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In challenging times, innovative companies dont panic, they pivot.

So when the coronavirus traveled the globe, disrupting everything from grocery shopping to tax preparation, resilient companies around the world responded with ingenious solutions that ensured the safety of their employees, met the needs of their customers and kept their IT operations humming.

For some, it meant quickly enabling employees to work from home instead of at the office, while others rushed to re-engineer their supply chains, so their customers could continue to buy the products they needed to stay safe and healthy. Their solutions were custom but the step that allowed them to react so rapidly was common: They had migrated their operations to Microsoft Azure.

Even before COVID-19, companies were hungry to enable secure remote work, achieve operational efficiency, address IT budget constraints and accelerate innovation, and migrating to the cloud was the critical first step to unlocking those accomplishments.

Azure has always helped our diverse customers adapt to new ways of doing business, says Jeremy Winter, director, Azure management and migration.

While some are moving beyond crisis mode and others look to the cloud to stay resilient, were seeing an acceleration in business cloud migrations. Weve spent a lot of time with customers who are both considering and executing migrations and understand the challenges they are facing. We also recognize that our customers are counting on us more than ever to recover and ultimately transform.

Heres how a handful of those Microsoft customers discovered during the health crisis that the cloud didnt just have a silver lining it was the silver lining.

Actavo

Dublin, Ireland-based Actavo is a multi-disciplinary, global engineering services business that designs, builds and maintains the vital infrastructure we rely on every day.

Among their many services, they design, construct and maintain networks for the telecommunications and utilities industries; design, construct and install modular buildings; provide scaffold and rope access solutions along with the installation of insulation and removal of asbestos in the industrial sector; and provide hundreds of in-home technicians to companies who provide residential services like gas boiler repair, satellite installation or broadband internet installation to a half-million homes every year.

With so many essential industries relying on their round-the-clock support, even before the pandemic Actavo sought to increase operational efficiency and improve agility by migrating to Azure.

Moving to the cloud gave us the versatility to be able to scale up and scale down in any country where we needed to operate, but it also gave us the robustness from a disaster recovery perspective, says Willie Ryan, global Environmental Health and Safety and IT director.

A novel coronavirus may not have been the disaster that Actavo had in mind, but when it arrived, the decision to migrate to the cloud proved even more valuable. With the new, versatile infrastructure in place, Actavo was able to quickly pivot to remote work for its employees, ensuring that they could continue to support their clients around the world.

Weve got a very solid platform, and that was quite evident as we came through COVID and the pandemic, in terms of, we moved from an on-prem operation to everybody working from home, seamlessly, quickly, easily, without any major headaches, Ryan says.

Within the space of a week we were able to tick a box that said, If lockdown comes, were ready to go. The lockdown announcement came at five oclock on a Friday afternoon. We actually had everybody that needed to be working at home, working at home on Monday morning.

Additiv

Additiv partners with the worlds leading financial institutions to help them digitalize their wealth management activities. Their ability to advocate for change and innovation in an industry that is highly regulated is dependent on building trust with their clients by adhering to the highest standards of security and compliance.

So when the company moved its enterprise software offering for its clients to the cloud, they worked with Microsoft to ensure a seamless transition that would strictly adhere to regulations across multiple locations a prerequisite for a global company that is headquartered in Switzerland and has offices and clients on three continents.

Now, Additiv can offer its clients innovative, flexible software-as-a-service solutions that can scale easily and that adapt to their specific needs, no matter where theyre located. Digital collaboration means breaking down these virtual borders, and Azure allowed us to integrate better so that our clients can provide a holistic solution to their customers out of the cloud, says Silvan Schriber, head of corporate development.

The benefits of Azure for Additiv are 100 percent trust that the solutions adhere in each location to regulations, he adds. So it helps us in centrally managing our solutions and placing them in each country of our clients, with virtually the click of a button.

That consistency and efficiency will be critical as Additivs financial services customers increasingly embrace digital strategies and omni-channel distribution to reimagine their businesses post-pandemic.

The pace of change pre-pandemic was rapid, but theres no reason to think these trends wont accelerate post-pandemic, the company writes in a report published earlier this year. the companies that are faring best are those that are either digitally native or have invested the most in digital.

Albertsons Companies

Long before this past spring, people were changing the way they shop for groceries, and Albertsons Companies one of the largest food and drug retailers in the United States with some 2,200 stores operating under banners including Albertsons, Safeway and Vons was evolving along with them.

