Cloud for the Modern WorkplaceHow Insight and Microsoft Azure helps companies accelerate, spend less and do more

Introduction Microsoft® Azure® enhances modern business through a variety of integrated services to help your company move faster, achieve more and save money.

• Hyperscale up and down instantly. • Trade capital expenses for variable expenses. • Reduce data center management resources. • Increase speed and agility. • Go global in minutes.

Let’s explore how Azure, available from Insight, can help decrease costs, speed scalability, increase flexibility, improve security and boost productivity to improve your business’s performance and efficiency.

Azure helps decrease costs.When improving productivity and business offerings, cost is always a key consideration. According to a 2015 survey by the Society for Information Management (SIM), Chief Information Officers (CIOs) agreed one of their top 10 concerns is reducing and controlling costs.1 Azure helps remove the unnecessary costs of building and maintaining data centers. This often enables companies to focus more resources and time on developing strategies that drive real value for the business.

Reduced setup time = savings. Azure also frees IT departments to concentrate on more strategic initiatives than just setup. Physical servers can take days — sometimes even weeks — to set up internally, but Insight will help you seamlessly integrate Azure into your existing infrastructure. The software can be up and running within less than an hour in some cases.

Startup is inexpensive.Many modern businesses, especially those that prefer to allocate more resources to staffing, such as startups, find solutions like Azure ideal. This cloud platform offers low startup costs, ensuring your budget is spent where it will have the greatest impact when it matters most.

Azure speeds scalability & increases flexibility.The ability to scale with speed and flexibility can create a powerful competitive advantage for the modern business, and it’s a top concern for CIOs.1 Because Azure® employs more than 100 Microsoft® data centers across the globe — more than any other public cloud provider — you can be confident this solution will allow you to scale workloads rapidly. Scalability around virtualization is much greater, too. Users can access a terabyte of memory virtually with Azure.

Flexibility leads to better results.Azure not only allows you to use any programming language, framework or tool to develop applications, but it also scales applications to any size with ease. Whether your company is planning a global product launch or needs to execute a small dev-test initiative, Insight will help you support the workload from implementation to management. Additionally, Azure leverages an international network of data centers, ensuring you can scale your operation on a foundation of optimal performance.

Azure improves security.According to CIO’s 15th annual State of the CIO survey, CIOs view cybersecurity as one of their top three priorities.2 The reputation of Microsoft and the built-in security features of Azure put even the most security-focused organizations at ease.

Take advantage of best-in-class security.Concerned about protecting your sensitive data in the cloud? Azure offers complete cloud security solutions:

• Security Development Lifecycle addresses data security breaches from initial planning to launch. • Azure Active Directory® ensures only authorized users can access crucial data with single sign-on. • Azure Virtual Network (VNet) blocks unauthorized traffic via private network connections.

Microsoft has made an unmatched commitment to the protection of its customer data — the company frequently adds new assessments, certifications, protective measures and standards to the popular cloud computing platform.

Azure boosts productivity.When even just a moment of downtime can translate to lost revenue or missed deadlines, any solution that increases productivity and uptime is a tremendous asset in today’s business world. With superior architecture, Azure® ensures servers and applications experience fewer delays and offer improved availability.

Rest assured with more uptime.Whether it’s an application that drives revenue or one that facilitates business-critical responsibilities, stakeholders will be able to perform tasks with ease when leveraging Azure. Delivering a 99.95% monthly Service Level Agreement (SLA), Azure allows your company to develop and run highly accessible applications without spending a lot of time working on the infrastructure.

Leverage hybrid solutions.Do you want to keep your assets on premises? Insight will help you seamlessly integrate Azure into your current IT environment, ensuring information and content can continue to live where employees are used to finding documents and data. With Azure Stack, you can run this hybrid cloud solution in your own data center, creating efficiencies while addressing a major concern in today’s modern workplace.

Why Insight for Azure?Insight is Microsoft’s largest global partner and has been providing Microsoft® solutions for more than 25 years. We put Microsoft at the center of our end-to-end strategy to help businesses run smarter.

BlueMetal, an Insight company, was named the 2016 Microsoft Internet of Things (IoT) Worldwide Partner of the Year for excellence in innovation and implementation of Microsoft technology. Together, we collaborate to deliver Intelligent Technology Solutions™ that meet your strategic business needs and optimize your technology investments.

• Microsoft’s largest Azure® partner • Microsoft Azure Circle Partner • Dedicated team of Azure technical advisers • Product and licensing expertise • 14 Microsoft Gold competencies for Insight • 5 Microsoft Gold competencies for BlueMetal

To learn more, call 1.800.INSIGHT or visit insight.com.

1 Andriole, S. (2015, Oct. 30). Top Ten CIO Concerns for 2016 — IT’s Déjà Vu All Over Again. Forbes.com.

2 IDG Enterprise Marketing. (2016, Jan. 15). State of the CIO 2016. Idgenterprise.com.

Insight and BlueMetal, an Insight company, offer complete hybrid cloud solutions to help businesses manage data and keep pace with the demands of a mobile work environment. Our team of cloud experts will work with you to devise a project road map, including a cost and operations model.

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