8 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Use Azure

Today, many businesses are opting to adopt cloud computing for their IT needs. The move is more attractive to small businesses that usually face a big challenge in setting up and maintaining their own local servers. Suppose you are considering moving to cloud computing; it’s vital that you settle for the right vendor.

Microsoft Azure, one of the world’s top providers of cloud computing, offers a unique set of advantages to small businesses compared to other options. This article will explore eight reasons why your small business should use Azure.

Effortless data management

Azure features various tools that make it easy for a small company to manage its data storage. This means that a company can quickly scale its storage options to meet its changing demand. As many small businesses tend to grow, their storage demands will also grow along with this. Easy data management scalability enables a company to maintain its peak performance as it grows.

The business can take advantage of Azure Blobs to store its unstructured data and enjoy big data analytics benefits whenever needed. In addition to this, there is Azure Files that enable small and medium-sized companies to migrate their data to the cloud swiftly. This tool makes it that companies that want to move their data to the cloud can do so with no coding involved.

Outstanding integration with Microsoft SaaS products

Microsoft has earned a lot of prominence for its SaaS products in the business world. You might be already using some of these products, including Office 365 and Dynamics 365, to facilitate your daily business operations. If you want to shift your business operations to cloud computing, you will want a service like Azure which offers seamless integration with the SaaS products. This is because any hiccups along the way can lead to loss of productivity which is devastating to the company’s growth.

On the other hand, the outstanding integration offered by Azure means that once you shift to the cloud, you can continue with your traditional business operations with no learning curve. This is because you will be able to keep the same workflows you had before you migrated to the cloud. You can expect your productivity to get better as you will have access to Power BI and its broad analytical capabilities.

Secure email system

Azure provides small businesses with the option of having a secure email system through Microsoft Exchange Online, a cloud-hosted email server. This email server can be synced with Azure Active Directory for managing access and back-up. The secure email system is maintenance-free, which means you won’t have to be updating it manually.

The Microsoft Exchange Online email system also features robust antivirus protection designed to keep your small business safe from email spam and malware. Each of the connected mailboxes will also get 50GB bundled cloud storage that can also be accessed from mobile devices.

Excellent web performance

Many small businesses engage in various activities like digital marketing and search engine optimization to drive more traffic to their websites and increase their sales. Unfortunately, most of them are still unable to realize their strategies’ full potential due to poor website performance. Numerous studies conducted by reputable institutions indicated that customers are less likely to wait for a website to load if it takes more than a couple of seconds.

Azure enables upcoming ventures to have outstanding excellent performance thanks to its worldwide Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN). This CDN leverages the servers closest to the internet user to reduce latency and improve their online experience. Moreover, the CDN can automatically scale up to meet the growing needs of a business.

Easy back-up and recovery

There are numerous cyberattacks (Cyber Security Strategy) like ransomware attacks that are targeting small businesses. These attacks do hold hostage important company data until a ransom is paid. Sometimes, even when the ransom is paid, the cybercriminals never restore the company’s data.

Azure offers easy top-level back-up and recovery of your company data in case you lose it. Azure Backup works by taking snapshots of your data and system state and restores you to your initial state whenever needed. The backed-up data is encrypted; thus, you don’t have to worry about losing it.

Unmatched information security

Azure also boasts of offering small businesses unmatched information security, which they would otherwise not have access to on their own. This first-class information security is made possible by the Azure Security Center through its active directory and firewall services.

As your business will be operating in a secure online environment, it means that it’s less likely that you or your customers can fall victim to cyberattacks. You will get timely alerts in case malicious attempts are made against your company. In addition to this, Azure itself won’t share your customer data in the healthcare sector as its HIPAA compliant.

Allows for fast migration and development

The Azure managed services has numerous tools that enable businesses to have first migration for their data and develop other online features that they might need in the future. Many companies still use legacy applications for their daily activities like accounting.

Azure has several features that make it easy for them to be ported to the cloud. Besides this, Azure the legacy applications are ported to the cloud; Azure ensures they function correctly and offer a rich experience.

Enables the business to succeed faster

Once you move your business operations to the cloud, you can expect it to succeed faster. Firstly, utilizing a cloud server is much cheaper than having a local server. This is because you don’t have a huge IT team to maintain the server. In addition to this, using Azure means that you are foregoing all maintenance costs that you would have with a local server.

Cloud computing also enables businesses to focus on their priorities for success over other stuff. This thanks to the flexibility and scalability that it provides. The company can grow without having to worry about how it will handle the growing online traffic. It can also provide an excellent user experience to all the customers worldwide.