I believe that every customer from millennials to baby boomers is transforming how they shop, says Ramiya Iyer, senior vice president of Data, Digital & Merchandising at Albertsons Companies. The retail industry is undergoing its own transformational journey to meet customers where they are and be relevant to them. Its imperative that we do that to succeed and grow as a business.

To stay competitive and give customers the modern, convenient shopping experience they had come to expect, Albertsons migrated from an aging on-premises server farm to Microsoft Azure.

The move allowed them to take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive services, and empowered an environment where developers can innovate and efficiently test new ideas, propelling Albertsons to introduce apps that make shopping faster and more convenient.

With Azure, we can bring new ideas to market faster and deliver releases on shorter time cycles, says Param Deivreddy, vice president, IT architecture. We think Azure also encourages exploration and innovation, because you dont have to spend a huge amount on infrastructure to quickly test a new idea.

The companys easy-to-use apps offer the kinds of personalized and streamlined experiences digitally savvy shoppers demand, allowing them to create shopping lists, easily find the products they want, skip long check-out lines, even save time at the fuel pump by claiming rewards, activating the pump and paying for gas with a tap of the phone.

Grocery shopping shouldnt be a chore, says Iyer. We want to provide our customers with a totally frictionless experience that lets them enjoy the food theyre putting on the table with a minimum of fuss and stress.

H&R Block

Few things in life are certain, but as the adage goes, taxes are one of them. Even during a health crisis, Americans are responsible for filing their annual return, and millions of them lean on Kansas City, Missouri-based H&R Block to navigate the process.

To streamline its operations and improve its ability to ramp up during tax season, H&R Block migrated its computing workload to Microsoft Azure, a move that would, help the company better process millions of tax returns annually while allowing the firm to build financial software products with greater speed, quality and security, writes CIOs Clinton Boulton in a recent interview on cloud migration with H&R Block CIO Alan Lowden.

Its what we need to do to enable our strategic vision of putting customers at the center, Lowden tells CIO. We have to give them a convenient experience of serving them any way they want to be served.

So this past tax season, H&R Block was able to spring into action to support their customers while protecting the safety of their employees and the communities they serve. To keep their workforce safe during their busiest season which was even longer this year to give taxpayers more time to file they shifted to a work-from-home model that allowed 80,000 tax professionals to serve customers virtually.

That quick pivot wouldnt have been possible if the company hadnt migrated to Azure. Because they didnt need to buy new hardware, or set up or configure additional infrastructure, they were able to make the critical change to remote workstations in less than two weeks. The companys tax pros were able to provide the expertise their customers needed, and the even more critical refunds they were counting on.

When the demands of tax season return to normal, H&R Block will continue to inspire confidence in their customers through a seamless experience wherever they like, however they like.

Now we can present tax tips and offerings to our clients that are most relevant to them, says Aditya Thadani, vice president of architecture and information management at H&R Block. Migrating our platforms to Azure has really allowed us to serve our clients better.

Top photo by Halfpoint Images/Getty Images.

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For companies who migrated to Azure before the pandemic, the cloud was the silver lining | Transform - Microsoft

Most organizations and businesses the world over are moving their services to a cloud network. Microsoft Azure continues to gain popularity in cloud storage, with more and more businesses choosing to use it. Azure has about 1,200 new customer subscriptions per month.

Organizations choose Azure Cloud products to help streamline their workflows, to enhance their decision-making process, and to make data storage easier and cost-effective. The cloud computing services industry has been flooded by well-known technology companies and startups that compete for customers. Even though Google has over time taken a large chunk of the market share, Microsoft Azure has proven to be a fierce competitor in providing cloud services.

This article focuses on the notable benefits of using Microsoft Azure Products. Before we dive in, however, lets get to know what Microsoft Azure is.

It is a platform that offers more than 200 products and cloud services that are aimed at helping individuals and corporate entities solve contemporary challenges. Organizations use Azure to build cloud data centers which they use to store their data and to build and manage their applications. Through Azure, Microsoft will take care of your networking services and/ or needs.

With Azure, you are assured secure and reliable access to your data. You can use its wide range of products and services to manage your cloud platform.

The main benefits of using Microsoft Azure products include:

Once you have your data on the Azure platform, only you will have access to such data. Your data is completely protected on your cloud network from interference by third parties. Azure is designed on a security process called Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) where data stays secure on Microsoft cloud platform.

