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II. Multiple industries, multiple benefits. Azure Arc: The best option for a Unified Multi-Cloud Management Solution
In an era where businesses rely heavily on the cloud and diverse IT environments, there is a growing need for streamlined management, rapid development of cloud applications and services, and premise them in a cohesive and consistent manner. Azure Arc’s innovative offering revolutionizes the way businesses manage their resources across a multitude of platforms.
Let’s take a hands-on look at the key features and tangible benefits of Azure Arc, illustrating how it can spark transformation across a variety of business environments.
Obtain a Centralized Resource Management
Azure Arc is a powerful solution that centralizes resource management, simplifying operations and compliance. It provides a single point of access within the Azure portal, allowing businesses comprehensive insight and control over a wide range of resources. These include Windows and Linux servers, SQL Servers, Kubernetes clusters, and Azure services.
Here are some practical benefits of centralized resource management across different industry models:
1. Enhanced Visibility
Consider a retail giant that operates hundreds of stores across the country. Azure Arc allows the company to gain centralized visibility into its extensive IT infrastructure, which includes both on-premises and cloud-based servers. This visibility empowers the IT team to monitor and manage resources with ease, ensuring the stores run smoothly. Whether it’s applying security patches, deploying updates, or troubleshooting issues, the company’s IT administrators can do it all from a single Azure Portal.
2. Unified Governance
For financial institutions with stringent compliance requirements, Azure Arc offers a unified governance framework. It enables the organization to establish consistent policies and access controls across its on-premises data centers and multiple public cloud providers. This ensures that all IT resources adhere to the same security and compliance standards, reducing the risk of regulatory violations.
3. Reduced Operational Overhead
In healthcare, where data security and privacy are paramount, a hospital network operates a complex ecosystem of applications and services. By enabling the integration of on-premise and multicloud environments, Azure Arc simplifies resource management, reducing operational overhead. This allows the IT team to allocate more time and resources to innovative technology services for patient care and critical healthcare systems, rather than having to deal with the complexities of managing resources from their IT infrastructure.
Scalability and flexibility
The Azure Arc architecture is designed for unprecedented scalability and flexibility, serving businesses of all sizes and industries. Here are some practical applications of flexibility and increased resources that you can apply to your business:
1. Hybrid Deployment
A manufacturing company with a legacy on-premises infrastructure may decide to gradually migrate certain workloads to the cloud. Azure Arc facilitates this hybrid approach, allowing the company to keep some workloads on-premises while migrating others to the cloud. This flexibility means that the company can modernize its IT infrastructure without disrupting its core manufacturing processes.
2. Choosing Cloud Service Providers
A software development agency often needs to cater to clients with diverse cloud preferences. Azure Arc gives you the freedom to connect and manage resources across multiple cloud platforms. This means that the agency can use Azure Arc to offer services to customers on their preferred cloud provider, allowing them to choose the best solutions for their unique needs.
Count on advanced security and compliance
At a time when data security and compliance are top priorities, Azure Arc equips businesses with advanced tools and features to protect their assets. Using this innovative solution provides you with:
1. Policy Enforcement
For a multinational corporation with a global presence, complying with data protection regulations is of paramount importance. Azure Arc ensures that data protection policies are applied consistently across all locations, regardless of jurisdiction. This allows the company to maintain a uniform level of security and compliance, protecting sensitive customer data.
2. Unified Security
An e-commerce platform that handles a lot of customer data requires robust security measures. Azure Arc provides a unified security framework, enabling the platform to extend the benefits of Microsoft Sentinel and Defender to detect and respond to security threats in real time. This level of integration improves security, protecting both the company’s reputation and customer trust.
Optimize IT Costs with valuable insights
Managing costs in a multi-cloud environment can be a challenging task. In times when efficiency is critical for businesses, Azure Arc simplifies this process with a range of cost optimization features.
1. Resource Consolidation
In the case of a global consulting firm with a diverse client base, Azure Arc extends the benefits of Azure Monitor and Azure Advisor to help identify underutilized resources across multiple projects. By consolidating these resources, the company can optimize costs and allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that each project works within budget.
Azure Arc is a game-changer for companies operating in a multi-cloud environment, offering to extend the benefits and services of Azure for centralized management, scalability, advanced security, optimized application management, and cost optimization. By delivering these benefits, Azure Arc enables businesses across a variety of industries to thrive in an increasingly complex and dynamic IT landscape, ultimately ensuring their competitiveness and success in the digital age.
