13 Reasons Why Azure for Startups is an Ideal Choice

What distinguishes a successful startup from its counterparts is its ability to grow and scale even with limited resources. Cloud computing is one of the major factors that can help startups become scalable in terms of services and cater to a larger audience with time.

In terms of process scalability and flexibility, cloud computing has proved to be a boon for startups. You do not have to invest heavily at the beginning for software and hardware infrastructure. One of the most popular cloud computing services is Microsoft Azure.

Azure for startups offers many key benefits like innovating and accelerating without worrying about the mounting cost. Further, startups can execute their ideas for mission-critical services and applications without letting data security threats impacting their intentions.

What is Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure is an open-source cloud platform that allows users to build, test, and maintain new applications or run existing applications easily. Services such as virtual computing, networking, analytics, storage, and more are available on Azure.

It is used for deploying and managing your applications and services from anywhere and run your workloads uninterruptedly.  

Why You Must Choose Azure for Startup?

Cloud-based data platforms with cost-effectiveness and flexibility are helping businesses grow their data center capabilities effortlessly. Let’s find out why moving your workload to the cloud with Microsoft Azure is the best decision you would make for your business.

• Support for Startups: Microsoft for Startups is a reliable program dedicated to helping promising B2B startups from around the world accelerate and grow. As a part of this, startups are offered technologies like Azure and GitHub Enterprise.

  Businesses with Azure licenses get hosting credits. Microsoft is quick to answer customer queries via calls, emails, and other communication channels. You gain several resources and open-source community support too.

• Flexible pricing: Azure cloud saves hardware and software setup costs. Startups do not have to pay for managing equipment either. They just pay for services that they use during the development and testing phases.

  Discounts on subscription licenses for different models further cut down on expenses. Four different forms of cloud computing services are available with Azure- infrastructure as a service (laaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and serverless.

• Reduced workload: With Microsoft cloud, your IT team can focus on the key role of developing innovative applications. There is no hassle in terms of on-premise server deployment and maintenance. This quickens the launching of the minimum viable product (MVP).

  There are constant upgrades to improve an app developer’s experiences. Also, workshops are held to explain Microsoft cloud services’ benefits to startups and help them utilize the resources in the best possible way.

• Multiple types of applications: You can use Azure to create any innovative application- Web apps, Web APIs, mobile and native apps, daemons and server-side apps, and more. These applications are compatible on most platforms and can be integrated with numerous services.

• Easy deployment: The interface of Azure is intuitive and easy to use. You can deploy a web app or virtual machine on the server quickly with a few clicks. The integrated health monitoring feature enables you to launch timely updates and fix any issue.

• Process scalability: As your startup grows, more people will start using your services. Azure allows you to automatically increase the number and capability of resources based on different parameters like the day or week.

  You can also decrease cloud computing capabilities depending on your business needs. This ensures that a sudden increase in traffic is handled without crashing the application.

• Range of choices: Azure cloud services support numerous tools and frameworks for the development of applications. You can choose from a wide variety of coding languages like Node.js, Java, ASP.NET, PHP, and Python and databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL.

  You can also add open-source technologies from Azure Marketplace like Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and more).

• Integration with other SaaS products: While developing applications with Azure, you can add other SaaS solutions provided by Microsoft without any compatibility issue. For instance, you can embed Microsoft Flow tool into your application for easy automation of workflows and business processes.

• Data Security: Microsoft adheres to standard data practices to secure user data. Some of the data protection measures are controlled user access, the presence of anti-malware software, and a robust infrastructure compliant with international standards.

  Startups can choose the encryption methods they want depending on their requirements. Rest is taken care of by Azure.

• Data Recovery: Azure’s decentralized infrastructure with worldwide data centers ensures that your data is not lost during unfortunate events. You can even deploy mission-critical applications and recover data without affecting your business processes.

• Flexible pricing options: With Microsoft Azure, it is much easier for startups to move on the cloud. It offers flexible pricing options to help startups pay only for what they use. You can go for the Azure compute capacity as per your workloads and move to the cloud without putting a dent in your capital.

Suggested Read: Azure Pricing Calculator: Estimate Azure VM Cost, Step by Step Guide

To sum it up

Microsoft Azure cloud ensures that companies face no issues during stages like application development, testing and even after launch. These benefits will further increase the number of startups opting for the Azure cloud.