Azure - Infrastructure as a Service

There are many good reasons to use virtual servers in the cloud, while retaining responsibility for operating system and application software.  This is particularly true for organizations with existing on-premises servers.

Investment in computing hardware depreciates at an alarming rate.  Moore’s law has a corollary:  The hardware you bought a year ago is half as valuable today. 

Cloud computing can make Moore’s law work for you.  You purchase only the capacity you need and the cloud provider contends with the hardware needed to provide that capacity.

Resilience

An important advantage of virtualization is that you can move software to more capable hardware without reinstalling the operating system and application software.  The virtualization software simply takes advantage of the new infrastructure.

Hybrid Cloud and Migration

Migrating to the cloud is not simple. Moving all of your systems at one time is too risky.  Migrating applications one at a time requires that each system works with the other applications in the cloud and still works with the applications that remain on premises.   

The migration is eased for legacy environments built on the Microsoft platform.  Azure Active Directory and secure network connections help integrate disparate data centers.  Once the target environment in the the cloud participate in the on premises domain, migration to the cloud is simplified.

Support of hybrid cloud is an important reason Complete System Design Inc. chose Microsoft Azure as our primary cloud provider.

Microsoft Azure

We believe Microsoft Azure stands out in these ways:

Ease of integration – Most businesses, large and small, rely on Microsoft software in the workplace.  The cost of integrating systems impacts small businesses disproportionately.   The Microsoft Azure platform provides a framework that makes it much easier to integrate many products in common use.

Multi-platform Support – Microsoft Azure supports Windows and Linux environments.  Dozens of pre-configured images are available for both operating systems from the Azure resource catalogue.  Microsoft has greatly expanded support for Linux and open source products in the last few years.  Other IaaS providers may have excellent support for one operating system.  We anticipate Azure will have the best support for multiple environments for some time to come.

Scale and Resilience – The Azure platform is a network of datacenters across the country.  Applications share a vast infrastructure that has adequate capacity and tremendous redundancy.  Azure service management software is robust enough to automatically recover from hardware failures.  The capabilities of the Azure cloud far exceed anything a small or medium sized business could afford to construct on premises.

Improved Security – Information security is built into the Azure platform.  Services are protected from the outside and from other customers by application firewalls.  Strong encryption and certificates are an integral part of the platform.  The Azure platform has the flexibility and resources to support customer's information security policies.

Breadth of Products – Microsoft Azure supports all customers from a single Office 365 user to a massive organization with thousands of servers, all from a common management portal.  The opportunity this platforms offers businesses, large and small is limited only by the imagination of customers and the providers who support them.

Value - The scale of the Azure platform provides economies that Microsoft passes on to its customers.  Many applications can be run for under $10 per month.  Some virtual servers can be run for under $20 per month.  These services can be scaled up and down, ensuring adequate capacity during peak usage and minimal cost during lulls.  Other cloud providers have similar price points.  CSDI believe that Azure is the best value because it combines competitive pricing with an ecosystem of popular software and excellent integration capability.

Operations

The largest expense that accompanies computing infrastructure is the cost of administrators and designers.  CSDI has designed and staffed an around-the-click organization of expert technicians guided by clear processes and policies.  That organization is available to augment your IT staff or immediately provide your organization with this capability.