Many businesses today are using cloud-based applications to help their business run better. These applications need to take advantage of the agility, efficiency, and speed of the cloud. It is important for businesses to be able to extend Azure to their on-premises, multicloud, and edge environments in order to stay agile and flexible. However, not all applications and infrastructure can stay in the public cloud.
Azure Arc is a bridge that helps businesses to extend the Azure platform and build applications and services with the flexibility for running across data centers, at the edge, and in multicloud environments. Businesses will be able to develop cloud-native applications that have a consistent development, operations, and security model.
According to a Forrester study of four organizations that are using Azure Arc, it was revealed that,
- Businesses received a 206% return on investment (ROI) over three years with payback in not more than six months.
- IT Operations team members were able to improve productivity by 30%.
- Data breach risks due to unsecured infrastructure were reduced by 80%.
- Expenses were reduced as there was a 15% reduction in spending on third-party tools.
How does Azure Arc help businesses?
Productivity gains
The organizations in Forrester’s study said that after implementing Azure Arc, their IT Operations personnel were able to achieve a 30% gain in productivity. This was because they could save time on regular duties like configuring and updating infrastructure, managing policies and permissions, troubleshooting, and resolving issues. With Azure Arc, IT teams could observe, secure, and govern diverse infrastructure and applications from a single pane of glass. This made them more agile, and efficient and allowed them to focus on higher-value tasks that serve business interests.
Cost savings and streamlined infrastructure
Most organizations today have applications that run in on-premises datacenters, in the cloud, and at the edge. This can often lead to investments in multiple management tools that are specific to different technology platforms. This can cause tool sprawl and excessive costs.
Azure Arc lets organizations move to a single view of their infrastructure and resources. This makes it possible to get rid of legacy management tools, which can save money on licenses and eliminate the need for on-premises management infrastructure. Azure’s flexible pricing model means that organizations are no longer locked into long-term contracts or capacity limits.
According to the Forrester study, the composite organization saved $900,000 in the third year from reduced spending on third-party tools. This amounted to a 15 percent decrease in spending.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Microsoft Sentinel to reduce risks
Azure Arc helps organizations protect themselves from rapidly evolving security threats, by making it possible to use Microsoft security services such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Microsoft Sentinel, across hybrid and multicloud environments.
After adopting Azure Arc and Microsoft security services, the composite organization lowered the risk of a data breach from unsecured infrastructure by 80%. They were also able to uncover non-compliant assets running on-premises or in edge environments and update them to the latest security standards. This resulted in saving a lot of money that would have been spent otherwise on managing breaches.
Know more about Azure Arc here.
Read the Forrester study here.
Image source: Forrester
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