Cloud Apps and Productivity

Do You Azure?

Most of us use the cloud to upload photos, share information and work remotely. The cloud has liberated many of us from the need of maintaining physical hardware. The need for and expense of USB drives, hard drives and other forms of physical media are getting smaller everyday. With all the benefits the cloud brings you in your daily life, then why shouldn’t your business benefit as well?

Of course, your business has a different set of concerns for you to worry about, ranging from network security, access to your data, and even just migrating to the cloud itself. These fears can conspire against your business moving forward, resulting in your business not only not moving forward but even taking steps backwards as you remain stuck on older technology.

If you’re ready to invest more resources to the cloud, but are unwilling to compromise on security, productivity, and mobility, then Azure from Microsoft is for you. Azure has become the industry standard for a hybrid (partial) or full cloud solution.

What is Azure?

Azure is supported by an ever-growing network of data centers which span the globe, making it uniquely positioned to provide a wide range of features and capabilities. When you incorporate Azure as part of your business model, you can access a wide variety of cloud capabilities. Azure lets you choose. You can add cloud capabilities using Microsoft’s platform as a service (PaaS), or you can leverage Microsoft’s expertise as your partner and let them handle all your computing needs, via Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Whichever way you choose to use Azure, you can be assured your data is secure and, most importantly, accessible.

What does Azure do?

Azure is constantly expanding and offering a myriad of products and services designed to meet your business needs in an accessible platform. While Azure has a growing repository of services, all the elements needed to build a virtual network and provide services or applications globally are available now.

  • Virtual Machines: With a wide selection of templates or your own images; you can create Microsoft or Linux virtual machines (VMs) in just minutes.
  • SQL Databases: Azure can reduce your investment on hardware, software, and support, by offering managed SQL relational databases, from one to an unlimited number, as a service.
  • Azure Active Directory Domain Services: Remotely manage group policy, authentication, and more. Move your security structure partially or totally to the cloud as easy as copy and paste.
  • Application Services: Create applications compatible on all popular web and portable platforms. Be nimble as the cloud’s flexibility allows you to access and respond quickly to your business’ needs.
  • Azure WebApps: Makes it simple to create scalable web applications to manage production, testing, and implementation. You can also take advantage of prebuilt APIs for Cloud services like Office 365, Salesforce and more, reducing development time, while increasing collaboration.
  • Visual Studio Team Services: Quickly plan, build and transport software across a variety of platforms, without having to install or configure a server. You can also track everything in one place, make changes and deploy all while collaborating with your team…from all over the world.
  • Storage: Microsoft has invested in a global infrastructure in order to provide secure and accessible data storage. Take advantage of the cloud’s scalability and only use and pay for what you need.

Why Azure?

If you’re in this industry for any amount of time, you know that technology always moves forward and either you go with it willingly or be dragged along, but it’s moving. The fact is, we’re creating data faster than many of us can store it onsite and slowly, but surely we’re moving to the cloud to gain space and save money. With Azure, Microsoft offers your business the opportunity to grow at the same pace as technology, but also grow at the pace you are comfortable with.

Azure offers flexibility, a la carte service options, disaster recovery and, most importantly, the ability to manage your costs. Azure’s unique combination of features makes it a top contender if you’re thinking of migrating to the cloud.

Iron Edge Group can show you the importance of cloud based services for your business and help the transition to cloud-based computing using Azure. Fill out the contact form for a consultation or call us at (832) 910-9222 today.

Ruben Lombrana