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The COVID-19 pandemic posed several challenges for businesses that left them with no other option but to change the way they operated. For many small and medium businesses (SMBs), it meant undergoing a digital transformation and switching to a cloud computing platform. The change in tack might have been sudden, but it enabled them to reap benefits like better security, more productivity at reduced costs.

Assisting SMBs in expanding their revenue by migrating their data and apps to a cloud platform is Embee, whose cloud solutions on Microsoft Azure offer integration solutions that cater to SMBs’ needs within specific timelines and costs. Embee helps its clients unleash their full potential, so that they can build and innovate faster and be more agile. The cloud solutions provider clocked Rs 700 crore in annual revenue in 2020-21, and close to 70 percent of it was attributed to its cloud technology offerings.

Services that pack robust security with high productivity and performance

An industry leader for over three decades, Embee Software has helped private enterprises and government agencies boost their operations with Azure cloud services across 140 countries and regions. Clients who rope in Embee to bolster their operations with Azure can benefit from:

• Improved productivity levels: Leveraging Azure can aid in expediting innovation for SMBs who often depend on new solutions to be agile in challenging environments.
• Greater levels of security: The cloud environment deploys multiple-level security controls and specialised threat intelligence backed by Microsoft security solutions.
• Access to business intelligence: The cloud solutions enable SMBs, startups and small and medium size corporates (SMCs) to use analytics for making smarter business decisions.
• Optimized cost: These solutions help in optimizing costs by reducing businesses’ expenditure on computer equipment, IT tools and software.

“The migration to Azure was challenging as we have various business units. However, with team Embee’s support, we successfully moved 23 websites with 10 TB of data and zero downtime,” says Aditya PS Sisodiya, VP-Technology, IIFL.

Cloud solutions tailored to the needs of SMBs

What’s more is that with a ‘pay as you go’ model that enables you to pay only so long as you’re using the service, Azure is an affordable option for ventures operating on shoestring budgets. Here are some of the Azure-backed cloud services that Embee offers:

DevOps on Azure: For startups and small businesses, the need to customise operations as the business landscape changes is critical for growth. By automating the process of developing and deploying software products, Azure DevOps is an ideal toolchain for smaller ventures which don’t have ample capital for massive restructuring, but want to be agile. Being cloud and platform agnostic, it can be leveraged by any organisation irrespective of the cloud environment they are using or if it’s a public or private one. In 2020, Embee added another feather to its cap by winning the finalist award in the DevOps on Azure category in the annual Microsoft Inspire Awards.

Embee’s Azure DevOps solutions help enterprises come up with cloud-native apps, integrate app platforms and manage multi-cloud operations efficiently without requiring an upgrade. If you’re a startup or an SMB with a small budget, you can try out the services for a month for free, or avail the no-cost POC from Embee’s seasoned cloud experts and engineers, or simply start with no-cost Azure cloud credits before subscribing.

Enterprises can optimise their operations up to as many users as required and plan their releases on pipelines simultaneously for continuous operations. The result is automation that comes with fewer errors, more agile team operations and higher growth by breaking silos.

SAP on Azure: If there is one lesson that several enterprises learned from 2020, it was how migrating their SAP workloads to a cloud environment worked in their favour. Apart from being more agile, they were able to enjoy reduced costs and increased productivity.

Microsoft Azure offers ventures a cloud platform that’s optimised for SAP and has an unparalleled security framework. They can boost collaboration across teams and user experience by using SAP solutions and data with Microsoft products. According to a study, organisations can clock a three-year return on investment of more than 100 percent after moving their legacy SAP workloads to Azure.

Embee’s SAP on Azure solutions back a measurable impact on an enterprise’s business. For instance, an internal survey by the cloud solutions provider claims that businesses can see up to 20% reduction in security risks and save up to 10% in SAP Basis automation by using Azure for their cloud migration needs.

Embee’s Azure services help businesses optimise their total cost of ownership while enabling them to be agile and flexible. Moreover, the ability to adapt with changing consumer and market trends after migrating to a cloud platform is another advantage.

The Embee team ensures that data center migrations are effective and streamlined without causing any downtime or negative impact. After migrating, enterprises can look forward to boosting their developer productivity by up to 83 percent and reduce risks by 19 percent.

