsoft Excel, allowing users to import data from the cloud directly into their spreadsheets, making data analysis and manipulation easier. In addition, Azure is constantly adding new business intelligence features to help users gain valuable insight into available opportunities and improve their decision making.

5. Pay-as-you-go economical use

Microsoft Azure opens up the possibility of using a payment model that allows you to spend money only on what you need, when you need it. You can easily scale your resources based on your workload and Azure will automatically adjust to your server capacity demand. This allows companies to be more flexible and reduce equipment and IT maintenance costs. Plus, being able to get a server configured to your specifications in less than 20 minutes really allows you to quickly set up the resources your business needs.

6. Rapid deployment

Azure Rapid Deployment is the process of creating and configuring a cloud environment for deploying applications or services in the cloud. This means you can quickly create and configure virtual machines, databases, services, and other resources in Azure without having to install and configure hardware on site.

Rapid deployment differs from traditional deployment, where you must purchase and configure the physical hardware and software to deploy your application or service. With Azure Rapid Deployment, you can save time and effort as you can easily set up and manage your cloud environment through a web interface or command line tools.

Azure Rapid Deployment makes it easy for companies to set up resources in the cloud and quickly respond to changing business needs.

7. Automatic update

Azure provides various options for automatically updating various parts of your infrastructure. For example, you can automate operating system updates, install security patches, update the software stack, and other components. To do this, you can use various Azure services such as Azure Update Management, Azure Automation, or Azure Functions.

Azure Update Management allows you to manage operating system and other software updates for your virtual machines. You can create groups of virtual machines and schedule different types of upgrades according to your needs. In addition, you can set up automatic updates at a convenient time.

Azure Automation provides the ability to automate many routine tasks, such as deploying new services, setting up monitoring and logging, and automatically updating various components. You can create scripts based on PowerShell or Python and run them on a schedule or based on events.

Azure Functions is a service that allows you to deploy and execute code directly in the cloud. You can use Azure Functions to automate various tasks, such as updating components of your infrastructure.

8. Automatic platform and Azure service updates

Azure periodically updates its platform to improve the reliability, performance, and security of the host infrastructure that hosts services. In addition, you can manage hardware and software updates both on-premises and in the cloud to have full control over the update process and keep your data as secure as possible.

9. Improved IT infrastructure

By using IaaS and PaaS on the Azure platform, companies can significantly reduce the cost of infrastructure maintenance and expansion, as well as reduce the time required to deploy and maintain their own web applications and services.

10. Integration with other tools

Most companies depend on other tools like Microsoft 365. Investing in a comprehensive cloud platform like Azure makes it easy to integrate all other Microsoft tools and on-premises products into a single ecosystem.

In addition to integrating with other Microsoft tools, the Azure cloud also supports integration with other various products and services. For example, Azure can integrate with data monitoring and analytics services such as Splunk or DataDog to collect, analyze, and visualize data from your cloud infrastructure and applications.

Azure also supports integration with other popular services and platforms such as GitHub, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift, and many more. This allows developers and IT professionals to easily integrate and manage various services and applications in the Azure cloud environment.

Conclusion

In this article, we explored the capabilities of Microsoft Azure and the benefits that businesses will gain from adopting cloud solutions. If you have questions about licenses required for deployment, implementation costs, or need advice or more information, please submit your request.

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