Microsoft Azure Hosting Solutions
Microsoft Azure Consultancy for Hosting, Development and Testing Services
Microsoft Azure Hosting
Microsoft Azure, a renowned cloud computing platform, is widely trusted by businesses worldwide for its robust Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities. It offers a perfect solution for hosting, enabling seamless building, deployment, management, migration, and hosting of various APIs and web applications. The platform is designed to cater to every stage of development to rollout, all within a unified platform.
Azure boasts of an extensive network of data centres that ensures efficient and secure delivery of services to its clients. Its services include web apps, virtual machines, backup and disaster recovery, and identity and access management, supporting both Windows and Linux environments.
Valto, with its expertise in hybrid cloud and infrastructure management, simplifies the hosting process for businesses. Our team of Azure consultants provide end-to-end management of Azure hosting and development, covering every aspect from planning to deployment. We also introduce clients to Azure DevOps, Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN), Azure Spring Cloud, and other services available on the platform.
At Valto, we offer training and support for businesses looking to manage their cloud hosting, or alternatively, our managed service provides complete Azure end-to-end management. The Azure portal also offers real-time insights into Azure resource utilisation, enabling businesses to optimise their infrastructure and maximise their returns.
Get in touch to learn more about how we can help with Azure application hosting
Introducing Microsoft Azure Hosting
One of the many advantages of migrating to Azure is the ability to integrate and work across the full Microsoft cloud platform. The flexibility of the cloud gives you the ability to virtualise multiple applications online, to make them more accessible to users and also to improve resilience and reliability compared to traditional on-premises hosting.
Types of Hosting Supported by Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure offers various hosting types to meet different application and business needs. Here are some of the hosting types that Azure supports:
Cloud hosting
Azure provides a range of cloud hosting services, including virtual machines, container instances, and serverless computing. With Azure cloud hosting, you can easily scale up or down based on your changing business needs, pay only for what you use, and leverage Azure’s global network of data centres for high availability and low latency.
App hosting
Azure App Service is a fully managed platform for hosting web, mobile, and API applications. With App Service, you can quickly and easily deploy your applications to the cloud, automatically scale them based on demand, and integrate with other Azure services for enhanced functionality.
Agent hosting
Azure Virtual Machines provides a platform for hosting agents, which are software programs that monitor and manage other software applications or systems. With Azure VMs, you can easily provision and manage virtual machines running Windows or Linux, deploy agents to monitor your applications and systems and automate management tasks using Azure Automation.
Legacy applications
Azure provides various options for hosting legacy applications. With these options, you can easily migrate your legacy applications to the cloud, leverage Azure’s scalability and availability, and modernise your applications with new features and capabilities.
Examples of applications that can be hosted on Azure include e-commerce websites, mobile applications, gaming platforms, enterprise applications, and more.
Pricing Options for Microsoft Azure Hosting Services
Azure offers various pricing options for its hosting services, including pay-as-you-go, reserved instances, and hybrid use benefit. With pay-as-you-go pricing, you only pay for what you use, and there are no upfront costs or termination fees. Reserved instances provide significant cost savings for long-term commitments, while the hybrid use benefit allows you to use your on-premises licenses to run certain workloads on Azure.
Why choose Valto for your Azure Application Hosting projects?
Valto is an official Microsoft Solutions Partner, and our team of Azure developers and specialists will work with you to configure your cloud environment. Your dedicated point of contact will provide Azure Hosting services that are tailored to your needs and maximise performance efficiently.
Our experienced team will work with you through the full process of planning and deployment. We will configure a cloud environment that is designed to provide high levels of availability for your business-critical software and give you the foundation for working more effectively.
We provide Azure hosting support for a wide range of popular business applications including SharePoint and Sage, and can also create custom environments for bespoke software. This can be configured to replicate your current hardware in a more cost effective public cloud environment, using Windows Virtual Desktop and a range of other intelligent services.
Benefits of Valto Azure Application Hosting and Development Services
We have worked with countless businesses over the years, developing and building applications and other enterprise-level IT services. Our trusted reputation is informed by hundreds of customer stories of success across Azure and the whole Microsoft suite.
Some of the benefits of using a Valto Azure specialist for your Application Hosting project include:
Official Microsoft Partner level expertise
We’re very proud to be a Microsoft Solutions Partner, which means that we offer the highest level of service, support, training and advice. For Azure, this means our developers and specialists are cloud computing experts and can offer unbeatable knowledge and expertise for your application development and hosting needs.
A true team effort
When you work with Valto, you’ll be assigned a specialist and account lead who will work closely with you to get to know your team, understand your business and design a bespoke Azure project plan. You’ll also be benefitting from our extensive team of Microsoft experts, who work across the country and in different areas of IT specialism, so there’s no issue, trouble or goal we can’t work with.
Qualified Azure experts
Our Azure services truly are end-to-end, and encompass the entire journey from moving to the cloud, through training fundamentals for your team and custom development, right up to backup and Disaster Recovery and long term support. From analysing your business data in Azure Monitor and helping you comply with regulations through Azure confidential computing, to creating a tailored Content Delivery Network for your business, we’ll take care of it.
Streamlined application development
Using tools including Azure Container Apps, Azure Load Testing, Azure Virtual Desktop and Azure DevOps, we will help create the ideal app solution for your business. It might be migrating existing applications over to the Azure platform for easy deployment and management, or you might want to learn more about Azure’s capability in developing new apps.
