Keeping up with ever-evolving cloud technology is imperative for businesses to thrive. That’s why we’re excited to introduce our four-part Microsoft Azure webinar series, designed to empower you with the necessary knowledge and tools to embrace the future of cloud security.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the first session of the series, “The Azure Advantage: Be Future-ready with Microsoft Azure,” where we explore how Microsoft Azure’s scalable, secure, and innovative cloud solutions can help your business adapt and thrive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Stay tuned as we uncover the key takeaways, including the Azure difference, how to future proof your business, some Azure use cases, and information on our Connection CSP+ Program.
The Importance of Future Proofing in Today’s Business Environment
One of the first topics discussed in the webinar is how enterprises continue to face challenges in choosing the best Cloud Service Provider (CSP), many times due to licensing complexities and outdated software and expired data centers. Future-proof technology is also a hot topic, with IT teams’ need to focus on implementing the most cost-effective and secure technology within their organization. And, with constant changes and updates across different cloud providers and services, it can be challenging to choose one.
But we are reminded time and again that cloud adoption prevents the need for constant hardware upgrades, which can become costly and time-consuming to make. In turn, this can help organizations achieve scalability, an important component of future-proofing your IT landscape.
Microsoft’s Adaptive Cloud Approach to Security
Microsoft Azure is a truly unique platform that covers over 60 regions and over 300 data centers worldwide. With over 190 network points of presence, Azure cloud services provide reach and resilience to businesses that utilize it. Performance, security, and reliability remain at the root of Azure’s cloud services, and migration to Azure is a key step for businesses to become AI-ready.
Plus, Azure meets you where you’re at with an adaptive cloud approach. Azure enables you to:
- Migrate and modernize apps, data, and infrastructure to easily adopt IaaS or flexible PaaS services for industry-leading performance, availability, and reliability.
- Move VMware as-is, which allows you to use Azure VMware technology and team expertise.
- Extend to hybrid, multicloud, and edge to unify siloed teams and distributed sites into one operation, security, application, and data model with Azure Arc.
How Microsoft Azure Enables Business Resilience and Growth
Robust Security and Compliance
Azure takes a proactive approach to safeguard customers’ data from emerging and increasing cloud security threats through built-in security measures that strengthen cloud workloads from the start. Azure’s security intelligence can help identify threats before they occur so users can respond quickly.
With Azure Cloud, end-of-life servers gain extended security updates through services like Azure Arc, which enables IT teams to make extended, on-demand security updates. Servers that have migrated into Azure receive three years of security updates for free.
Driving Innovation with AI and Machine Learning
AI is shifting the way businesses operate, including how they migrate to the cloud. A report from IBM found that 75% of CEOs believe that the organization with the most advanced generative AI will have a competitive edge.[1] This is because AI can help expedite mundane, time-consuming tasks, such as data entry or digging for information, so that businesses can focus on more meaningful tasks, like collaborating with colleagues and spending more time with customers.
For example, in retail, AI can provide data-driven insights for workers to focus on sustainability efforts, like optimizing their supply chains to reduce product waste. And in healthcare, providers can use AI tools to analyze individual patient data to make informed treatment decisions based on their patients’ unique needs.
But AI is not enough for businesses to succeed; they need the right infrastructure to use AI effectively and successfully, and Microsoft Azure Cloud can help power this initiative.
Azure infrastructure offers a variety of transformative AI solutions, including Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning, which helps users train and deploy custom AI models. These services are backed by enterprise-grade security to ensure data is protected from the start.
Cost-saving Offers and Licensing
Microsoft Azure is revolutionizing how businesses effectively manage costs and compliance by offering a flexible licensing option to pay as you go, for products like SQL Server and Windows Server 2025. This allows customers to use what they need, without worrying about making long-term, costly commitments.
Connection and Azure Use Case
One of the key indicators of success with Azure is a good case study. In one example shared in the webinar, a technology manufacturer needed to manage their rapid growth within the AI industry. As a result, they were experiencing rising costs of on-premises virtualization, as well as a shortage of skilled staff that could perform cloud data automation. They wanted a hybrid on-premises virtualization stack to support their costly, on-premises work. Connection helped the manufacturer offset costs and utilize Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), application containers, and data automation tools to implement a hybrid architecture that worked with their existing Azure stack to streamline processes. The project resulted in automation code improvements and on-premises to cloud migrations performed at scale.
In another example, an energy provider was looking to modernize their legacy, on-premises IT platform and lower operational costs. Connection created a Microsoft Modern Workplace to migrate the customer to Microsoft 365 with OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint. They used Microsoft Purview to conduct a data governance review of the customer’s data loss prevention and compliance standards. Finally, they were able to improve their security posture by remediating the risks they found with a new Microsoft security architecture, while also lowering operational costs and enabling the customer to self-manage their new environment.
CSP+ Program at Connection
As an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider (MSP) and a Microsoft Partner, Connection is uniquely qualified to architect, deploy, and manage your digital estate to offer the best-in-class managed services and deliver value from a range of Azure services and solutions, including:
- Cloud architecture design
- Hybrid cloud implementation
- Migration and optimization
- Azure Arc, IoT, Migrate, Storage
On top of our experience supporting Azure services, we provide a CSP+ Program which offers customers support in cloud management and includes services like:
- Financials and billing
- Onboarding services
- Account support
- Lifecycle management
- Azure readiness assessment, advisor hours, and more
Customers can also add additional services, including an insights and optimization platform, a dedicated product implementation services team, and engage in an Azure migration assessment.
For more information about our CSP+ Program, visit our website. Stay tuned for another blog on the next webinar in our Azure series!
[1]“CEOs Embrace Generative AI as Productivity Jumps to the Top of Their Agendas.” The IBM Institute for Business Value. 32nd edition. 27 June 2025. IBM Study: CEOs Embrace Generative AI as Productivity Jumps to the Top of their Agendas
