Cloud computing has made its way into every sector of today’s society, from governments to businesses to consumers. This popularity is hardly surprising, considering the benefits that cloud hosting brings to individuals and organizations. Cloud computing is a technology whose advantages far outweigh any drawbacks.
And while consumers can enjoy many cloud platform benefits, the commercial world stands to benefit even more. Cloud hosting is a definite game-changer for today’s businesses, reducing overhead, increasing efficiency, and improving customer engagement.
Azure, Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform, ranked second most popular cloud service provider in the last quarter of 2020, according to Canalys.com. Amazon Web Services (AWS) came in first with 33% of the cloud market share, then Azure with 20%, and finally, Google Cloud Services at 7% share. Azure features Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Azure offers customers over 600 (!) cloud services, but we have narrowed it down to the five application services that your business will get the most benefit from throughout 2021 and beyond. As the old saying goes, “The right tool for the right job,” and you’re about to get some guidance for finding the best tools to suit your particular situation and needs. This service quintet will help your business keep pace with the competition and make it easier to go head-to-head with the big guys.
If you’re more interested in Amazon Web Services tools, you can read about them here. If Google Cloud is more your speed, then you’ll find the best tools here.
Azure Analytics Now you can make sense of the big data tidal wave. When it comes to business, the best decision is an informed decision. The best way to arrive at an informed decision is to consult the relevant data. Unfortunately, big data provides too much of a good thing. There is so much raw information out there that it’s like trying to bail out a leaking boat with an eyedropper. That’s where analytics comes in.
Analytics helps your team process and analyze the vast datasets common to big data, refining it down to actionable insights that ensure you’re making wise choices. A misinformed strategy could sink a marketing campaign or product rollout. The Azure Analytics suite features a great selection of tools designed to help your analytics team initiate complex queries across massive datasets.
Your business analysts, data analysts, and data engineers can work on shared projects using Azure Analytics’ real-time workspaces. This capability lets your team come up with rapid real-time analyses for multiple topics.
In today’s competitive commercial environment, you not only have to be right, but you also must be fast. Azure Analytics gives you the resources you need to meet these challenges.
Azure Internet of Things What is your microwave saying about you to strangers? The Internet of Things, also called IoT for short, refers to billions of devices the world over, all connected to the Internet, collecting and sharing information without human intervention. Your smartphone, your FitBit, your new car, and your state-of-the-art refrigerator are all most likely part of the IoT.
We just finished talking about big data, and the IoT is responsible for a healthy portion of that data glut. Think of it: billions of real devices, transmitting information about people’s shopping habits, miles walked in a day, miles driven on highways, and the number of times you use your fridge’s ice maker.
Azure’s IoT suite includes pre-configured solutions and the tools for you to create custom IoT solutions. The Internet of Things services also offer many software development kits (SDK) and integration support so that your business can network with many IoT devices, gathering insights from the data they send, courtesy of visualization and advanced analytics.
The Internet of Things is an effective way to get a ground-level view of what the average consumer is doing or buying. The Azure suite helps you to better leverage this data-gathering bonanza into something that benefits your enterprise.
Now, of course, you will need somewhere to store all this data, so…
Azure Storage A safe place to put your stuff (assuming by “stuff” you mean “information”) Any cloud provider worth its salt offers a sound data storage solution. We’re living, working, and doing business in the Information Age, and data is the currency that makes the world go round. That’s why something as dull and unsexy as “data storage” will always be on every enterprise’s annual “must-have” list.
Azure storage offers enterprise customers scalable, secure storage for all types of data, structured and unstructured. Furthermore, Azure storage is optimized to permit safe integration between the data store in the cloud and the information residing in-house.
Azure storage supports a solid range of storage options like blob, file, NoSQL, and queue. Blob storage, incidentally, deals with unstructured data, which entails a massive storage space. It’s an evocative term and rather appropriate, though “drinking from the firehose” storage could work as well. But regardless of the data size, Azure storage has the flexibility to handle any data storage chores without impacting your production environment.
Additionally, Azure storage is scalable, so you can adjust the size of the storage you’re paying for based on your organization’s needs. And lastly, Azure storage provides a secure storage location designed to satisfy your data security people.
By this time, sharp-eyed readers may notice that the three services mentioned thus far appear interrelated. As it turns out, they are! The best service choices are the ones made where many of the products work together, resulting in a system where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this case, analytics processes the data collected by IoT devices and is kept secure in the data storage service. Each element complements the other and is characteristic of a sound and adequate infrastructure.
Azure DevOps Using the latest methodology to design the best apps. The term “DevOps” comes from combining the words “development” and “operations.” It’s an application design philosophy that brings together software development and IT operations, shortening the development life cycle and ensuring the continuous delivery of high-quality releases.
DevOps takes an application design project from initial inception to final release, boosting its capacity to deliver an excellent product as quickly as possible.
There are two main reasons why you want to employ DevOps in this year’s design projects. First, there are more online users than ever, and they want more and better applications. Second, the competition knows about this demand too, so you need to stay ahead of them, releasing solid, functioning products before they do. DevOps is the key to success.
Fortunately, Microsoft Azure has a DevOps offering to help your enterprise keep up with the rising demand for better applications delivered ever faster. You would think that the “deliver more software faster” and “deliver better performing software” goals would be at odds, considering that the best way to avoid mistakes is to take your time. But that’s the beauty of CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery), a fundamental part of DevOps. CI/CD is an automated process that lets developers build code, test it, and render updates continually, cutting down on production time and delays while ensuring a trouble-free application.
Azure DevOps helps automate your application delivery process with tools that bring speed and reliability to the project. The Azure DevOps services suite gives your team the means to design, build, share code, track work, deploy, and monitor apps for any platform.
Azure Virtual Machines A virtual necessity in today’s IT world! Virtual machines are among the most popular cloud services offered, ranking right up there with data storage. Rather than purchasing hardware such as servers, businesses can acquire a virtual machine to expand their processing power. Virtual machines consist of software that emulates or acts like a real computer.
Azure virtual machines are a scalable, on-demand, flexible cloud computing service that precludes the need to purchase and maintain physical hardware. Your IT administrators just choose the required operating system, configure the necessary resources, and create the web server. Microsoft Azure makes the whole process simple.
This service also dovetails with the previous discussion regarding complimentary services. After all, if your organization is planning on running DevOps, IoT, and analytics services, it will need a lot more processing power, the kind of processing power that virtual machines can give you.
Putting It All Together No two businesses are the same. They come in all sizes and shapes, providing different goods and services, and representing many different industrial and commercial markets. Consequently, there is no all-in-one solution. Your enterprise may not even need some of these services. For instance, if your company doesn’t use hardware, then Iot may not be as important.
But no matter what your business provides, it’s crucial to have the right cloud-based services at your fingertips. The choices might seem overwhelming, but fortunately, there are many resources out there that provide guidance and advice.
Whatever services you decide on, the cloud provides a safe, secure, reliable, scalable, and cost-effective means of tackling all your Information Technology needs. Smart companies will stay ahead of the pack by taking advantage of the cloud's power and convenience. Choose wisely and turn your company into a force to be reckoned with!