Why Your Business Should Host Dynamics GP in Azure: The Benefits of the Microsoft Cloud
Hosting your Dynamics GP environment on Azure allows you and your team to continue working with a solution you are familiar with while unlocking some of the benefits of the Microsoft Cloud.
Part 2: The Benefits of Running Dynamics GP on Azure vs On-Premises
In part 1 of this series, we focused on comparing the cost of operating GP on Azure and addressing some common questions our experts get from clients considering the move to the cloud.
In this part, we will focus on some of the core benefits of moving Dynamics GP to Azure and how utilizing the power of the Microsoft Cloud can help your business now and in the future through:
- Better server resiliency
- Stronger governance
- Growth and scalability
- More robust security
- Easy employee onboarding
Let’s dive into these core aspects of hosting Dynamics GP on Azure.
Note: Whether you are considering moving Dynamics GP to Azure or want to stay on premises depends on a few important factors. Regardless, Stoneridge will help you support your Dynamics GP environment. Microsoft has also pledged to support GP until at least 2028. For more information, read our blog on the latest GP Lifecycle update.
How Azure Enhances the Resiliency of Your Servers
Transitioning to Azure significantly bolsters server resilience, reducing downtime and potential outages. By moving your services to Azure, you're entrusting the platform with managing essential updates and changes seamlessly integrated into your subscription.
This proactive approach minimizes disruption and enhances the reliability of your environment. Here’s how Azure’s built-in resilience features contribute to improved uptime:
- Automated Updates: Microsoft manages all system updates and patches, ensuring your services remain up-to-date with minimal manual intervention. This reduces the window for downtime during maintenance.
- Redundant Nodes: Azure provides high service availability through redundant nodes, ensuring your data is continuously accessible. This means multiple encrypted copies of your data are stored across different clusters dedicated specifically to your organization.
- Active-Active-Passive Configuration: Azure maintains three copies of your data: two active copies that are always available and a third in a passive state, ready to step in if needed. This setup ensures uninterrupted service and business continuity.
- Seamless Experience: Microsoft handles the replication and management of these data copies, allowing you to focus on your business without worrying about server failures or downtime.
By leveraging Azure’s resilience features, you ensure your environment remains robust, secure, and continuously available, allowing your business to operate smoothly during updates and unexpected disruptions.
Strengthen Governance
Migrating Dynamics GP to Azure enhances governance and strengthens access controls and security measures. Here’s how moving to Azure can improve client access controls and mitigate risks such as data breaches:
- Enhanced Access Controls: Azure provides granular control over who can access specific data, allowing permissions to be tailored precisely to your organization's needs. This ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive information, enhancing security and compliance.
- Compromise Controls: Azure’s security infrastructure, bolstered by Microsoft’s annual investment of over $1 billion, provides robust protection against potential breaches. This includes advanced compromise detection and response mechanisms, designed to safeguard your environment and users.
- Integrated Security Features: Depending on your Azure license and Entra ID, you gain access to additional security tools that work seamlessly with your existing user and access requirements. These tools are designed to offer a painless, integrated approach to maintaining high levels of security.
With Azure, you benefit from improved uptime and reliability as well as comprehensive governance features that ensure your environment remains secure and well-managed.
Leveraging Azure for Business Growth and Scalability
Moving to Azure enhances your current operations and provides a robust foundation for future growth. The cloud's inherent flexibility and scalability ensure that as your business expands, your IT infrastructure can seamlessly scale with it.
Growing Your Business
Here's how Azure supports business growth:
- Effortless Scalability: Azure’s cloud infrastructure is designed to grow with your business. As your needs evolve, the platform automatically adjusts to provide the necessary resources, ensuring you can scale up without disruption.
- High Availability: Azure’s redundant infrastructure guarantees that your services remain available even as your usage increases. This high availability minimizes downtime and keeps your operations running smoothly.
- Proactive Readiness: Azure anticipates your growth needs, allowing you to quickly consume additional resources as required. This proactive approach ensures your business can expand without hitting roadblocks in your IT infrastructure.
- Consistent Compliance and Security: As your cloud footprint grows, Azure maintains alignment with your foundational components like access permissions, compliance, and security. This continuity ensures that your expanding operations remain secure and well-governed.
By leveraging Azure, your business can grow efficiently, with a cloud infrastructure that adapts to your evolving needs while maintaining high standards of security and availability.
Scalability
Shifting Dynamics GP to the cloud via Azure enables seamless scalability, allowing you to efficiently expand or decrease your GP environment as needed. Here's how Azure supports this scaling process:
- Virtualized Infrastructure: With Azure VMs, you can easily increase CPU or RAM temporarily to accommodate upgrades, making the process faster and more efficient. You only pay for the increased capacity during the time it's in use, providing cost-effective flexibility.
- Optimized Upgrades: The ability to scale resources on-demand reduces the time required for GP upgrades, enhancing operational efficiency and minimizing downtime.
- Seamless User Expansion: Adding users to Azure Remote Desktop Services is straightforward. You can quickly expand the number of machines in host pools, ensuring that your environment scales effectively to meet increased demand.
- Cost-Efficient Resource Management: Azure Remote Desktop Services can be configured for session sharing, which helps reduce costs while optimizing resource allocation for the best user experience.
By leveraging Azure’s cloud capabilities, your organization can scale its Dynamics GP environment effortlessly, ensuring that your infrastructure grows in line with your business needs.
Simplifying Employee Onboarding with SaaS Tools
Onboarding new employees can be a complex process, but using SaaS tools like Microsoft Intune significantly streamlines and secures this experience. Here's how:
- Remote Provisioning: Microsoft Intune allows for quick, remote provisioning of computers. Devices can be shipped directly to new employees, who simply need to sign in with their Microsoft 365 accounts.
- Enhanced Security: Multi-factor Authentication adds a layer of security to the onboarding process, ensuring that new hires can securely access their work environment.
- Role-Based Access Control: Employees can be assigned to specific roles within Azure Remote Desktop Services, granting them access only to the applications they need. This role-based security posture reduces exposure and enhances overall security.
By leveraging SaaS tools, your organization can onboard new employees more efficiently and securely, ensuring a smooth start for your team members.
Ready to Start Your Cloud Journey?
If you are thinking of moving to the cloud, Stoneridge can help you assess your environment and readiness and determine your best path forward. Whether you want to continue operating Dynamics GP on Azure or want to upgrade to Dynamics 365, we can help.
Reach out today to learn more.
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