Cloud computing is no new term; however, it has increased in popularity as we have evolved into a world where remote and hybrid work is the new norm. Australian businesses are on track to spend $13.8 billion in 2021 on cloud services, before growing a further 23.4% next year to $16.7 billion, according to Gartner. They also predict that the Australian market will outperform the global average next year as companies continue to increase their cloud spending and that global public cloud spending will exceed 45% of all enterprise IT spending, up from less than 17% in 2021.
Covering everything you need to know about Microsoft Azure, the top features, how secure it is, and the overall benefits to your business, this blog will help gain insight into the technology and how it can be used within your organisation to maximise your IT spend and reach organisational goals. If you are on the fence about trusting cloud technology, this blog is for you.
Jasco Consulting has many different solutions which incorporate Microsoft Azure and can help you find the best solution for your specific industry or organisation. With over 20 years of experience in the industry, we are always looking for the latest and greatest products in the market, and Azure certainly stands up to the plate.
Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud offering product which offers a powerful compute, networking, and storage platform to meet the cloud objectives of your organisation. Azure provides customers with complete flexibility and scalability, allowing you to manage and deploy apps anywhere at any time whilst utilising your own framework and infrastructure. The Azure cloud offers continuous innovation and supports growth through its scalable approach, being able to increase or decrease workload to save your organisation money. Unlike many other cloud services, Azure allows you to spin up small amounts of Virtual Machine which host your data so even small organisations can benefit by utilising it to work remotely, allowing for a hybrid workforce.
Microsoft Azure enables your organisation to comfortably adopt a cloud-based data storage system that you can access from anywhere at any time. With access to insights, data recovery strategies, data backup, and secure data storage Azure has it all. By moving your organisations data from an on-premises environment to a cloud system you are gaining flexibility and scalability option. Instead of having to pay and look after physical servers which can be manipulated or damaged, you can pay an expert to look after it over the cloud at a much cheaper rate. If your data is on the cloud, you have access to valuable insights with best-in-class machine learning tools for predictive insights using advanced analytics. Being able to gain knowledge from your companies’ data can help you achieve business goals or cut costs in areas that may not need attending.
Finally, data recovery and backup are the most important feature of Microsoft Azure as it ensures your data is backed up promptly and over multiple servers so that even if one of their own servers fails, you won’t have business downtime. It also meant that if you were to lose data in an attack, it will most likely be recovered in a short amount of time, meaning your organisation can get back on its feet!
Security is one of the major concerns when it comes to choosing whether to operate in a cloud-based platform, however, it is large companies like Microsoft’s livelihood and reputation they put on the line when looking after your data, so they ensure they do an excellent job. Not only this but there are major costs involved in not having your data on the cloud. From the greater likelihood of getting hacked, to the loss of crucial business data, not having a secure cloud solution could cost your business thousands in trying to get it recovered or backed up. The major features of security within Azure are as follows:
Secure Foundations
Multi-layered security powered by Microsoft ensures your data is stored in safe and secure ways. With state-of-the-art security controls and added protection against threats like DDoS, over 3,500 cybersecurity experts work together to ensure your business’ data is safe.
Simplified Security
Azure allows you to quickly access all services with access to identity, data, networking, and apps. The analytics and insights you can gain through the Azure security centre ensures you can gain continuous protection and increase measures where necessary.
Azure Intelligence
Azure intelligence enables threat detection as a service, utilising machine learning, behavioural analytics, and application-based intelligence, to detect threats faster. By detecting threats faster, it can save your business crucial time and effort in protecting against various threats and attacks that may occur.
Many organisations are opting to move to a cloud solution as it gives them many benefits and freedoms which they potentially didn’t have with their on-premises solution.
Cost Savings
After an initial cost to migrate to the cloud, the pricing structure of the cloud is extremely customer focused. The cloud ensures you only pay for what you use and never get overcharged.
Security
Cloud organisations like Azure utilise encryption technology and allow you to be at the forefront of choosing your security standards for your data.
Mobility
Having your data stored on the cloud means that you can access it from any device from anywhere in the world.
Insights
If your data is all stored in one place on the cloud, you can have access to valuable insights to analyse information organisation-wide. This can in turn help you make business decisions and help achieve goals.
Collaboration
Having the ability to store work on the cloud means that multiple users can access the same files. This unlocks the door to teams working together on documents and projects to achieve the best results for your organisation.
Loss prevention
If your organisaiton is using laptops and phones to store information and not utilising the cloud. If the employee was to lose that device or break it then all the valuable data would go with it. Having files stored on the cloud means that even if they were to lose the physical device, the data would still be accessible from a new one.
Cloud computing is becoming an essential service you should enable in your IT environment. The scalability, security, and manoeuvrability ensure your organisation can grow and its IT systems will never be left behind. By utilising the cloud, you can save time and energy by letting other companies worry about your data and systems reliably. If any of these benefits rings true to your organisation or you would like to talk to our experts about how cloud hosting could work for you, feel free to reach out below.
To learn more about cloud computing, and in particular Microsoft Azure, click here