Don’t Get “Boxed-In”: Clearing Your Path to the Cloud

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These days, it seems as if it is a requirement for every IT vendor to have the word “cloud” plastered all over its branding, advertising and websites. The volume and density of noise, as well as information that organizations have to sort through has greatly increased. As a result, while many organizations understand that the cloud can help their business immensely, they just don’t know where to start. This week, I’d like to tell you about an easy way to clear a path to the cloud – using cloud storage as the first step.

Many organizations are finding storage to be their fastest growing datacenter cost. This not surprising, as research from IDC shows that organizations are seeing 40% annual growth in the amount of data they have to collect and manage. Cloud storage can offer an economical alternative, and one that is fairly easy to start off with.

In keeping with our principle of being a truly hybrid platform, Microsoft Azure offers integrated solution solutions that combines the best of on-premises and cloud benefits. For example:

  • With Azure, you have a consistent experience for managing multiple storage types – blobs, files, disks, tables and queues – with flexibility for on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-only scenarios.
  • Azure StorSimple can help automate moving of your inactive primary data to Azure, thereby reducing the need to keep buying expensive storage and the resulting management headaches.

However, with these benefits also come challenges. Can you trust your data to be secure in the cloud? Will it survive a major natural disaster? Will it be easily accessible from around the world? These are not frivolous concerns - for most companies, their data is increasingly a crown jewel, a source of innovation and agility in responding to customer needs.

Azure has a number of features that directly and effectively address these customer concerns:

  • With Azure Site Recovery, your organization can set up cloud-based and location independent disaster recovery solutions.
  • Azure auto-replicates your data so as to provide durability in the face of natural disasters.

You can find out why Azure offers a better enterprise hybrid storage solution than AWS by downloading this reference guide. To learn more about other areas where we believe Azure outshines AWS, please visit our resource page.