AZURE PLATFORM: USE CASES

The Microsoft Azure platform is huge. It is many times more than just putting virtual machines outside the door (hosting). The platform offers an enormous diversity of options in every area, for IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) as well as PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service).

The use cases for using Azure can therefore be very diverse. Some are even very specific to certain sectors. In general you can think of the following:

Compute on demand: Workloads that need to scale quickly or may need to behave elastically (flexibly?).

Disaster Recovery: With Azure as a fallback platform, you no longer need a second computing center. Azure leaves resources off, which keeps costs low with Microsoft Consulting Firm.

Development & Test platform: Questions such as “Is it still necessary to build and maintain on-premise entire O&T environments or can Azure help with this?” can be examined

Fast Provisiong: Computing power (or a business solution) can be delivered quickly and in the short term.

Extended datacenter: You don't have to switch completely to Azure, because you can use Azure, for example, as an extension of the current computing center.

These are just a few examples where Azure can offer added value. There are of course many more to come up with!

A good starting point would be “Cloud First”, because of the generic benefits. It should always be checked per business case whether Azure is the right solution with Microsoft Consulting Firm.

AZURE PLATFORM: THE POWER



Frequently asked questions:

  • What is the power of Azure now?
  • What makes it good and why should I use it?
  • What makes it different and what makes it unique?
  • How will it impact my organization?

The answers to these questions are diverse, but in general we can say that the following properties apply to the Azure platform:

Infrastructure as code, everything as code: Within the Azure platform, everything is done in code. Whether it concerns rolling out a virtual switch, a firewall, creating a server or just creating a database.

This code (JSON) can often be found in ARM (Azure Resource Manager) templates. These can be used to quickly and easily roll out entire solutions (consisting of multiple infrastructure + software components).

For example, GIT can also be used to manage the Code, so that changes are easy to manage and solutions can be written reusable.

Pay-Per-Use: Many components within the Azure platform are offered on a pay-per-use basis: you pay for what you use. The advantage of this is that costs are transparent (which part generates which costs are easy to see) and that it costs a lot less (almost nothing) if parts are not used. After all, you can turn this off. For example: a huge piece of computing power is only needed twice a month.

 These machines will then only be started at those times and after the batch has been executed, the machines can be switched off again. As a result, they cost almost nothing. Another advantage: servers that are not needed in the evening or night can also be turned off. This makes a huge difference in costs.

CI/CD: Developments on Microsoft's Azure platform are moving at a rapid pace. Changes are being made at a rapid pace on both the front and back of the platform. On the one hand, this is very nice, because new functionalities become available quickly. On the other hand, this has a direct impact on the organization: it is slightly different than when a service pack has to be rolled out for SQL once every 2 years. The changes are there with Azure continuously.

 This answers the question "does the use of (Azure) Cloud have an impact on my organization?". So the answer in that sense is yes! Change management & adoption are really entering a new stage and you have to take that into account.

Secure: The Azure platform is secure, we can safely say that. The amount of certifications (ISO/IEC, CSA/CCM, ITAR, CJIS, HIPAA and IRS 1075) is something that is not achievable for most companies in their on-premise data center. However… You are responsible for the security of solutions that you build in Azure. A simple example: if you create a virtual machine and decide to leave the RDP port open to the world, that is your choice. The platform cannot help with this. Microsoft offers  a good trust center  . This shows that the security is indeed well taken care of.