Top Microsoft Azure Advantages and Disadvantages

Though Microsoft Azure was launched 4 years later the AWS cloud’s launch, as of the date it is the fastest-growing Cloud Service Provider (CSP) on earth. Over the years, the CSP has made substantial advances compelling the enterprises to not only migrate on-premise server to Azure but also any other cloud server. At present, a whopping 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies are using Microsoft’s Azure for their cloud computing solution (Source: News Break ). No wonders if the features & capabilities that it offers will make it to leave its competitors far behind in the race. Here, in this article, we are going to discuss the various advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft Azure helping you settle on whether or not to move to Azure. So, let’s begin the journey.

The Top 7 Advantages of Microsoft Azure

Advantage#1: Integration Capabilities

Integration capabilities offered by Microsoft Azure is one of its strongest points that most primarily include integration with other Microsoft products such as SQL Server, Excel, Access, and so on. Moreover, in case you have acquired a business or have been acquired by a business, hybrid data architecture can be easily integrated through Azure. The CSP has an assortment of operating systems, platforms, and server types as well as messaging services to enable communication between those.

Advantage#2: Compatibility with a variety of languages

Microsoft Azure is compatible with a wide range of languages such as .NET, PHP, Java, Python, and Node.js, which is making the CSP gain the upper hand over all its competitors including AWS that are not compatible with programming frameworks like .NET. As opposed to its competitors, Azure helps enterprises in easily and straightforwardly moving their Windows applications to the cloud.

Advantage#3: Hybrid Cloud model for Seamless Connectivity

Perhaps, we can say Microsoft Azure is more far-sighted than any one of its competitors otherwise the CSP had not offered the hybrid cloud model so early in its journey. While all its competitors including AWS are still testing waters in this arena, the CSP is all set. With Azure, your data centers could be connected seamlessly to the cloud. The consistent platforms offered by Azure facilitate easy movement between on-premises and the Cloud.

You can develop hybrid applications on Azure that can utilize resources contained by data centers at both ends whether Azure itself or the service provider. Moreover, a wide variety of hybrid connections are provided by Azure for improving performance and usability. Some of these hybrid connections provided by Azure are virtual private networks (VPNs), content delivery networks (CDNs), caches, and ExpressRoute connections.

Advantage#4: Ultimate Security

Though arrived a little late in the cloud scene, Microsoft Azure is the first CSP to get approved by the European Union’s data protection authorities for meeting the standards of EU privacy laws. Not just that, the CSP is the first to embrace ISO 27018, which is cloud privacy’s new international standard. It was anyway embracing ISO 27001 and HIPAA compliance apart from meeting various country-specific standards like Australia’s IRAP, and UK’s G-Cloud. So, there is no way one can doubt the security offered by Microsoft Azure.

Advantage#5: Application Innovation

Azure enables you to take advantage of the data as much as possible by offering a variety of options for developing innovative applications. With Azure, you could not only create functions but also run them serverless in the cloud. Not just that, you could also add anything to the database or apply changes to it. You could perform various application innovation activities like generating reports through Power BI or running any AI model offered by Azure on your data.

Advantage#:6 Enterprise Agreement

Apart from the pay-as-you-go model and other cost benefits, Microsoft offers one more way organizations can take advantage of moving to Azure. Mostly, the organizations using a Microsoft product have the ‘Enterprise Agreement’ with the company under which they are entitled to get discounts on other Microsoft products. So, typically, significant incentives can be obtained by enterprises for using Azure.

Advantage#7: Global Footprints

Azure is available in more than 60 regions covering 140 countries/ regions, which is more than regions covered by any other cloud service provider on the planet. This global coverage by Azure allows you to obtain the scale you always had wanted to make your applications available to almost any users from across the world. Azure is the first hyper-scale CSP to build facilities even on the African continent and already has two regions located in South Africa.

The Top 2 Disadvantages of Microsoft Azure

Disadvantage#1: Complex to Handle

With so many services that it provides, Microsoft Azure seems complex for businesses to execute, manage, and maintain. However, you can always outsource the migration, management, and maintenance of your Azure cloud to an MSP (Managed Services Provider) or can get a cloud consultant on board.

Disadvantage#2: Basic Support

The free support services offered by Azure aren’t that advanced to be comprehended by someone who lacks technical expertise. But then, again, either you can hire a cloud consultant or can outsource cloud services to an MSP. Most of the MSPs for Azure provide 24*7 support.

Wrapping UP

There are so many reasons why a business should migrate from AWS to Azure forget about the benefits of on-premise to Azure migration. Reasons like Azure is 86% cheaper than AWS for SQL server workloads, it offers 99.995% availability SLA, and so on, apart from those that are mentioned above, compel the businesses to opt for database migration service by Azure. However, businesses often find Azure migration difficult. Services like DevOps offered by Azure seem challenging to them. But then like we discussed above they can always rely on Azure’s trusted partner for such services.

The Azure partners or say MSPs help their clients in increasing the delivery pace with DevOps and in being more agile. They fill the DevOps gap through CI/CD i.e. continuous development, continuous integration, continuous testing, and continuous deployment. Moreover, the DevOps toolchain offered by them allows you to start the project rapidly using various DevOps practices from the beginning. So, if you want a smoother migration, management & maintenance of your cloud at affordable prices, outsource these to an MSP today.