How Microsoft Azure Changed these Businesses

Recent trends indicate that more than 1.2 million websites are adopting the capabilities of Microsoft Azure. Azure’s ability to provide businesses with better management, added security, and top-notch deployment capabilities are perhaps the biggest reasons for its defining growth. 

Through Microsoft Azure, organizations throughout the globe can build, manage, deploy, and test applications or services to ensure that it can adapt to the cloud environment. All of these processes are done using Microsoft-managed data centers across its global network. 

While Microsoft Azure is not the primary cloud computing platform used by organizations, statistics have revealed that nearly a quarter of a million businesses are using the services. It further added that more IT firms are shifting to the Microsoft Azure bandwagon to help clients mesh in with the mobile-first and cloud-first environment. 

 

Azure Success Stories That Will Inspire Businesses

Inspiration awakens businesses to innovative possibilities by allowing them to transcend their ordinary experiences and limitations. They propel a business from apathy to opportunity and transforms the way they perceive their capabilities. 

Learn more about how you can replace aging OS platforms with a flexible Azure solution and take that step towards making business competitive in the long run. Outlined below are inspiring stories that showcase how organizations, customers, and partners are building solutions and changing the business landscape using Microsoft Azure.

 

1. Government Agencies Weather Damage of a Ransomware Attack

Last year, the U.S. was hit by an unrelenting and unprecedented barrage of ransomware attacks that affected at least 966 government agencies. In November 2019, two specific agencies responsible for providing children with foster care found that their storage drive was corrupted, thus, preventing them from accessing their files or applications. 

What made the matter worse was that the hackers specifically targeted their accounting applications. Nevertheless, the adoption of Microsoft Azure not only protected their data but also speed up the issuance of payments to foster families. 

According to the organizations, within days, approximately 28 users from the two accounting departments were migrated to Windows Virtual Desktop service on Azure  allowing them to provide foster families with what they required to care for the children. In addition, along with the original 28 users, the remaining 270 users were migrated to the new environment and with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, added enhanced security and mobility. Through the implementation of Azure, these organizations also experienced increased flexibility, scalability, and were able to do their work without a hitch. 

 

2. Non-profit Organization Provided Consistent User Experiences Through Azure

Cloud services enhance any organization in today’s fast-paced digital economy and continuous innovation. A small non-profit organization can attest to that as it increased consistency in user experience and reduced connectivity and printing issues. 

Before moving their platform to the cloud, all users accessed a single platform that was housed in a single location. While mobile access was enabled, these same users were still experiencing inconsistent onsite and offsite problems, particularly connectivity and printing issues. However, moving to the cloud did not only minimized these issues but also enabled them to reduce their operating expense and ensured smooth access through any device from anywhere. 

 

3.  Teacher’s Regulatory Board Reduces Capacity Costs

The most significant advantage of adopting a cloud service like Microsoft Azure is its ability to help everyone reduce costs and only pay for what they use. The Teacher’s regulatory board can attest to that following the heavy traffic on their registration database. 

The board mentioned that they needed additional capacity to cater to the massive registration of teachers for two months. Nevertheless, another server solution that can resolve the issue would cost roughly $60,000 to $70,000, which meant a financial strain for the board. 

This prompted the board to move its database to the cloud to scale up the capacity during the peak usage period and idle down for the remaining months of the year allowing the the flexibility and scalability they required during their peak times.

 

4. Cybersecurity Awareness Company Expands Their Services Through The Cloud

Cybersecurity is a competitive industry that requires companies to provide a top-notch infrastructure that is flexible enough to combat emerging threats. One of the leading cybersecurity awareness companies in the world were due for an infrastructure refresh and were planning for expanded services and delivery of their platform. 

By moving their infrastructure to the cloud, the cybersecurity company was able to scale their infrastructure as their customer base grew. The move to Azure also enabled them to reduce the time required to manage or maintain their support and, more importantly, limited their operational expenses. At present, the company is delivering more than 1,000 security and compliance programs all around the globe in 40 languages. 

 

5. Investment Firm Reduces Downtime

The effect of downtime does not stop at revenue. It can also have a broad impact across many areas of business. An investment firm that operates in two locations experienced this first-hand. This same firm hosted the infrastructure for its two branches in a single site. 

In other words, when their infrastructure is down, both locations are unable to continue working. In the hopes of preventing downtime, the investment firm adopted Microsoft cloud services and created their virtual machines in Azure for authentication and synchronization in Office 365. 

Subsequently, the investment firm also ditched local drives and used OneDrive to store essential business documents and further transferred their accounting database to Azure. They also shifted their shared files to SharePoint to promote document management and collaboration. 

Through these series of moves, the investment firm enjoyed increased productivity as users were able to work from any device and anywhere without worrying about possible downtime.

 

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure is more than just the latest buzzword. It has become the whole new way organizations do business. Stay on top of your competitors and let Azure do the magic for your business. Reach out to one of our MicroAge Locations to learn more.