Microsoft Windows Azure™

What is Azure?

In a nutshell Windows Azure™ is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform.

Why Windows Azure?

Because it is provided by Microsoft and is one of, if not the most, secure hosting platforms in the world.

What does this mean for our clients?

It allows Tricostar to develop applications in a cloud environment so that our clients have access to applications which they pay for on a consumption basis only, known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), where the only requirement from a client’s perspective is a PC with web access.

It means our clients have no upfront capital costs for hardware, operating software and all the infrastructure costs associated with using your own hardware etc. All taken into account this can save up to 30% on a typical on-premise installation.

The result is that implementation times are a fraction of a normal in house implementation. You are completely flexible in the numbers accessing the application – you are not stuck with licences you have purchased when a department’s size decreases. Alternatively new users can be added and be up and running in a few hours if additional staff are required during peak periods.

Where clients have confidential data that they may wish to retain in house this data can be kept “inside” the organisation whilst the majority of data storage and transactions can be separated off into the Windows Azure environment saving very significant costs.

Tricostar’s first application running in Azure is its Time Recording application, Timebase247.

What is Cloud Computing?
Click here to find out more about Cloud Computing

What is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)?
Click here to find out more about SaaS

Timebase247
Click Here for more details