Microsoft workloads have long been the foundation of many enterprise businesses. However, with the advent of cloud technology, many enterprise companies are starting to move away from the traditional IT operations these workloads run on and migrate to the AWS Cloud for its efficiency, agility, and cost-effective nature.
While the cloud is clearly an optimal solution for these companies, it can be a complex and intimidating decision to migrate off of legacy infrastructures. Thankfully, with over 700 Windows Server-based offerings in the AWS marketplace, it’s clear that AWS is a strong option for running Microsoft workloads.
Cloud Migration Creates Substantial Savings
Running servers has never been cost effective. The costs to buy, store, and maintain hardware for legacy systems, as well as hiring the right experts to run these systems, have long been a spend of necessity for enterprise businesses. That’s why the cloud feels like a reprieve. The migration of applications to the cloud allows businesses to move away from their dependency on legacy systems while also saving money.
With AWS, you pay only for the resources you use, and can scale up and down based on need. This flexibility allows for greater growth without risk or guesswork when calculating computing needs. Also, bring your own licenses (BYOL) policies allow businesses to save money on existing investments when moving to AWS. According to 39% of survey respondents surveyed by IDG Research, the cost savings associated with cloud adoption can be described as “substantial.” Furthermore, AWS makes migration simple.
Easily Deploy and Manage Windows Server Applications
In 2008, AWS launched Windows Server based instances. As a a Gold Certified member of the Microsoft Partner Network, AWS has continuously worked to make Windows workloads available on the AWS Cloud. In fact, Microsoft and AWS have a number of mutual customers running Windows workloads on AWS today.
In many ways, AWS has worked to make Microsoft as native to the AWS cloud as possible. AWS notes that customers have “successfully deployed every Microsoft application available on the AWS cloud.” What AWS has succeeded in is creating an avenue for deploying all aspects of Microsoft for business onto AWS. AWS not only runs IT applications like Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange, but also fully manages database services to run SQL servers through Amazon RDS and Amazon EC2. For developers, AWS offers a flexible development platform with EC2 for Windows Server and easy deployment and scaling with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, which helps scale and deploy applications built on .NET, Java, PHP, node.js, Python, Ruby, and Docker.
Benefit from High Reliability and Strong Security
AWS’ infrastructure can truly be described as “global.” With 19 regions, 54 availability zones, and 103 edge locations, AWS offers high availability across the world. Each AWS Region has multiple Availability Zones and data centers, allowing for fault tolerance and low latency. This, along with the 99.95% availability allows for the maintenance of mission critical data, keeping your systems online and protecting you from catastrophic failure.
Similar to its infrastructure, AWS takes a multi-layer approach to security. End-to-end encryption, AWS Direct Connect, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) all offer security for your applications. From dedicated connectivity to security groups and access control lists, you can ensure your information is protected.
Whether you choose to take a hybrid cloud approach or dedicate your full enterprise operations to AWS, AWS offers a simplified approach to running Microsoft workloads run more cost-effectively.
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