Besides, Microsoft has a large team of data security professionals who work round the clock to ensure your data stays safe. Microsoft secures your data using tools such as Threat Intelligence and Advanced Threat Analytics. The system has multi-layered, built-in security controls that identify and help protect data against external threats.

Microsoft also uses Multi-Factor Authorization to enhance the security of its cloud platform. This ensures that only authorized users can gain access to your Azure network.

You can trust Azures built-in security tools to maintain the integrity and privacy of your sensitive information. You can be sure you will not experience data breaches, nor will you have malware problems or any other evolving threats to cloud services.

Microsoft Azure gives its users the opportunity to use a variety of enterprise-level tools and programming languages such as Java, Python, Kubernetes, among others. Using these tools, organizations can build and manage personal web apps.

Having a variety of tools to choose from gives customers the flexibility to choose what works best for them in creating web apps and applications for mobile devices.

Azure also offers various services for cloud solutions such as VS Team Services and VS Team Applications. Users can also access on-demand storage services. This allows users to save time developing, testing, and deploying their applications.

One of the major reasons why organizations are skeptical about adopting cloud services is the issue of privacy. Heres some good news for you; you have no need to worry about privacy when using Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft has put in place mechanisms to ensure only you and authorized persons have the power to access and manipulate data on your platform.

Their terms and conditions are clear. They will disclose to you how they will manage your data, and where and how that data will be stored. Besides, Microsoft will never share your data unless and until it is required by law, and this happens on very rare occasions. In such cases, you will be made aware of what is going on.

Another beautiful thing about Azure is the fact that your data will only be used for agreed-upon services and never for advertising or marketing purposes. If you happen to opt-out of using Azure, Microsoft will follow a strict procedure in erasing your data from its systems.

Once you make your subscription, you get a Security Center. It is, however, important to note that only a section of the Security Center is free. Whereas this free tier allows you to see the security status of your cloud data, this is limited in some respects.

Suggested Reading: Data security challenges in cloud computing

Scalability is a major concern for organizations. Change is inevitable and at one point a business will have to either grow or downsize, making scalability a big deal.

Does this sound like you? Be rest assured that Azure will assist you in either scaling up or scaling down your business according to your business needs. You will only pay for the services you use.

Azures public cloud framework allows you to increase your storage space and computer resources on demand. Therefore, your organization can adjust during a short-term upsurge of activities as well as a long-term widening of its scope.

What all this means for your business is that you can always adjust your service agreements in order to avoid disruptions of your applications.

Compared to other public cloud service providers, Azure offers high availability and redundancy in data centers across the globe. That means you will get a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that ensures 99.95% availability from Azure. That means the annual downtime is below 4.4 hours.

Microsoft operates in 55 regions of the world and is available in 140 countries. This is some good news to organizations that have a global perspective; Microsoft has its data centers well spread the world over.

One of the biggest mistakes a company can ever make is the failure to have a disaster recovery plan. You need to be ready for any kind of disaster.

A survey conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Consulting showed that 81% of businesses across 47 markets estimated the hourly cost of downtime to an excess of $300,000. Of the companies that participated in the survey, a third estimated their hourly downtime cost to be between $1 million and $5 million, or even over $5 million.

Microsoft Azure has data centers in virtually all countries. Thus, they offer cloud solutions in a geographically decentralized manner. This helps in creating a disaster recovery plan for your organization.

During the recovery period, your vital applications can run from a backup site, and you can have access to your data. This ensures you stay online during the disruption. You wont experience any major hiccups in your activities when a disaster occurs.

Organizations try to strike a balance between getting a good cloud environment and the cost of acquiring such services. Azure boasts of its cost-efficiency due to the following reasons;

When using Microsoft Azure, IT departments get access to many resources that they wouldnt have access to with on-premises data centers.

For instance, using Microsoft Azure, you can incorporate machine learning and automation into your systems. You do not need to be a data science expert or incur very high costs to achieve this.

With Azure, an organization can set up a Linux server in under ten minutes. On normal occasions, this takes a lot of time and one has to follow a set of guidelines.

To make good use of these resources, aim at utilizing these Azure features;

Many companies have adopted cloud technology. By now you already know that Microsoft Azure is the largest cloud vendor.

