Microsoft Azure is a business treasure box of opportunity. Not sold on Azure yet? Find out why you should be here. For those of you already on board, once you’ve dabbled in the shallows of the public cloud, before you deep dive into its enticing depths you need a buddy. An expert to pro-actively support your business investment. That’s what our Azure Managed Services are for.

To help you understand the value of an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider, I’ve compiled the top five benefits our customers love.

Increase ROI

The flexible cost structure of Azure is one of its biggest selling points. But without the right structure and tools in place, it can become a full-time job trying to keep track of costs. Our Azure Managed Services include regular cost efficiency reviews and enhancements where our team of expert engineers identify opportunities to manage and operate your environment in the most cost-efficient way possible. Right-sizing Azure resource to match the workloads they’re used for, spotting un-used items and checking the most cost-effective licenses are being used are all included. These continued proactive reviews ultimately match cost to need.

“With Cloud Direct we are working more efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before.”

Habib Bilfaqi, Network Manager, IPC

Proactive optimisation

Managed Azure is more than keeping the lights on. As an Azure Expert MSP (find out why that’s important here) we’re at the forefront of Microsoft’s latest technical advancements and Azure best practice. The wealth of experience we’ve gained gives our expert teams the confidence to tailor our client’s environments to meet their unique requirements and growth goals. They monitor performance, speed and reliability and optimisation wherever possible, all to ensure your Azure environment will operate as expected with provisions to minimise disruption.

“We knew we wanted to work in Azure, but we needed an expert partner who could explain the options available to us and help us develop our global cloud strategy. Rather than simply focusing on the technology, Cloud Direct’s specialist engineers listened to our business needs before exploring the different solutions that could work for us.”

Sanjay Sood, Global Executive, RSM UK

Protective security

Our customer’s security is our security. When we take on full management of their Azure environment, we take on shared responsibility for their cloud security, meaning it’s always personal. The threat landscape may be constantly changing, but so are we. And so is Microsoft. We use Azure Security Centre alongside a host of best practice tools and technologies to enable proactive security, which involves 24/7 monitoring of your Azure environment with over 200 pre-set alerts.

Adopting the latest Microsoft tools such as Azure Lighthouse means we’re able to further enhance the security we offer customers using technologies such as Microsoft 2 factor authentication, Conditional Access and Advanced Threat protection. Azure Lighthouse also allows us to have a centralised set of security policies that we can apply to all our customers at the same time. So, any patches or new best practice policies can be quickly and efficiently applied.

“Security is very high on our agenda, and we now have added confidence with Cloud Direct.”

Ian Russell, IT Consultant, 2TG

Supportive support

Your IT needs to be reliable, efficient and a strategic enabler. Our cloud consultants and developers are backed by a talented team of more than 100 world-class IT support staff to provide you with a fully managed IT service, available 24/7 for unlimited support with our Managed Services. As is our comprehensive knowledge base with thousands of support articles and guides. Whatever the question we have the answer. Our own in-house PROVIDE portal gives customers a centralised system to manage their IT all in one place. We’re talking everything from predicting Azure spend to raising support requests. Our PROVIDE portal has your back.

“I could just rely on their ability to do it, without having to spend too much of my time getting involved in things. It all worked in the background in a very smooth manner.”

Stewart Martin, Partner, Edmund Carr

Time to innovate

The role of internal IT is changing. Now the centre of business innovation, IT teams are supporting the wider business to optimise services and drive revenue. If they can find the time in between everyday system and hardware maintenance that is. As amazing as Azure is, your environment can’t be left to fend for itself. With a Managed Azure Service our experts and support teams in our Centre of Excellence can manage the day to day running of your Azure environment. Giving your IT team the most important gift of all – time.

“Around 80% of what we do now is focused on helping the business to move forward. We don’t worry about maintenance or upgrades at all thanks to Cloud Direct.”

Jason Moon, Head of IT, Simarco

“Cloud Direct has been great at helping us transform our business and lead the way in our market by supporting us to adopt the latest technology.”

Sebastian Ailioaie, Group Digital Manager, ACE

As you’ve just read when it comes to Azure, we’ve been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. Our experience plus advanced accreditation makes us one of the leading Microsoft Cloud Partners globally. We’re here for the long haul. Not just to lift and shift but to continue to apply our honed best practice optimisation tactics to drive your business growth whatever your goals may be.

If you want to find out more about our Azure Managed Services or just want to chat with someone outside of your household give us a call on 0800 0315 966 or drop us an email.