Microsoft Azure Expansion Offers More Partner Opportunities

Cloud-centric channel partners targeting EMEA have additional opportunity in some Microsoft Azure expansion. They also should look at specific ways to help organizations make the most of their hybrid and multicloud deployments, given the results of a recent vendor survey. Read on for the details.

Microsoft Beefs Up in UK With 10 New Azure Services

Microsoft has added 10 new cloud computing services across its Azure regions in the U.K.

Here’s a rundown of the lineup of the Microsoft Azure expansion:

In addition to the Microsoft Azure expansion, the software giant said it continues to invest in its Azure network across Europe. The company recently announced a $1 billion investment plan in Poland that includes a new Azure region in the country. The expanded portfolio of cloud computing services further comes on top of the recently unveiled $1.5 billion, five-year investment plan in Italy.

Microsoft’s Michael Wignall

“Azure is helping organizations, both large and small, adapt to a new way of working, and our cloud experts continue to help them at this challenging time,” Michael Wignall, Azure business lead at Microsoft U.K., wrote in a May 22 blog.

Microsoft so far has announced more than 60 Azure regions across the world; the cloud computing platform is available in more than 140 countries.

Hybrid, Multicloud Still Leading the Pack

More than half (53%) of organizations are embracing hybrid and multicloud architectures as their standard cloud configurations.

The findings come from Denodo, a data virtualization provider, in its third annual cloud usage survey. The company polled more than 250 executives and IT professionals throughout the world: Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa and North America.

Above all, Denodo discovered that hybrid cloud makes up 42% of deployments. Public cloud came in a distant second at 18%, with private cloud following closely at 17%.

Respondents told Denodo they like hybrid and multicloud’s ability to diversify spend and skills, build resiliency, and choose features and capabilities depending on …

…. each cloud service provider’s particular strengths. All the while, they like that they can avoid vendor lock-in.

AWS Out in Front

Similar to another recent study, Denodo found that Amazon Web Services still leads its rivals, with Microsoft Azure in second place. About 90% of organizations relying on cloud choose the two providers, Denodo said. Even so, respondents also employ Google Cloud. Among the three, Denodo said analytics surfaced as the top use case across each one. Logical data warehousing came in second at 43%, and data science at 41%.

Denodo’s Ravi Shankar

Of further interest: More than three-quarters (78%) of respondents said they run some kind of workload in the cloud. Separate but related, use of container technologies increased by 50% year over year, which Denodo interprets as use for scalability and portability to the cloud. About four in five (80%) respondents lean on some type of container deployment. Docker stands out as the most popular (46%), followed by Kubernetes (40%).

Perhaps a prime opportunity for channel partners stemming from these outcomes lies in providing data virtualization platforms (keeping in mind, of course, that this is Denodo’s specialty).

“Hybrid cloud and multicloud architectures are becoming the basis of data management, but the challenge of integrating data in the cloud has almost doubled (43%),” said Ravi Shankar, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Denodo. “Today, users are looking to simplify cloud data integration in a hybrid/multicloud environment without having to depend on heavy-duty data migration or replication, which may be why almost 50% of respondents said they are considering data virtualization as a key part of their cloud integration and migration strategy.”