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Posted by Dan Felix on March 9th 2021
Remember March 2020? Who could forget it? In response to COVID-19, organisations around the globe switched operating models overnight and deployed remote working to keep their employees safe.
The transition was painful, but as the dust began to settle those organisations who had already invested in cloud-based technology were thankful for their foresight and the business resiliency it provided in light of this unexpected situation. They were able to adjust to the new reality faster than organisations who weren’t cloud equipped and who were, to a greater or lesser extent, experiencing some form of business interruption.
According to research by Centrify, 51% of UK business leaders say a shift to cloud-based business model has saved their company from collapse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the twelve months since March 2020 adoption of cloud has accelerated massively by organisations across all industries and sectors. Given this success, 60% of business leaders are planning to substantially increase their use of cloud-based IT throughout and following the pandemic.
BCN Group provide organisations with end -to -end cloud migration advice, guidance and hands-on support. We help our clients decide the cloud solution that is best for their business – whether that is a private cloud or hybrid cloud which combines a cloud and on-premise solution.
Microsoft Azure is one of the world’s leading public clouds. Azure is a compelling option for enterprises transitioning from on-premise Windows servers to the cloud.
By maintaining on-premises computing and storage infrastructure, you are investing in capital expenditure which requires payment for the entire asset, and the cost becomes an entry on the company’s balance sheet, depreciated over some period of time. This also includes other costs such as upkeep, insurance, and personnel tied to the assets used.
Companies choosing to remain and maintain on premises infrastructure need to recognise its restrictive nature when it comes to expansion or contraction. As we have seen during the pandemic, our IT needs today may drastically change tomorrow.
Business’ trying to avoid this issue will overcompensate and over invest in hardware during their renewal cycle. This leads to an overspend as a “just in case”. With Azure Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), organizations use and pay for exactly what they need. This can be accompanied with investment in Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service to provision the servers and services needed today, knowing they can be removed and switched off tomorrow if they are no longer needed. This provides an obvious cost savings.
Are you still backing up your data to an on-premise server? If your answer is yes, then it’s definitely time to consider Azure.
Azure Backup automatically backs up data to the cloud, triple replicating, and even geo-replicating it across multiple data centres if required. Meaning you always have access to a copy of your data, no matter what happens.
Securing the end user entry point through Windows Virtual Desktop, helps protect the company data at all times no matter which endpoint device is used to connect.
With Azure Security Centre and features such as Azure Identity Protection and Advanced Threat Protection, your business can easily monitor, identify, and shut down threats and malicious logins and protect your data.
Most businesses using Microsoft 365 aren’t making the most out of the complete suite of services available to them under their current subscription. If you already have Microsoft 365 the move into Azure provides you with a fully compliant, secure, and affordable software solution which is scalable. As your business scales the complexity of data management increases. Azure simplifies this and provides data storage security features with encryption of data that is “at rest”.
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and flexible working practices are here to stay, and Azure provides transparent device management whether its on-premise or off-site.
Azure makes it easier to support mobile and flexible working. Securely delivering traditional line of business applications to end user via Windows Virtual Desktop, provides secure end user access to back end internal systems without requiring traditional remote user VPN’s. Anyone with an internet connection can use cloud-based services securely via Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). Combined with Microsoft 365 and Enterprise Mobility Suite, you can hit peak productivity regardless of location.
The business benefits of Azure extend further than high security capabilities and cloud backups. Azure allows you to design, develop, test and deliver custom applications easily and without needing to invest in hardware and software licensing.
The architecture behind Azure gives you everything you need to manage a complete development and test environment straight from the cloud. Azure resource subscription costs can include OS and Server software licensing to ensure you only invest for the period of testing before making a final decision to go live.
Microsoft has always sought to help businesses remain compliant, such as creating UK-based data centres, and its built Azure with GDPR in mind. Azure’s services are all in line with new regulations, giving your clients the freedom and confidence to operate.
With Azure, businesses can deploy applications easily from any location, cutting deployment time by more than 50 percent and giving you complete control over which apps get installed on what devices.
If you are still using legacy on-premise systems, you are probably suffering from scalability issues. Azure uses auto-scaling, meaning that clients can quickly scale or reduce capacity as and when you need it.
Legacy on-premise infrastructure is costly. Warranty and support renewals increase every year the hardware matures. You could even be paying for hardware that is hosting data you are not using or need, you should consider Azure to migrate and test the data access.
Azure is a pay-as-you-go service with no upfront costs or termination fees, meaning you only pay for what they use.
As a Microsoft Partner, BCN Group are uniquely placed to support you with your cloud adoption, migration and ongoing transformation.
We help our clients to adopt Microsoft Azure best practices and integrations at every stage of their transformation in the cloud.
We are Azure experts – a Direct CSP and Microsoft Gold Partner – and unlike most cloud providers we deliver a comprehensive end-to-end service and support offering which includes cloud consultancy and road mapping, adoption, integration, management and bespoke software development.
If you would like to talk to us about your cloud journey, don’t hesitate to get in touch, we’d love to talk to you.