Get a free quote and chat with one of our team about your Azure application hosting project
Hosting in Microsoft Azure
The Microsoft Cloud Platform has a number of advantages over a traditional on-premises server for hosting.
Flexibility of Hosting Applications in Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure offers a range of pre-configured virtual machines that can be used to replicate almost any traditional environment. This means that an experienced cloud consultant can configure an environment that meets the needs of your application as it stands.
Advanced cloud services go beyond this and can offer intelligent services that adapt and enhance productivity. In most cases, application usage changes over time. There will be periods of peak activity and times when usage is much lower (for example during peak trading times, high season or when new technology becomes available).
One of the benefits of Microsoft Azure hosting is that you can take advantage of this flexibility and change the specification of your environment to meet demand. At peak times, additional memory or cores can be provisioned in the virtual machines which provides improved performance for end users. Similarly, at times of lower usage, you can scale back the environment so that you reduce costs.
Greater Reliability of Microsoft Azure Hosting
A key disadvantage of any legacy server is the inevitable downtime. Aside from regular maintenance and updates that mean applications are unavailable, there are also unplanned outages that occur on an all too regular basis.
Even with 99% up time, a server would be unavailable for approximately 1 hour every 4 days. This means that business-critical applications cannot be accessed. By using Microsoft Azure Hosting from Valto, you can avoid downtime due to the virtualised infrastructure being decoupled from physical hardware.
Even if machines are down for maintenance within the data centre, the load is simply shifted across to other areas. We use intelligent Azure Marketplace tools such as Azure Load Testing and Azure Load Balancer to help with data and analytics to calculate downtime and outages. With duplication across multiple data centres, it’s possible to get uptime approaching 100% – which means that staff can work without interruption. This saves you time, resource and an awful lot of stress!
Cost Savings of Hosting Applications in Microsoft Azure
In most cases, using the cloud simply costs less than legacy equipment. As well as being more efficient, reliable and adaptable, switching to a cloud platform can save money. Still not convinced? Here are some of the ways we can help with Azure cost saving…
Efficient set up and fast turnarounds
When you migrate applications to the cloud, there is no upfront capital expenditure to source hardware (and no long wait for delivery). You won’t have to wait for parts, rely on delivery dates and SLAs being met, and you’ll likely already have everything you need ready to go. There will often be an onboarding consultancy fee to cover the cost of provisioning and performing the Microsoft Azure migration of your applications and data, which unlocks the savings you’ll discover from utilising our bespoke application hosting packages.
More power, less waste
Even a relatively small data centre can be expensive to run. It can cost money for power, hours for maintenance and resource for running. You need to pay for power for the servers and also for the cooling equipment to keep systems operating at an appropriate temperature. Having a dedicated member of the team to maintain and troubleshoot the data centre can be extremely costly. Changing to Microsoft Azure application hosting means that you benefit from the scale of an enterprise data centre where hardware is fully optimised and where all of the costs are included in the subscription.
Complete flexibility and adaptability
As noted above, a key advantage of hosting in Microsoft Azure is that you have the ability to scale the machines based on demand. This means that rather than having a fixed set of infrastructure, you can raise and lower performance levels as required which means we can reduce the cost of Microsoft Azure.
You can also use Azure to enhance remote working or hybrid working models to ensure every employee has access to the files they need, all the while keeping your data safe. For example, Azure IoT Hub (Microsoft’s Internet of Things cloud capability) hosts connections to any virtual device, and Azure Virtual Desktop mirrors your on-premises desktop set up.
Low costs of maintenance
Having qualified staff on hand as part of your internal IT team with the skills to manage legacy hardware is costly – especially at times when things are running fine. With Microsoft Azure, and Valto’s managed services, you benefit from access to a team who provide full support including applying software patches – and with high uptime SLAs, you don’t need to worry about maintenance in the same way.
Want to learn more about the kind of applications you can build and host in Azure?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Microsoft Azure hosting?
Microsoft Azure hosting refers to the use of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, to host and run applications, websites, and other services on virtual machines or containers. Azure provides a reliable, scalable, and secure hosting environment with various features and tools for developers and IT professionals.
What are the benefits of hosting on Microsoft Azure?
Hosting on Microsoft Azure offers several benefits, including high availability, scalability, security, and flexibility. Azure’s extensive global network of data centres ensures high availability and low latency for your applications. Azure’s flexible and scalable infrastructure allows you to easily scale up or down based on your changing business needs. Azure also provides various security features and tools to help you secure your applications and data.
What kind of applications can be hosted on Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure can host a wide range of applications, including web applications, mobile applications, enterprise applications, gaming applications, and more. You can also use Azure to run containers, virtual machines, and serverless functions.
Can I use Microsoft Azure for backup and disaster recovery?
Yes, Microsoft Azure offers various backup and disaster recovery solutions, including Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, and Azure File Sync. These solutions provide reliable and cost-effective data protection and disaster recovery options for your applications and data.
How does Valto help with Microsoft Azure hosting?
Valto provides end-to-end management of Azure hosting and development, from planning to deployment. Our team of Azure consultants can help you design and implement a customised Azure hosting solution that meets your business needs. We also offer training and support for managing your cloud hosting, or alternatively, our managed service provides complete Azure end-to-end management.
Can I host Windows and Linux applications on Microsoft Azure?
Yes, Microsoft Azure supports hosting of both Windows and Linux applications. Azure provides various tools and services to help you deploy and manage your applications on either operating system.
To get started with Valto and take your business to the next level, get in touch with our team today
What Our Customers Are Saying
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