Today’s business owners are well aware of how vital technology is to their ongoing success and growth and are just as aware of how expensive acquiring and maintaining that technology can be.
In the past, investing in the latest technology required a huge upfront cost, and a sometimes unpredictable series of fees in the months and years that follow to cover services, upgrades, and repairs. What’s more, when that new technology becomes outdated itself a few years down the road, you’re forced to start the whole expensive ordeal all over again.
Eliminating this hassle and the hefty price tag that comes with it is one of the biggest advantages that cloud-based technology like Microsoft Azure has given business owners. Businesses now have a new series of options available to them that will allow them to stay on the cutting edge of today’s ever-changing technology at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.
How Does Microsoft Azure Help You Save Money?
Azure is Microsoft’s enterprise-grade cloud computing platform — you and your team can rely on this solution to help you cut costs by hosting off-site and benefit from a totally scalable configuration that fits your needs.
There are numerous cost-saving benefits to making the move to Azure, but here are the seven biggest reasons to make the switch:
Lower Initial Investment
Choosing a hosted or virtual server over an on-premise server to store your important data comes with a significantly lower upfront cost. A hosted server is maintained at an off-site location and does not require the purchase, installation, or maintenance of hardware or software in your office space.
You pay a predictable monthly fee for your hosted services, and never have to worry about covering the cost of repairs, or dealing with prolonged stretches of downtime — and subsequent loss of productivity and profit — due to equipment failure. Most issues are dealt with by your cloud provider before you even realize there is an issue at all, and in the event, there is a disruption to your services, your provider will be responsible for making sure it’s sorted out as quickly as possible.
Hassle-Free Scalability
As your business grows, your technology needs will change. The more business your organization does, the more data it will generate and then need to manage and store securely. More data requires more server storage space, which often means new or additional servers would need to be purchased and installed.
With a hosted server, adding more storage space is as easy as making a phone call, and the cost associated with this addition is minimal. Especially when compared to the cost of buying a brand new server and having it delivered, installed, and configured.
Lower Manpower Costs
When the bulk of your data, software, and applications are deployed, managed, and stored in an entirely virtual setting, there is less of a need for ongoing onsite IT support. When your internal IT department’s only responsibility is occasional maintenance, you can reduce the number of full-time staff your business needs to keep your IT environment running. Taking the cost of an annual salary (or salaries- out of your operating budget can make a big difference to your bottom line, and leave you free to invest your technology budget more wisely.
Lower Your Energy Bill
The lack of onsite hardware needed to run cloud-based services not only saves you on the initial investment and maintenance costs but will save you money each month on your business’ utilities bill.
Fewer pieces of onsite hardware and equipment mean fewer pieces of hardware and equipment that need to run 24/7, continuously drawing power. This can also reduce the number of battery backups your business needs to have hooked up and running at any given time, saving even more on both electricity and equipment costs.
Reduction in Redundancy Expenses
A smart business owner prepares for any potential scenario. Part of that planning is investing in extra pieces of hardware to have on hand in case an important piece of equipment fails. Big ticket items like servers that sit in a box in the back of your office and will more than likely be outdated long before they’re ever needed are an incredibly expensive way to try and maximize uptime.
Microsoft Azure will take care of that redundancy for you by offering solutions like multiple failover server sites to make sure that their customers never have to deal with the inconvenience of downtime and lost access to their data and applications. Enterprise-grade security measures and data recovery protocols are generally built right into these services, effectively handling any eventuality on your business’ behalf with no extra effort or cost on your end.
Boost Agility With ERP Solutions
No matter when you need them, Azure offers easy access to the solutions you use, including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. Whether you’re on-premises, working in a hybrid environment like Azure Stack, on IoT Edge devices, or in other clouds, you can access functions as needed.
ERP systems have been helping businesses get a better handle on their resources for many years by allowing for the integrated management of core business practices through software and technology. Effectively housing all of your business’s important data, systems, and applications in a central and accessible location, an ERP simplifies your business technology in ways other solutions simply cannot.
Cost Optimize Your Workloads
Azure makes it easy for users like you to monitor and analyze how much you spend on the cloud. You can set a budget, and Azure will issue spending alerts when necessary, allowing you to assess and modify on the go.
Allocating additional resources makes optimizing your cloud use and budget easier than ever. You can combine Azure Spot Virtual Machine with Azure Reservations to potentially reduce cloud expenses by 90 percent over pay-as-you-go pricing on Azure services, thanks to prepaid reservation pricing options.
Don’t Underestimate What Microsoft Azure Will Do For You
Cloud-based solutions like Azure can do more than just save your business money; they can offer a level of convenience, reliability, and flexibility that no other technology option can compete with. These are just a few of the many reasons the cloud has become a mainstream IT solution for small and mid-sized businesses across every industry.
With Azure, you benefit from the speed, scalability, and lower operating costs, not to mention that the burden of management is entirely alleviated. Moving to the cloud eliminates the data center completely — Envizion IT will help you to create an ideal cloud deployment with Azure.
When Envizion IT handles your migration, we look for a solution that minimizes downtime so you’re able to continue serving clients and keep your operations running smoothly. We’ll discuss the timeline and plan, so you know exactly what’s going on. As your IT partner, we help you fully leverage the power of the cloud to improve the way you get work done.