Given its popularity, Microsoft Azure services have been experiencing tremendous growth in the recent past. It keeps adding to its features, making operations easier and more efficient for its users. Microsoft is keen on meeting the needs of its customers. Therefore, if you are looking to join the league of organizations that are already making good use of Azure, look no further.

Microsoft has the largest global footprint. So, from wherever you are on this globe, its got you covered. This helps you tremendously reduce downtime and continue your operations in the event of a disaster.

From the wide variety of services and products, you can be sure to get the best of Microsoft Azure!

Read Next: Common problems involving cloud migration and how to solve them

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Benefits of using Azure Cloud products - Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News - Daily Host News

Intel is building on more than 20 years of x86-based ecosystem work, said Lisa Spelman, an Intel corporate vice president. We ensure software compatibility and high performance, important requirements for both consumers and data center customers.

Amazon also continues to expand its use of Intel chips for some jobs. It announced a plan on Tuesday to run Intel-powered Mac mini computers in its data centers to help programmers develop software for Apple systems without using Apple hardware.

But Arm is increasingly competitive in computing, said Rene Haas, president of Arms main products group. He said Arm had made key changes to improve the computing performance of each processor core, or the individual calculating engines laid out on each piece of silicon.

Cloud-style computing chores also can better exploit lots of relatively simple cores and special-purpose circuitry, said Amazons Mr. DeSantis. Its Arm-based chip, the Graviton2, has 64 such cores compared with up to 24 more powerful cores on Intel server chips, he said. That helps it perform computing tasks that are done simultaneously, like serving up web pages to different people.

Ampere, a chip start-up in Santa Clara, Calif., has developed an 80-core Arm server chip and expects to release a 128-core version next year. Rene James, Amperes chief executive, said its customers and investors included the software giant Oracle, which plans to offer a cloud computing service based on Amperes chips.

Arm is real with Amazon, Ms. James said. Their competitors will follow suit.

Gerard Williams III, chief executive of Nuvia, another start-up promoting Arm-based chips, said Arm backers had also benefited as Intel lost the lead in driving manufacturing innovations that make chips do more at a lower cost. Chip producers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung Electronics can now pack more functions on each slice of silicon, which means Arm chip designers that use them can achieve speed advantages.

The change is showing up in many forms of computing. In laptop computers, Gartner, the research firm, predicted that Apples new Macs and rivals responses would push Arm-based PCs to 13.5 percent of the market by 2024, up from 1.1 percent this year.

Excerpt from:
Amazon and Apple Shift From Intel's Chips, Driving Industry Change - The New York Times

Cloud computing can help the healthcare sector to get easy access to the best information.

FREMONT, CA: The development of cloud computing in healthcare is evolving in the industry. Now, healthcare providers can depend on the cloud for efficient communication, flexible data storage, and better reach. It means the role of cloud computing in the healthcare sector can make a positive impact on the quality of life for patients worldwide.

It can even decrease the expense of business, and the opportunity to enhance the quality of care for every patient will increase. The cloud computing solution will also permit the healthcare provider to have better control over the software, personnel, and hardware. When a medical provider deals with a situation that can be of life or death requires a solution that can be agile as they are.

The new developments in data and computing are transforming the healthcare sector. The widespread implementation of cloud computing is to bring progressive practices while controlling the scalability of data and offer better access to medical records. According to market researchers, the demand for cloud computing market is increasing in the healthcare sector. It has increased because of the adopting of cloud in various parts of healthcare like clinical, end-user sector or pharmacies, services. Individual medical companies adopt the private cloud segment.

Here are some of the advantages of cloud in the healthcare sector. Starting from supporting today's medical environment to modernizing the traditional IT solutions. There are many reasons for which healthcare professionals depend on cloud services to improve the lives of patients.

More vital Collaboration When It is Required

The medical professionals must work together when a person's health is at stake. The healthcare industry needs to use cloud computing solutions to cooperate quickly and efficiently. It allows for providing better diagnosis and more robust communication. One of the most secure ways to store data is cloud computing.

Flexibility in Data Storage for Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Data storage is not about a single size that will fit every solution. Just like people, data also come in every shape and size, due to which it is necessary to treat it accordingly. It is essential to have a secure location to store critical diagnostic reports, medical research, and other crucial documents. Furthermore, the cloud computing solution in the healthcare sector will help the big or small medical institutions to get access to the best information for medical care without paying for storage.

