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13 Key Benefits of Microsoft Azure for a UK business

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Date published: 10th January 2023

Microsoft Azure, previously known as Windows Azure, is a cloud computing platform developed by technology giant Microsoft. Due to the range of services, like computing, analytics, storage and networking, it’s becoming increasingly popular among businesses of all sizes. By allowing users to pick and choose from its services to develop and scale new applications, it provides speed, enhanced flexibility and security. However, the range of its benefits goes far beyond. With cloud computing at its prime, applications and platforms are spreading across all industries, serving as the IT infrastructure that powers new digital enterprises. These platforms and applications have revolutionised how businesses function and have made processes easier. More than 77% of companies today have at least some of their computing infrastructure in the cloud. In this article, TWC highlights and elaborates on the most crucial Microsoft Azure benefits supported by some of the latest statistics about Azure to help business owners make well-informed decisions in transforming their companies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Microsoft Azure Benefit #1: Enhances and expands your existing IT systems

Microsoft Azure Benefit #2: Improved insights

Microsoft Azure Benefit #3: Control your budget with the pay-as-you-go model

Microsoft Azure Benefit #4: Customised applications to meet the specific needs of different industries

Microsoft Azure Benefit #5: Flexible features that are simple to adapt to your UK company’s ever-changing needs

Microsoft Azure Benefit #6: Data backup & Disaster recovery plan

Microsoft Azure Benefit #7: Rapid deployment>7. They will check your company as well

Microsoft Azure Benefit #8: Reduce hacking risks

Microsoft Azure Benefit #9: Access to Enterprise-Level Development Tools

Microsoft Azure Benefit #10: Automatic Updates

Microsoft Azure Benefit #11: Easy Integration with Other Tools

Microsoft Azure Benefit #12: On-Site Hardware Is Not Needed

Microsoft Azure Benefit #13: Suitable for Businesses of All Sizes in the UK

Interesting Microsoft Azure statistics

TWC IT solutions is one of the leading Gold Microsoft Partners in the UK

Scale Your Business With Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Benefit #1: Enhances and expands your existing IT systems

Source: Freepik

Microsoft Azure allows you to quickly and easily deploy your existing apps without downtime. It enables your IT staff to focus on the core of your business rather than having to worry about in-house capabilities or maintaining overburdened or underused equipment. The platform’s flexible features can be utilised on a manual and auto-scaling basis in accordance with the demands of application usage. Compared to traditional hosting, scaling in Microsoft Azure is a lot more effortless, enabling you to change to different service plans that better suit your business needs.

MS Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud: When it comes to deployment, Microsoft Azure utilises virtual hard disks. In contrast, AWS, for example, provides the instances of virtual servers and virtual machines, with Google Cloud supplying the virtual machine instances.

Insightful tip: UK businesses can benefit from such transformation. By deploying applications and utilising Microsoft Azure, they increase their overall productivity levels and optimise resources.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #2: Improved insights

Azure’s SQL and NoSQL data services and built-in support make it easier to gain access to key data insights. It also integrates with Excel; as demand grows, more business intelligence features are added. This means you can improve decision-making processes and gain valuable insight into available opportunities. Additionally, Azure’s ‘Application Insights’ feature, an extension of Azure Monitor, provides application performance monitoring (also known as “APM”). APM tools effectively oversee applications from development, through testing, and into production by proactively understanding how an application is performing. Also, by reactively reviewing the application execution data to establish the root of the issue.

MS Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud: To improve performances, compared to Microsoft Azure’s proactive performance monitoring, Amazon Web Services utilises machine learning and natural language capabilities to provide deeper insight into your data. At the same time, Google Cloud’s ‘Query Insights’ detects, diagnoses, and prevents query performance problems for Cloud SQL databases.

Insightful Tip: UK businesses can leverage the power of improved insights to target their clients better and create more customised products and services to increase their revenue.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #3: Control your budget with the pay-as-you-go model

control your budget with microsoft azure

Source: Freepik

Microsoft offers a pay-as-you-go model, allowing businesses to only pay for the services they use. Furthermore, Microsoft Azure also enables companies to access additional resources as needed, loading them as a cluster. This means businesses using Azure don’t have to spend money on additional hardware or IT maintenance during the desired periods of high-volume transactions. The pay-as-you-go model also allows users to take advantage of specific applications for free, such as the Azure Advisor, API Management, App Configuration or Service, Automation or the Azure Active Directory, among others.

Insightful Tip: One of the most significant advantages of a pay-as-you-go subscription model is that no resources are wasted, and businesses choose and pay for the services they require, allowing UK businesses to optimise their resources in the era of rapid digital transformation.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #4: Customised applications to meet the specific needs of different industries

custom applications from microsoft azure for your UK business

Source: Freepik

Microsoft Azure launched custom applications to address the growing risk of the current cybersphere and the sensitive nature of specific industries. The platform has several features, like offline cloud services, individualised security needs, streamlined compliance and modernised customer apps, which significantly benefit different sectors from healthcare to financial services, manufacturing or even government bodies.

