BUSINESS CHALLENGES AND THE NEED FOR A HYBRID CLOUD PLATFORM

Every company in every industry around the world is being challenged to transform from an organization that uses digital technology, to a digital organization. Application modernization is at the heart of digital transformation, with the opportunity to help companies engage customers, empower employees, optimize operations and transform products. Azure provides a rich platform for developers to build modern applications, and in fact, most applications are moving to the public cloud quickly. Some applications, however, face obstacles; latency, intermittent connectivity, and regulation being primary examples. Azure Stack provides a way to run the same applications in on-premises environments. With a consistent cloud platform, organizations can confidently make technology decisions based on business requirements, rather than business decisions based on technology complications.

HYBRID APPLICATION INNOVATION WITH AZURE AND AZURE STACK

Azure Stack is an extension of Azure, bringing the agility and fast-paced innovation of cloud computing to on-premises environments. Organizations can now build modern applications across hybrid cloud environments, balancing the right amount of flexibility and control. Developers can build applications using a consistent set of Azure services and DevOps processes and tools, then collaborate with operations to deploy to the location that best meets the business, technical, and regulatory requirements. Developers can speed up new cloud application development by building on application components from the Azure Marketplace, including open source tools and technologies.

USE CASES: AZURE AND AZURE STACK

Azure and Azure Stack unlock new hybrid use cases for both customer facing and internal line of business applications:

Edge and disconnected solutions: Customers can address latency and connectivity requirements by processing data locally in Azure Stack and then aggregating in Azure for further analytics, with common application logic across both. There’s lots of customer interest in this edge scenario across different contexts, including factory floors, cruise ships, and mine shafts.

Cloud applications that meet varied regulations: Customers can develop and deploy applications in Azure, with full flexibility to deploy on-premises on Azure Stack to meet regulatory or policy requirements, with no code changes needed. Illustrative application examples include global audit, financial reporting, foreign exchange trading, online gaming, and expense reporting. Many customers are looking to deploy different instances of the same application to Azure or Azure Stack, based on business and technical requirements. While Azure meets most requirements, Azure Stack complements the deployment approach where needed.

Cloud application model on-premises: Customers can use Azure services, containers, serverless, and microservice architectures to update and extend existing applications or build new ones. You can use consistent DevOps processes across Azure in the cloud and Azure Stack on-premises. We’re seeing broad interest in application modernization, including for core mission-critical applications.

The African Countries With Azure Stack are

Botswana

Egypt

Kenya

Morocco

Mozambique

Mauritius

Nigeria

Rwanda

South Africa

Tanzania

Tunisia

Zimbabwe

Zambia