1.Azure Lets You Integrate Seamlessly with Other Microsoft Tools

Businesses which rely on other popular Microsoft services, like Outlook, Office 365 and SharePoint, are able to integrate Azure’s cloud services with those tools efficiently and seamlessly. In addition, Azure utilizes the same virtual machines (VMs) that businesses use on-premises, including both Windows and Linux. For businesses which have struggled to align disparate services and tools, Azure represents a refreshing ease of integration, one which saves them both time and money. That’s a substantial advantage, one which explains Azure’s increasing market share.

2. Azure Lets You Partner with an Industry Leader

According to a recent survey from The Virtualization Practice, a majority of users reported that Microsoft’s reputation as “a trusted industry leader” was a significant consideration in their decision to choose Azure. The Microsoft brand in unequivocally among the most trustworthy and reliable among Fortune 500 companies. That stellar reputation has been powered by widely used tools like Xbox, Skype and Bing, the popularity of which is driving an increasing number of companies to Azure. The rationale is simple: because other Microsoft tools are reliable, using Azure just makes sense.

Equally important, Microsoft’s reliability extends to its Azure services. For example, it’s supported by an increasingly larger number of managed data centers (currently, there are 19 global data centers in 19 regions). You’ll also benefit from 99.95% availability and 24/7 tech support.

3. Azure Lets You Customize Solutions to Meet Your Specific Needs

One of the benefits of Azure’s leadership position in both IaaS and PaaS is your ability to use it in ways that are particularly beneficial to your business. For example, adopting Azure’s IaaS services, you can use—and pay for—only those services you need. Azure’s PaaS services will let you build only the apps and software you need, without having to buy or maintain the underlying infrastructure. This means that you can customize your own cloud software (like Office 365) to meet your business’s individual needs and solve business-specific problems more efficiently.

4. Azure Provides Strong Open-Source Analytics Support

With Azure, your business will benefit from managed SQL and NoSQL data services and embedded support. This will enable you to dig deep into data to better understand and continually improve business processes and improve data-driven decision making. You’ll also have access to Azure’s powerful analytics tool, HDInsight,

5. Azure Provides a Continual Stream of Exciting, New Releases

Azure continually updates its offerings, providing new services to augment the robust functionality it offers. Recent releases are especially beneficial to users. For example, there’s Azure Advisor, which provides personalized recommendations based on individual user needs. Two additional recent releases, Site Recovery and Backup, in combination help businesses create a powerful and cost-effective business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy.

6. Secure your data

Data is currency, as you know – losing it or having it compromised could mean money lost. You may have backup services for data already, but they may not be as comprehensive as that of Azure’s. Further, Azure’s storage runs across all on-premise servers and is sent to all Microsoft data centers (which is a worldwide network), so you have ultimate peace of mind knowing your data is stored safely. Essentially you get the power of your own environment, as the information stored in Azure receives the data backup protection of the full Microsoft ecosystem of Office 365.

7. Access your data from anywhere

Azure RemoteApp allows you to access data from just about any device. Your employees are able to sign into 2,500 SaaS applications while still maintaining high security.cThe cloud infrastructure is highly secure, and you also have the option to keep your data on-premises.