Big Data

Data Modernization with Azure SQL Database

Bobby Varghese

An organization’s data journey is multi-faceted, it requires the unification of system integrations, data migration, data quality, data governance and data archiving throughout the lifetime of your corporate data. Laying down a solid foundation for this process is the new concept of data modernization, which involves analyzing and preparing data to become holistically integrated into these processes.

Data modernization facilitates the overarching business processes that drive organizations’ success by coordinating and optimizing these events across the data lifecycle. To unlatch the power of data, organizations can now incorporate next-generation applications to support all requirements for data consistency, reliability, reusability, and execution across information governance projects.
Moving your data to the cloud will make your business more efficient and secure. Most organizations looking to modernize their data platforms want the same things:

  • Less administration
  • Minimal downtime
  • Data backups in a secure location
  • A replacement for dedicated disaster recovery (DR) sites
  • A cost-effective way to scale processing
  • Eliminate time spent managing “long tail” of applications.
  • Free up limited IT resources to drive transformation
  • Migrate business-critical apps to the cloud

Microsoft’s Azure Data Platform offers a variety of paths to these objectives:

Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is Microsoft’s fully managed cloud relational database service in Microsoft Azure. It shares the same code base as traditional SQL Servers but with Microsoft’s Cloud first strategy the newest features of SQL Server actually are released to Azure SQL Database first.

Below are the top benefits that companies are realizing with Azure SQL Database as their database service:

  • Scalability – Azure SQL Database enables you to easily scale your database by adding more compute power (scale-up) or adding more database units (scale-out). Flexible plans of Azure SQL database meet the needs of big as well as small enterprises. The pricing structure allows users to pay as little as $4.99 per database per month with maximum storage set at 150 GB per database. That’s a lot of space for very little cost.

    When demand for your app grows from a handful of devices and customers to millions, Azure SQL Database scales on the fly with minimal downtime. Scalability is one of the most important characteristics of PaaS that enables you to dynamically add more resources to your service when needed. Azure SQL Database enables you to easily change resources (CPU power, memory, IO throughput, and storage) allocated to your databases.

  • High Speed and Minimal Down Time – High availability architectures mean high-speed connectivity and data retrieval as well as low downtime at your organization. There’s nothing worse than stopping business because your technology can’t keep up, but that is no longer a problem with Azure SQL Database.
    There are multiple levels of implementation available on Azure SQL Database. If the requirement is just a website and a database, you can just subscribe for a SQL Azure instance to an Azure website. On the other hand, if you need a fully functional VM for your enterprise you can avail that as well.  These implementation options help make your company more adaptable to the inevitable changes it undergoes on a regular basis.

  • Time Is On Your Side – With no administrative duties on your physical location, employees can take time for strategic work to advance and grow all-around business success. When your database is hosted in the cloud, you don’t have to deal with setting up SQL Server, apportioning databases, and dealing with physical machine maintenance and upkeep. All of this results in better alignment of your organization and ultimately more time on your side.

  • Improved Usability – Using standard SQL, it’s much easier to manage database systems without having to write or update a huge amount of code.

  • Streamlined business continuity with automatic backups and geo-replication

  • Microsoft-backed database-as-a-service with 99.99% uptime SLA Provision and pay-as-you-go

  • Familiar development tools – T-SQL, REST APIs, PowerShell, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), Visual Studio, popular platforms and technologies including .NET, Java, Ruby on Rails, and Node.js and Azure Management Portal with HTML5 support

  • Zero administration – Virtualized infrastructure removes nearly all maintenance including automated software patching

 

Let Sysfore be your guide

We offer a comprehensive solution to convert legacy and near-legacy databases to modern database platforms that will allow you to scale your business. We begin with a detailed assessment of the database schema along with a baseline performance requirement. We then use this information to recreate your database environment without the data. This approach alleviates any data privacy concerns. We then internally set up a repeatable process to convert legacy databases to the modern database of your choice. We work with you to tailor a future-proof system architecture in the cloud or on-premises.

 

We follow a 5 step process for database modernization:

  1. Assessment
  2. Database and Data conversion
  3. Application COnversion
  4. Quality Assurance
  5. Deployment, Training & Support

 

As your trusted partner, Sysfore can help you understand how these changes could impact your business and assist your transition to the latest offerings. We can offer you:

  • Free Workshop on Azure Database for SQL/PostgreSQL/MySQL
  • Free Assessment of existing on-premise SQL/PostgreSQL/MySQL database
  • Free SQL/PostgreSQL/MySQL Architectural preparation
  • Free Consultation and migration to SQL on LINUX
  • Get a free Azure Trial Credit pack for 100$

Azure SQL Database

Sysfore, A Microsoft Cloud solution provider and a Gold Partner, uses a leading network, technology, and service expertise to deliver our service anytime, virtually anywhere, quickly and efficiently. We have helped over 80 small enterprises and 30 mid-sized enterprises across the globe for successful cloud migration in the past 8 years. Contact one of our experts today and we will help you find the perfect solution for your business. Write to us at info@sysfore.com or give us a call at +91 (80) 4110 5555

Dynamics 365 VS Salesforce: What suits your business

Bobby Varghese

A CRM solution allows enterprises to communicate in a better way with their customers and apprehend their predilection to serve more systematically and efficiently. Choosing the right CRM is unarguably a herculean task, with numerous companies entering the CRM software market at various price points.

