As the world navigates through the pandemic, it’s inspiring to see companies across every industry innovate to rethink their operations, engage with customers in new ways, and keep their employees safe. When it comes to innovating in the cloud, customers tell us that they need a platform that enables them to stand up solutions quickly, be agile to respond to their dynamic environments, and do so in a cost-effective manner. Azure has them covered.
Customers today are innovating in Azure more than ever before for their applications and their analytics solutions. Here’s why.
Applications
Customers that modernize their applications, or build new ones, on Azure realize significant cost savings and performance gains. A common pattern we see is customers modernizing their .NET applications with Azure App Service and Azure SQL Database. The Clover Imaging Group, for example, successfully migrated 200 applications to Azure with Azure App Service and Azure SQL Database with minimal effort to free their development team from administrative burdens like patching and updates.
Another common pattern we see are customers developing new applications from the ground up based on cloud design principles. These applications are typically built on containers with Azure Kubernetes Service, take advantage of microservices architectures, use managed databases like Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Database for PostgreSQL and integrate AI capabilities with Azure Cognitive Services and Azure Machine Learning. This pattern is so common that by 2023 more than 70 percent of global organizations will be running more than two containerized applications in production, up from less than 20 percent in 2019.1 And, by 2022, over 50 percent of new enterprise applications developed will incorporate machine learning (ML) or artificial intelligence models.2
A great example of a customer doing this today is the Peace Parks Foundation. Combatting rhino poaching in South Africa, Peace Parks developed an application using Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Functions, and custom ML models with Azure Machine Learning to detect poachers across a 96,000 hectare park. They stood up a proof of concept in three weeks and had the solution in production in a few months. With this solution, Peace Parks is saving the lives of hundreds of rhinos each year.
Analytics
Customers are also turning to Azure more than ever before for their analytics solutions. Core to achieving the agility required for today’s environment is the ability to gain fresh, continuous insights from data. Azure Synapse Analytics brings together the world of big data and data warehousing into a single service and enables immediate insights by breaking down the barriers between operational and analytical systems through Azure Synapse Link. It is deeply integrated with Power BI, the undisputed leader in business intelligence, and Azure Machine Learning, which enables developers and data scientists of all skill levels to build, manage and deploy ML models responsibly at scale.
This combination offers unmatched value and performance. According to another recent Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study, customers using Azure Analytics with Power BI realize a 271 percent ROI over three years with a nine-month payback period. A fantastic example of a customer using these services today is Walgreens. Walgreens migrated their entire on-premises data warehouse for inventory management to Azure Synapse Analytics in just three months. With this solution, they were able to gain three times the performance at a third of the cost.
“With Azure Synapse, we were able to create a platform that is streamlined, scalable, elastic, and cost effective, enabling my business users to make the right decisions for the fast-paced market.” – Anne Cruz, IT Manager for Supply Chain and Merchandising, Walgreens
Get started today
There has never been a better time to innovate and invent with purpose with Azure for your applications and analytics. Get started today.
1 Gartner, 3 Critical Mistakes That I&O Leaders Must Avoid With Containers, Jeffrey Hewitt, August 2, 2019
2 Gartner, Machine Learning Alters the Role of the Developer, Van Baker & Jim Hare, October 31, 2019