I. The solution that revolutionizes multi-cloud management: Know Azure Arc
In an era where digital transformation is the cornerstone of business evolution, companies are in constant pursuit of advanced technologies to streamline their operations, enhance productivity, and ensure compliance across various IT environments. Azure Arc is a remarkable solution to redefine the landscape of multi-cloud management. Let’s explore the characteristics and benefits of Azure Arc, highlighting how it can revolutionize the way businesses operate across diverse IT estates.
First, let’s have a look about what is Azure Arc
Azure Arc is a set of technologies that presents a compelling value proposition for businesses looking to modernize their IT landscape. It offers three primary features that empower organizations to simplify management, expedite application development, and maintain the consistency of Azure services:
- Centralized Visibility and Control: Azure Arc provides a single point of access within the Azure Portal for managing a broad spectrum of resources, encompassing Windows and Linux servers, SQL Servers, Kubernetes clusters, and Azure services. This centralized visibility ensures a unified experience for resource management.
- Cloud-Native Application Development: With Azure Arc, businesses can leverage familiar tools and existing practices to build cloud-native applications at scale, by extending Azure services within their development platforms. This means developers can work more efficiently and focus on the core logic of their applications, rather than worrying about the underlying infrastructure.
- Azure Services Anywhere: Azure Arc extends the capability to run Azure services, including data services, machine-learning services, and application services, on any Kubernetes infrastructure, offering unparalleled flexibility in deployment.
The Benefits of Using Azure Arc
Azure Arc unlocks a plethora of benefits for companies, whether they operate on-premises, in a public cloud, or across multiple public clouds. These advantages cater to the diverse needs of IT administrators, developers, and data professionals.
This innovative solution offers your IT admins and operators with a unified management experience, allowing them to oversee heterogeneous environments with a single pane of glass. This simplifies governance and management, regardless of the infrastructure’s location.
Developers also enjoy the freedom to do their work and be creative with no limitations at the infrastructure level. Developers can work with the tools they are most comfortable with, focusing on business logic and application development. Azure Arc abstracts the complexities of infrastructure y extiende servicios nativos de nube,, allowing developers to be more productive and agile.
Azure Arc also empowers DBAs and data scientists by delivering cloud data management benefits anywhere. It provides always-up-to-date databases with cloud automation and built-in capabilities, along with the flexibility to run machine learning models wherever the data resides, by extending Azure services over hybrid or multi-cloud environments.
Management Capabilities your business has with Azure Arc
Azure Arc achieves its magic by projecting resources, such as servers, data services, and Kubernetes clusters, into the Azure Resource Manager (ARM). This enables centralized management experience in Azure.
Here’s how it works:
- Azure Arc-enabled resources, such as on-premises servers, are equipped with an agent running on the server. Simultaneously, they have an Azure Resource Manager resource provider (ARM RP) that represents them to ARM.
- The agent and resource provider facilitate the command and control, as well as monitoring of the resources. This two-way communication ensures seamless management and monitoring of resources across diverse environments.
Azure Arc also extends various management capabilities to offer a comprehensive solution for businesses. Some of the core features of Azure Resource Manager (ARM) are now available with Azure Arc:
- Azure Portal: Enjoy a single-pane-of-glass user interface in Azure for managing all resources, including servers, Kubernetes clusters, and data services deployed on any infrastructure.
- RBAC (Role-Based Access Control): Implement granular access controls to ensure the right people have the appropriate level of access to resources.
- Resource Groups: Organize and manage resources efficiently by grouping related resources together.
- Azure Policy: Enforce policies consistently across your entire environment, ensuring compliance with organizational standards.
- Tagging and Search: Simplify resource management with tagging and robust search capabilities.
Additionally, Azure Arc seamlessly integrates with services such as Azure Monitor, Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel, and more, facilitating consistent management, governance, and security for all your resources across your environment.
Azure Arc has entered a new era of multi-cloud management, empowering businesses to streamline their operations, enhance productivity, and maintain consistent Azure services across diverse environments. By offering centralized visibility, cloud-native application development, and cloud data management benefits, Azure Arc is the go-to solution for organizations seeking a competitive edge in the digital age. With an array of benefits and a flexible pricing model, Azure Arc is truly a game-changer for businesses looking to thrive in the ever-evolving world of technology.
Data migration, the key to continuity in new business world
The business landscape has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. As a result of the need of speed in new business strategies, cloud computing has experienced explosive growth, with organizations of all sizes realizing the potential of cloud adoption to enhance business agility and foster growth.