Not all systems are the same, neither are they created equal. Today’s marketplace is filled with CRM system that allows enterprises to connect with their employees and customers in a more dynamic way.  Among many mega-vendors that account for a large market-share, this article compares two of the major players in the CRM market: Microsoft Dynamics 365 vs Salesforce.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Vs. Salesforce

While both the platforms have a significant user base and with each new update, they try to differentiate themselves in the CRM market, in this article, we list five well-defined differences that showcase how Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Salesforce measure up against each other:

  1. User Experience

The perfect combination of simple user interface and application utility is what Salesforce is famous for. A very well designed UI that is intuitive and customizable. Whereas Dynamics 365 UI delivers a modern user experience. It is quite adaptive to user preferences and expectations when it comes to modifying the stylesheets, tabs, themes, and typography.

  1. Service

Dynamics CRM over a period of time has acquired Parature, Adxstudio, and FieldOne, combining them into a single solution to offer assisted service, field service, self-service, and support for professional Dynamics CRM services. While Microsoft Dynamics has made customer service a point of differentiation, Salesforce offers excellent case management, knowledge management, and social service capabilities.

  1. Marketing

Salesforce allows the users to create and manage marketing campaigns and relationships with customers anytime, anywhere. It also delivers customer-specific services for email marketing and marketing automation. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (MDM) on the other hand, gives users exceptional insights into customer data, enables automated multi-channel campaigns to drive tangible results, delivers more comprehensive customer engagement processes and offers unique value through Marketing Resource Management (MRM).

  1. Customer Support

Customer support is a little restricted on Salesforce, neither do they have a lot of options to choose from. They offer reasonable phone support based on different plans. Also, the number of Salesforce partners catering to small and mid-sized business is low.  But Microsoft Dynamics is a larger and more mature consultant network with several certified partners across the globe providing comprehensive solutions at competitive rates.

You can a take a free Dynamics 365 readiness assessment here.

  1. Business Intelligence

Salesforce Analytics Cloud leverages cloud and mobile technology to deliver more powerful and secure data, faster. Salesforce lacks data integration tools, though there are various 3rd party tools available. It further lacks extensibility and requires you to learn a proprietary language that can incur additional costs to rack up the monthly subscription.

However, Dynamics 365 integrates with Microsoft Power BI that facilitates agile data analysis through self-service business intelligence analytics managed in the cloud for collaboration and sharing.

Conclusion

Salesforce can be considered by enterprises who just want to keep their customer data in the cloud and allow the IT staff to focus on other projects. Whereas if you want to work with a familiar coding language and deploy the system on-premise, Dynamics 365 is the ideal choice. Over that Dynamics 365 offers better pricing and is widely used by innovative enterprises.

Contact Sysfore, Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner, today to learn how you can implement Dynamics 365 in your organization and find the perfect solution for your business. Write to us at info@sysfore.com or give us a call at +91 (80) 4110 5555

Leveraging Cloud Computing for maximum business value

Bobby Varghese

With the advancement in technology, there has been a shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources. Barely a decade old, cloud computing has been a game changer in the tech world and if utilized correctly, it can prove to be advantageous to an enterprise. However, to ensure efficiency, care should be taken and detailed research is imperative while selecting the Cloud that best fits an organizations workload. Lower cost due to the elimination of capital expense, high speed of processes, scalability when necessary and reliability with respect to data backup and recovery are a few of the many benefits, that make Cloud Computing a must have.

In this article, we have listed the top 6 ways in which businesses can make use of Cloud Technology:

Virtualisation (Infrastructure-as-a-Service): Being cost-effective and scalable, it is one of the most attractive solutions for any enterprise. IaaS helps in reducing the investment on Physical hardware thereby reducing the IT and capital costs.

Application Development and Testing (Platform-as-a-Service): Constantly acquiring and installing new hardware and software becomes an expensive affair for any enterprise.­­ Thus, using a Cloud environment to develop applications proves to be a more practical choice. Developers can simply log-in to their Cloud platform and can access the tools required to create applications.
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