Insightful Tip: Applications that can be customised allow UK businesses to use the exact functionality they require from the solution. This enables them to utilise their resources while accelerating productivity and business growth fully.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #5: Flexible features that are simple to adapt to your UK company’s ever-changing needs

grow your UK business with microsoft azure

Source: Freepik

The flexible service levels allow businesses to only pay for what they use, which is hugely beneficial to optimise resources. This also provides freedom for companies as they are able to increase or decrease the scale of services in line with their growth and address their constantly evolving requirements. Microsoft Azure’s adaptable features can scale manually or automatically, depending on the needs of the given application. As such, scaling in Azure’s platform is rather undemanding compared to traditional hosting as it allows businesses to switch between the different application plans to serve their needs better.

MS Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud: Compared to Azure’s simple scaling feature, where users are only required to use the ‘App Service app page’ to scale up features and capabilities, Amazon Web Services and the Google Cloud platform utilise autoscaling only to adjust service levels, which is not always ideal if the tool detects low usage of specific applications and the company needs a different service availability.

Insightful Tip: In the era of digital transformation, scalability is vital for UK businesses in order to maximise profits and avoid wasting resources.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #6: Data backup & Disaster recovery plan

Backing up critical business data is more than essential for today’s businesses. However, if the company doesn’t have adequate resources or the know-how and time is of the essence, it can be a bit of a hassle to maintain regular data backup. Microsoft Azure provides a sophisticated way to keep downtime to a minimum with its range of disaster recovery tools optimising the latest encryption features while ensuring your business complies with the necessary industry regulations.

However, for an extra layer of security, it’s worth consulting a Managed Services Provider, just like TWC IT Solutions, to get a complete overview of the latest disaster recovery solutions targeted to meet your business needs.

MS Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud: Azure’s disaster recovery solutions are cost-effective and easy to deploy. By using its site recovery, businesses can set up and manage replication and set up disaster recovery from region to region. However, for a very similar range of disaster recovery portfolios, Amazon Web Services has a pricier model available for businesses.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #7: Rapid deployment

Source: Freepik

Businesses are able to deploy applications in the Cloud, regardless of using private or public Cloud services. For businesses that prefer to use both Cloud and on-premise solutions, hybrid deployment is also available when using Microsoft Azure.

MS Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud: Compared to Amazon Web Services’ Cloud-only procedure, Microsoft Azure is flexible in enabling businesses to do a hybrid deployment. Following this approach, companies can take advantage of their on-premise resources while also utilising the benefits of the Cloud.

Insightful Tip: Rapid deployment not only boosts overall productivity levels for businesses but optimises their financial resources too. By leveraging Cloud deployment, the need for businesses to maintain physical locations or hardware disappears as data and application storage is taken care of by Azure experts at Microsoft.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #8: Reduce hacking risks

reduce hacking risks with microsoft azure

Source: Freepik

Cloud application security has become one of the top priorities – as well as concerns – for modern-day business leaders. The Microsoft Azure platform provides built-in protection, utilising a multi-layered security approach that protects all network components. Microsoft also assists with various tools, services and data intelligence to help organisations secure their workloads in their Cloud environment. With Azure Active Directory and its IAM capabilities, businesses can significantly minimise the risks of getting exposed to cyber attacks. By utilising additional features, like multi-factor authentication, application proxy and conditional access policies, identity and access management solutions, you are able to protect your company resources and applications. IAM also eliminates the need for your IT staff to spend time configuring accounts and passwords in SaaS applications; users can simply log in and access data or apps using their companies’ credentials.

Insightful Tip: With the cyber landscape becoming more sophisticated by the minute, it’s incredibly crucial for UK businesses to receive adequate protection against cyberattacks of all kinds. Minimising the risks of exposure to such attacks results in reduced financial and reputational harm and optimised team productivity levels, as your in-house IT team can focus on the core of your operation instead of constantly trying to patch up issues.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #9: Access to Enterprise-Level Development Tools

Microsoft Azure enables companies to create, run and manage custom web applications using various tools and programming languages, including Oracle, Linux, Ruby, Java, Kubernetes.NET, Python, MySQL and PHP. This feature allows businesses to develop cutting-edge applications for mobile devices and the web while taking advantage of various management resource tools available on the Microsoft Azure platform.

MS Azure vs AWS vs Google Cloud: The cloud platform developed by Microsoft comes loaded with an arsenal of tools to automate rapid software development life cycles and build CI/CD pipelines. This includes Azure Artifacts, Azure Repos and Azure Pipelines. Additionally, teams that integrate with several applications or services may find Azure DevOps a better fit, as AWS limits DevOps tools to EC2, AWS Lambda and Elastic Beanstalk, which many users find restrictive for development processes.

Insightful Tip: Custom-built applications can benefit UK businesses in several ways. By allowing them to use various tools and programming languages, they can request specific designs and features, which makes their products/services stand out in their marketplace. Furthermore, customised applications are tailored to optimise the company’s workflow and processes and help businesses maximise their technology.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #10: Automatic Updates

Source: Freepik

When using the Microsoft Azure platform, users can be rest assured that the updates are performed automatically and in real time, guaranteeing that the infrastructure and applications are ready at all times. It also allows businesses to manage Windows and Linux hardware updates in both cloud environments and on-premises and assess their status, while managing process updates for your servers.