Application Modernization: Application modernization helps entities be more agile, improve operational efficiency, and deliver optimal customer experience, among other benefits. For new businesses, Azure’s Platform As A Service (PaaS) offerings can help create, deploy, and run applications faster and more efficiently.

With features like built-in auto-scaling and load balancing, it provides a flexible cloud platform for both updating apps and building a new app. Azure users are also able to leverage data intelligence and DevOps solutions for growth.

Embee’s application modernization services enable small businesses to build apps on Azure Cloud. The company’s modernisation services include re-platforming, re-engineering, replacement, ensuring interoperability and, lifting and optimising, among others. Its other PaaS offerings include cloud migration, application and database assessment, consultancy for end-to-end cloud solutions, billing optimization, and cloud managed services.

Intelligent cloud security: A 2020 survey by Check Point highlighted that concerns over public cloud security continue to be a major challenge for organisations, with 75 percent of the respondents saying that they were ‘very concerned’ or ‘extremely concerned’ about the issue.

For smaller enterprises, tackling cybersecurity can be a costly affair, but they can do it more affordably with Azure. They can depend on Azure’s in-built controls to shield themselves against cyberattacks. It also helps them detect early threats and take preventive action, among other features like unified security management.

Embee’s robust Azure services offer compact, military-grade cloud security solutions that can pick up cyberthreats from emails, file transfers, social media, and more. Its data governance feature prevents unsanctioned access to data and audit records at various levels. Its encryption services and firewall solutions keep SMBs’ data secure and manage networks.

Hybrid cloud platforms: Choosing between a public and a private cloud platform can be a tough choice for businesses. While they get scalability and reasonable costs with a public cloud platform, a private one offers low latency, better security and data governance.

With Azure, startups and SMBs can get the best of both worlds with its hybrid cloud platforms. Most businesses have an IT landscape that’s too complex to work either with a public or a private cloud platform. According to Embee’s internal survey, enterprises that have deployed a hybrid cloud platform are 67 percent more profitable.

With Embee’s services, businesses can move to a hybrid cloud system seamlessly as it streamlines their consumption and boosts their businesses with on-demand delivery of resources. By migrating to a hybrid cloud with Azure, SMBs will be able to lower their cost of governance with automated compliances as well.

Windows Virtual Desktop on Azure: With the pandemic forcing most people to work from home, a remote working model became the norm for businesses across the globe. Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) offered a cutting-edge solution to organisations who were struggling to adjust to the new normal. The desktop-as-a-service offering worked as a gateway for new users who are yet to migrate to the cloud, while simplifying licensing needs of those who have made the move.

Being a Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialized Partner for WVD, Embee is known for its technological approach and complies with the requirements of the programme. The specialization validates a Microsoft partner’s experience and skill in leveraging and scaling WVD. The specialisation is awarded to only those partners who meet the stringent criteria. Embee has demonstrated distinguished operational capabilities in areas like pre-sales, assessment, planning and the deployment of WVD solutions.

Managed services: Realizing that SMB and startup owners might face difficulties in managing Azure cloud and IT infrastructure, Embee also offers managed services. The services help in expediting a business transformation and paves way for innovation.

Managing Azure optimally is crucial for leveraging the full potential of cloud solutions and Embee ensures that SMBs’ transition to cloud is seamless. A few features of Embee’s managed services are as follows:

Consulting: Customers can avail Azure consultancy to figure out ideal infrastructure and other best practices that would work for their business with Embee’s certified Azure Cloud experts.

Assessment: Take advantage of an on-premise or existing cloud infrastructure assessment of database and applications.

Migration: With ‘Your Move to Azure Cloud is on us’, Embee has launched programmes where businesses can avail a ‘no cost migration’ to Azure.

Stabilization: Weeding out operational risks, checking compliances

Billing/Cost optimization: Embee’s cloud experts ensure that you utilize the full potential of Azure resources without burning a hole into your pockets. Embee’s cloud managed services are known to have reduced 30-40% of cloud expenditure for their customers.

360 Degree Managed Services: End-to-end managed services for databases, network, directory, OS, storage and backup.

Head over to Embee’s website for more information about its range of Azure-backed cloud services.