3Qs: Azure—What Is It?
Microsoft Azure is on the rise in business IT, but what exactly is it and how does it help? In this episode of TN 3Qs, sales director Chris Montgomery and Cloud Services Manager Aaron Oliver explain what Microsoft Azure is, the benefits your business can derive from Azure, and how your business can be protected while using this solution. This is the first episode in a multi-part TNTV series about all things Microsoft Azure. Press play!
Video Transcript
This is the first episode in a series of episodes called the 3Q’s where we talk about important topics and answer some common questions. Today’s topic is focused on Azure, what is it, how it can benefit you, and how it can help protect your company. Azure has been on the market for a while now although it has recently gained more attention for multiple reasons, those of which we will be discussing. Read on to find out what those reasons are.
What is Azure?
Essentially, Azure is Microsoft’s enterprise-level Cloud platform. This means that it is very scalable, computable, and able to network on a global scale. Azure gives many businesses a means to host their infrastructure applications. Some companies use Azure to hold pieces of their business data in Microsoft’s domain. This way, their company does not have to worry about maintaining or management their hardware. In brief, all the capabilities that come with Azure and what it includes:
- Microsoft Enterprise Level Cloud
- Applications
- Global Scale Networking
- Pieces of or Complete Infrastructure
- More Secure than On-Premise
Since there is no possible access, Azure is going to be more secure than anything on site. With Azure, users are not constantly in and out of your data center compared to how they are at your actual office building. Azure is way more secure than anything else you could host yourself because it meets Microsoft compliance needs to all industries including PCI, HIPAA, FINRA, and SOX.
How Can Azure Benefit You?
Azure allows your company free-range to do what you want for your company. If you want to get out of the hardware business so you no longer have to worry about hosting your own hardware, go on ahead. The cash flow of your company will be increased and your overall cost will be decreased. The reduction in overall cost comes from Azure’s feature to pay as you go, meaning, you only need to pay for what you need now.
If your business is small right now but has plans on expanding into a large company in years to come, Azure has the flexibility to account for that. As your company grows and changes, you can move pieces of your network to Azure, you do not have to do it all at once. In addition, Azure can act as a type of “hybrid” model if you want to move only a certain amount of information to the Cloud while keeping some in house. With Azure, you can access data, services, and applications from anywhere. Being able to access your data from anywhere gives your business a global feel without actually having to be a global market player.
- Benefits of Azure Cloud:
- Stop hosting expensive hardware
- Remove capital hardware expense
- Reduce overall IT costs
- Only pay for what you need
- Extremely scalable
Azure has so many helpful capabilities that will help your company succeed in the long run.
How Can Azure Protect Your Company?
This world is very unpredictable and there are so many different circumstances that could put your company at great risk. Accidents and disasters happen all the time so it is critical to stay up to date on the latest prevention methods because the damage is often hard to fix after it has already been done.
It is impossible to predict when there will be electrical or internet failures at your office. With the help from Azure, if your internet goes down at your place of work, all you have to do is go anywhere with a working internet connection and connect your own server to it. There is also the unpredictable instances of national disasters that have the potential to severely hurt your business and the data it is built on. The impact of these inclement weather situations will not impact your company nearly as much if you have Azure.
Azure has the amazing capabilities of going geo-redundant. You can have data in different data centers across different regions of the country. This way, all your services can be running in a different region and you will be able to continue business like normal. Setting up Azure so that is it geo-redundant will help satisfy customers that are paying for a service that may be in a region that is down.
Furthermore, Azure also helps to prevent human errors. Human errors happen all the time and are not able to be controlled. For instance, if a user were to accidentally unplug a cord that they were not supposed to unplug, the network would not fall apart.
- Protection Capabilities of Azure:
- No more hardware failures
- Can work anywhere
- Disaster recovery
- Data is spread across the country
The goal of Azure is to eliminate any downtime of a business so that it is always running efficiently and effectively. Not only are you now aware of what Azure is, you know its many benefits and how it can protect your company.