Insightful Tip: The main reason why companies decide to implement automated application updates is that software updates are necessary to keep the infrastructure up and running. They can potentially lower security vulnerabilities while improving program features.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #11: Easy Integration with Other Tools

Most companies rely on third-party applications such as Microsoft 365 or Office 365 in their day-to-day operation. A robust, comprehensive cloud platform like Microsoft Azure enables businesses to integrate all their Microsoft and on-promise tools into a single integrated environment. If you are currently not a Microsoft user, Microsoft Azure’s BizTalk services, which deliver integrations across multiple technology platforms, including SAP and Oracle, offer a complete set of hybrid applications.

Insightful Tip: Keeping all their applications in one place while taking advantage of multiple tools can immensely benefit UK businesses. It eliminates the need to switch between separate applications endlessly, resulting in optimised productivity and resources.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #12: On-Site Hardware Is Not Needed

Source: Freepik

Building and maintaining an on-site data storage hardware or data centre can consume a substantial part of your business’ IT budget. At the same time, it can also potentially generate ongoing overhead costs. However, by migrating crucial company data, applications and computing processing to the cloud, you can eradicate the need for on-site data storage equipment and the hardware refresh cycle that your business employs periodically. By eliminating the need to purchase new equipment each year, you can eliminate extra labour and downtime for your staff, saving money in numerous areas of your business.

Insightful Tip: Handing over the infrastructure management to third-party vendors can hugely benefit businesses as it allows them to focus on analytics and not on constantly having to patch up issues. The use of cloud platforms also results in lower administration costs and fast overall deployment speed.

Microsoft Azure Benefit #13: Suitable for Businesses of All Sizes in the UK

microsoft azure is suitable for all sizes Uk business

Source: Unsplash

It can easily be assumed that a platform, such as Microsoft Azure, is only designed to tailor to the needs of larger businesses with a global presence; however, quite the opposite is true. Microsoft Azure is suitable for looking after the requirements of all sizes, from small local businesses to multinational businesses worldwide. It’s able to serve the needs of small businesses as it’s generally harder to buy storage for a smaller company. A physical server will provide more storage than required. Using Microsoft Azure can be a good way to optimise costs and only pay for what’s needed.

Insightful Tip: Investing in a cloud platform carries several benefits to any business seeking to accelerate its growth. Due to the seamless integration with Microsoft products, its effective disaster recovery and scalability, UK businesses are able to leverage the power of the cloud and cut down on spending while increasing the security and availability of its digital properties.

Interesting Microsoft Azure statistics

Microsoft Azure revenue growth worldwide from financial year 2020 to 2022, by quarter. Source: Statista.

Statistic 1# In 2019, Microsoft Azure’s share of the global IaaS market was 15.5%. (Source)
Statistic 2# Nearly 70% of businesses worldwide use Microsoft Azure for their cloud services. (Source)
Statistic 3# Currently there are over 60 Azure regions globally, strengthening Microsoft’s global position versus AWS. (Source)
Statistic 4# Microsoft Azure’s market share has increased from 6.82% to 8% in 2021. (Source)
Statistic 5# Currently, 60% of Microsoft’s data centre energy originates from wind, solar and hydropower, with the company planning to use 70% of renewable energy by 2023. (Source)
Statistic 6# Microsoft Azure offers a 99.9% up-time SLA for a single instance virtual machine. (Source)
Statistic 7# 27% of FinOps are currently using Azure as their cloud service provider. (Source)
Statistic 8# 34% of Azure container instances are used as orchestrators. (Source)
Statistic 9# Microsoft’s intelligent cloud revenue in Q4 ‘22 was £17.30 bn. (Source)
Statistic 10# 95% of Fortune 500 companies have confidence in Microsoft Azure services. (Source)
Statistic 11# Over 1,000 Microsoft customers now use Azure Arc to simplify hybrid management and run Azure services across on-premises, multi-cloud and at the edge. (Source)
Statistic 12# The growing popularity of Microsoft Azure was one of the main contributing factors to fueling a 15% increase in Office 365 commercial solutions as well as a 9% increase in Office consumer applications. (Source)

TWC IT solutions is one of the leading Gold Microsoft Partners in the UK

A Microsoft Gold-Certified vendor is a business that has established an agreement with Microsoft in which they state that they collaborate and establish a close working relationship with Microsoft and adhere to its exceptionally high standards. As a certified Microsoft Gold Partner in the UK since 2011, TWC IT Solutions provides and supports the entire Microsoft suite of applications from Azure Cloud migration to complete remote working solutions, including Teams telephony and Office 365 migration.

Scale Your Business With Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a versatile platform tailored to cater to the needs of businesses regardless of size and industry. Due to its flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing needs of the technology industry, its popularity will continue to grow among businesses. TWC IT Solutions have been recognised as one of the Top Cybersecurity Consulting companies in London and IT Services Consulting companies by DesignRush, making us the ideal partner to look after your infrastructure. Book a meeting today to learn more about our Microsoft Azure services.