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How Cloud Computing Can Benefit Healthcare Industry - Healthcare Tech Outlook

The global Healthcare Cloud Computing Market is expected to reach USD 64.7 billion by 2025 from USD 28.1 billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 18.1%.

Research Methodology Followed:

Primary Research:

In the primary research process, various sources from both the supply and demand sides were interviewed to obtain qualitative and quantitative information for this report. The primary sources from the supply side include industry experts such as CEOs, vice presidents, marketing and sales directors, technology & innovation directors, and related key executives from various key companies and organizations operating in the healthcare cloud computing market.

The primary sources from the demand side included industry experts, consultants, healthcare providers, healthcare payers, hospital administration, and government bodies. Primary research was conducted to validate the market segmentation, identify key players in the market, and gather insights on key industry trends and key market dynamics.

Secondary Research:

The secondary research process involved the widespread use of secondary sources, directories, databases (such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Factiva, and D&B Hoovers), white papers, annual reports, company house documents, investor presentations, and SEC filings of companies. Some non-exclusive secondary sources include Cloud Computing Association (CCA), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA), European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry (COCIR), Dubai Health Authority (DHA), American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management (AAHAM), Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2), WHO, OECD, Expert Interviews, and MarketsandMarkets Analysis.

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The increasing adoption of big data analytics, wearable devices, and IoT in healthcare and the advantages of cloud usage, such as improved storage, flexibility, and scalability of data, technological advancements in healthcare infrastructure, and increasing cloud deployments in the healthcare industry are the key drivers of the healthcare cloud computing market growth. Rising patient population worldwide and subsequent increase in the burden on healthcare systems will further upsurge the demand for healthcare cloud computing solutions.

The healthcare cloud computing market includes Tier I and II vendors like IBM, athenahealth, Siemens Healthineers, and Allscripts among others. The companies have a large market spread across various countries in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World.

The global COVID-19 outbreak has positively impacted the business to a certain extent. Companies are opting for cloud computing infrastructure to achieve higher operational efficiency, leading to shorter waiting times and enhanced patient access, especially in these times of pandemic.

Cloud services help to eliminate the inconvenience of remote working and allows communication, collaboration, and monitoring of work while ensuring employee safety.

Healthcare provider solutions segment is anticipated to be the fastest growing segment during the forecast period

The market is segmented into healthcare provider solutions and healthcare payer solutions, based on the product. The healthcare provider solutions segment is estimated to command the largest share of the market in 2020, and is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

Increasing adoption of clinical as well as non-clinical information systems among the healthcare providers to meet the changing regulatory standards, gaining data control, and managing costs while delivering higher customer satisfaction and service quality is expected to boost the segment growth during the forecast period.

Hybrid cloud deployment model is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period

The healthcare cloud computing deployment model is broadly segmented into private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud. The hybrid cloud deployment model is expected to show high growth rate during the forecast period owing to its benefits such as multiple environments offering flexibility and ability to avoid vendor lock-in.

Hybrid cloud models allow organizations to choose a combination of services among the available cloud services to provide the complete range of IT services needed by healthcare providers.

Services component, owing to its increasing demand, is expected to occupy the largest market share in 2020

The healthcare cloud computing market is segmented on the basis of component into software and services. The services component is expected to hold the largest share of the market in 2020 owing to the increasing reliance of HCIT industry on service providers for consulting, storage, implementation, training, maintenance, and regular technology upgrades.

The demand for services is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years due to the introduction of complex software and the need to ensure the integration and interoperability of software, which requires extensive training and upgrades.

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The Asia Pacifichealthcare cloud computing marketto grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period

While North America is expected to dominate the global healthcare cloud computing market in 2020, followed by Europe, the Asia Pacific region is expected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The high regional growth is attributed to the various initiatives undertaken in the APAC countries to implement new policies and to rework existing policies with public and private healthcare organizations to digitalize healthcare and increase operational efficiency.

The technological revolution is thus expected to boost the healthcare cloud computing market growth in this region.

The major players operating in the healthcare cloud computing market include IBM (US), CareCloud Corporation (US), athenahealth (US), Hyland Software (US), Siemens Healthineers (Germany), eClinicalWorks (US), Koninklijke Philips NV (Netherlands), NTT DATA (Japan), Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (US), Fujifilm Holdings (Japan), GE Healthcare (US), Dell Technologies (US) and EnSoftek (US).

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Healthcare Cloud Computing Market to grow worth 64.7 billion USD by 2025 - WhaTech