What Is Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure has been around for about 9 years now and has seen a recent surge in popularity.

Azure is gaining a lot of traction these days for a variety of reasons. ThrottleNet is beginning a multi-episode TNTV 3Qs video series to shed light on Microsoft Azure and its capabilities. Watch the first episode for an introduction to Microsoft Azure and how it can benefit your business.

3Qs – Azure – Pt1 – What is Azure? from ThrottleNet, Inc. on Vimeo.

What Is Microsoft Azure?

Azure is Microsoft’s enterprise level cloud platform, providing networking on a global scale to your St. Louis business. The service enables businesses to host their infrastructure, applications, business data, and services on Microsoft’s domain. This allows companies to not have to manage or maintain the hardware necessary to run this in-house.

If your business relies heavily on data and enterprise software solutions or provides data access services to your customers (such as logging in to view records or use applications), Microsoft Azure should be on your radar.

Azure Makes Data Accessible

If you have access to the internet, you can use Azure. You do not need to be at your business to access your data and IT solutions. If your internet goes down at your office, you can go find another connection, connect from there and continue working. Zero downtime other than your own time finding a new internet connection!

This provides a global feel to your business. You gain the ability to run your small or local business like a much larger global enterprise.

Why Do Businesses Choose Azure?

With Microsoft Azure, your business can:

• Stop hosting expensive hardware
• Remove capital hardware expense
• Reduce overall IT costs
• Only pay for what your company specifically needs now
• Scale with company growth

For many companies, the appeal of “getting out of the hardware business” is enough to spark a move to the cloud. Azure provides protection from hardware failures, electrical failures and internet outages. No more pricey, high-maintenance on-site servers and on-premise software to manage.

Another key reason why Azure is becoming more popular is because of the scalability of the service. Azure is not an all-or-nothing cloud service. If you only want to have some of your data in the cloud, that’s okay. You can move what you need to the cloud and take a hybrid approach. This freedom of controlling more aspects of your business is what draws people in to Azure over other solutions.

The most impressive benefit of Azure by far is the flexibility it gives to your business. With Azure you can fit your IT solutions and spending to the size your business is today, not the size you plan to be in the near future. Azure is easy to grow and change over time, allowing it to keep step with changes in your business. It is a solution that can handle the kind of rapid growth and hard turns that are sometimes necessary to stay successful.

There is one more important appealing feature of Azure: its price point. Azure is less expensive than other comparable cloud services when starting up. Need Microsoft Azure pricing? Contact ThrottleNet for a consultation >

Is My Data Secure with Azure?

“Microsoft Azure is probably more secure than anything you are going to host yourself. This is largely because of reduced on-site access, but also because it’s Microsoft. They’re doing things right and meeting compliance needs for just about any business vertical you might be in.” – Aaron Oliver, Cloud Services Manager, ThrottleNet, Inc.

When it comes to data, one of the first questions that should always be asked is, “Is it secure?” Yes, Microsoft Azure is secure. In fact, it’s a safe bet that Azure is more secure than anything you are going to have on-site. It is safer because people do not have access to your Microsoft Azure cloud data like they would if it were stored in a server room where people can come and go.

Azure also offers protection for disasters. If you store your data in-house and a natural disaster occurs, you could lose all your data. This would be very bad for your business and your customers. Data stored in the cloud is kept safe from flood, fire, storms, and more and backed up regularly in case recovery is needed. Data can even be stored in multiple data centers around the country for protection against large-scale events.

Meeting regulatory compliance is just as simple and scalable as the rest of Azure. Microsoft Azure meets the compliance requirements of a wide range of verticals and business needs, such as SOX, PCI, HIPAA, FINRA and others.

Getting Started with Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a cloud service that offers great benefits for businesses. If you would like to find out more about Microsoft Azure or have any questions about anything we do here at ThrottleNet, head over to the contact page and drop us a line. We love hearing from you!