Before the advent of cloud computing, businesses needed to invest in their own servers, server rooms and manage every aspect from maintenance to security. As operations grew, more hardware needed to be purchased or upgraded. When problems arose, IT specialists were needed to troubleshoot every possible part of the infrastructure. Businesses evolved to leverage professionally serviced data centres - but that didn’t solve the challenges associated with owning the hardware. 

With that in mind, Vodacom, in partnership with Microsoft, has announced that it will be launching Microsoft Azure solutions for customers. Microsoft Azure is a collection of various cloud computing services, including remotely hosted and managed versions of proprietary Microsoft technologies, open source Linux distributions or open source databases, deployable inside a custom sized virtual machine. Anything that can be done on a normal physical server can also be done on the Microsoft Azure platform. Customers can move their entire data centers to the cloud and experience the business benefits that come from cost-effective, scalable and on-demand cloud infrastructure. The following products have been made available through Vodacom and Microsoft Azure.

Virtual Data Center

Vodacom provides customers with the full Azure enablement for all their critical and non-critical business applications through the compute provided by virtual machines, storage and virtual networks. Vodacom further facilitates the extension of on-premise (physical) data centres and MPLS networks to the Azure cloud.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

Vodacom facilitates business continuity and includes flexible backup and recovery options ranging from adhoc recovery requests to turnkey replication solutions based on the Azure platform.

Data Center Transformation

Migrating critical services to the cloud can be a daunting task due to the risk of disruption to business operations.  Vodacom has the professional service skills to assess a customer's current infrastructure and advise on an optimized cloud architecture that is cost effective and fit for purpose.

Data Warehousing

Azure offers a variety of options to ensure that critical databases are stable and optimized. Vodacom can assist with the setup and management of the database infrastructure while ensuring that only the customer has access to their data. Advanced services are available that extend beyond simple database warehousing to include setup and management of analytical tools and data training to obtain insights from the customer data.

SAP and SAP Managed Services on Azure

From initial assessment to migrations of SAP to the Azure Platform, Vodacom has the certified skills and credentials to help businesses transition. Azure is ideal for the workload patterns for SAP and SAP HANA, providing improved performance, and rapid scalability. Vodacom executes ongoing management of the SAP on Azure infrastructure on behalf of customers.

An enterprise-proven cloud solution

Microsoft Azure enables developers and IT professionals the ability to create, manage and deploy applications through Microsoft’s global network of data centres. Vodacom’s offering of Microsoft Azure will allow businesses the ability to provide enterprise-proven hybrid cloud solutions and offer customers access to professional services that will be readily available, providing the best approach and solutions on the platform to allow customers to maximise efficiencies.

Why is Azure right for me?

Virtual Data Center	Disaster recovery	Security
Eliminate the need to maintain backups yourself	No infrastructure required	Monitor security across on-premises and cloud workloads
Support born-in-the-cloud applications	No need to sacrifice RPO and RTO goals	Apply the policy to ensure compliance with security standards
Support critical workloads	Protect remote offices and branch locations without the complexity of in-house management	Find and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited
Deliver fast time-to-value without the overhead and capital expense	Easy to manage - automated replication, policy-based protection, and one-click orchestrated recovery	Use access and application controls to block malicious activity
Stop hardware sprawl - even when facing severe app proliferation and massive data growth	Premium protection against operational and human errors with intra-cloud disaster recovery and backup	Leverage advanced analytics and threat intelligence to detect attacks