Microsoft canvasses adoption of hybrid cloud computing

With digital transformation becoming the driving force behind organisational strategies across the globe, businesses have been advised to adopt cloud computing to store and manage servers, databases, networking analytics and software. This, experts said will lead to faster innovation, flexible resources and economies of scale.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure is forecast to reach $210 billion in 2019, an increase of more than 23 per cent than 2018. In Nigeria, a further 78 per cent of companies increased their cloud computing budgets last year.

Microsoft Azure has the cloud computing system that allows business transformation in the digital age to pay only for cloud services used, help lower operating costs, run infrastructure more efficiently and streamlining scaling as business needs change.

Its hybrid features combines private and public cloud capabilities, allowing data and applications to be shared between them. Hence, organisations are afforded the flexibility and computing power of the public cloud for basic and non-sensitive computing tasks, while keeping business-critical applications and data on-premises, safely behind a company firewall.

Country Manager, Microsoft, Akin Banuso, said the Azure cloud offering will assist organisations migrate to the cloud with an ever-expanding set of cloud services to help them meet business challenges.

Adding that the solution also allows organisations the freedom to build, manage, and deploy applications on a massive, global network using preferred tools and frameworks, Banuso said.

“And this is where a monumental factor comes into play. Going forward the latter will allow for faster, more agile business operations and provide access to next-generation technologies for the rest of the continent, including Nigeria”, he added.

On the hybrid cloud feature, Intelligent Cloud (Azure) Business Group Lead, Microsoft, Wale Olokodana, said this allows organisations who private cloud access leverage on a hybrid model.

“Also, when computing and processing demand fluctuates, hybrid cloud computing provides businesses with the ability to seamlessly scale their on-premises infrastructure up to the public cloud to handle any overflow without giving third-party data centres access to the entirety of their data.

“Our aim with this event is that CTO’s, CIO’s and the like will recognise not only the value that the public cloud has to potentially revolutionise their businesses – but also that it doesn’t stop there.

“Products like Azure stack as well as the just released Azure Stack HCI (Hyper Converged Infrastructure) solutions allow customers adopt models like the hybrid cloud to accelerate their digital transformation journeys – For businesses in Nigeria this will only help to keep them abreast in a dynamic and fasted paced environment”, he noted.