The demand for agility in business is mainly given by the need to manage the most precious thing for business: Data. Data that now has to be available in an organized and coherent way to generate the precious information to take the business to the next level. But what is really needed to unlock the true power of data, no matter where it is?
What distinguishes this next wave of data era is its scale. And with this super scale of data handling, the support of the cloud becomes necessary for managing it.Predictive analytics to facilitate capacity planning and automation ensuring efficient deployment and performance optimization are key factors to organizations swiftly respond to evolving customer demands, maintaining their competitiveness within their respective industries.
The adoption of cloud computing has reshaped the way organizations face this new challenge of Data management in extreme quantities. The past few years have witnessed a seismic shift, with many businesses transitioning to the cloud. Others are actively exploring how to leverage cloud technologies to gain a competitive edge, fuel agility, and foster growth.
Drawing on our expertise in guiding companies through cloud migration, we highlight the top considerations to make when evaluating a Cloud migration project:
- Define the project’s objectives and Scope: including what data will be migrated, why it’s being migrated, and what the desired outcome is.
- Data Assessment and Profiling: Conduct a thorough assessment of the existing data, including its quality, volume, and complexity. Data profiling helps identify potential issues and Data modernization requirements.
- Data Mapping and Transformation: Create a detailed data mapping plan that outlines how data will be moved from the source to the target system. Define transformation rules for data format, structure, and consistency.
- Data Cleansing and Quality Assurance: Address data quality issues before migration. Cleanse and validate data to ensure accuracy and completeness.
- Data Privacy and Security: Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR) and implement robust security measures to protect sensitive data during migration.
- Data Backup and Rollback Plan: Establish a backup strategy to safeguard data in case of unexpected issues during migration. Define a rollback plan to revert to the previous state if needed.
- Testing and Validation: Conduct extensive testing of the migration process, including data integrity, performance, and end-to-end validation. Verify that the data in the target system matches the source system.
- Resource Allocation: Allocate adequate resources, including skilled personnel, hardware, and software, to execute the migration efficiently.
- Downtime Minimization: Plan for minimal downtime during the migration process to reduce the impact on business operations. Consider strategies like phased migration or data replication.
- Scalability and Future-Proofing: Ensure that the migration process can accommodate future growth and changes in data volume and structure.
- User Training and Support: Adequate training and support for end-users to familiarize them with the new system and data access procedures.
By following a proof procedure, accompanied with the right expert help, organizations can mitigate risks and ensure the successful execution of their data migration projects, ultimately achieving the desired business objectives while maintaining data integrity and security.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service modernises Latin America’s oldest Chamber of Commerce
With its digital opening, the Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santo Domingo achieves greater stability from a single platform by using Dynamic 365 Customer Service as CRM, reaching 14 thousand monthly registration transactions and allowing users to access from any location to the services and requests of the institution.
The Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santo Domingo (CCPSD) is a private, non-profit institution with more than 175 years of history. Since 2002, it has had the public function of keeping the commercial register of companies, i.e. the identification they need to be able to operate legally within Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “Every private document with a vocation to become public must be registered at the Chamber of Commerce,” says Antonio Ramos, Executive Vice President at the Chamber.
A decade of innovation
Over the past 12 years, the digital evolution of the CCPSD has been exponential. In 2010, it built its first digital infrastructure to support its public function. As early as 2012, it was able to digitise the legal identification of companies. Thanks to a digital process of authorisations, in 2017, it was able to carry out this registration in 24 hours, thus setting in motion a history of constant innovation that had only just begun.
Digital take-off
The real digital leap in quality for the CCPSD took place at the beginning of 2020. After 4 months of product analysis, together with C-ven Technologies and Microsoft, the Chamber implemented the automation of all its business registration processes in order to streamline and innovate in the services they offer and the platforms they use for the public.
“We needed to respond to growing internal and external demand, so we adopted Dynamic 365 Customer Service as a CRM to achieve greater stability from a single platform,” recalls Ramos.
A single, integrated system
With more than 100 active users, the project was based on the implementation of Dynamics 365 Customer Service as the main module. Additionally, Power Apps was used for the shift application, and Azure to support the processes behind the scenes. It should be noted that among these solutions there is an important integration with OnBase, the Chamber’s document manager.
Positive impact on service quality
The implemented platform achieved a strong national impact in two key aspects.
On the one hand, in the optimisation of user service, all the face-to-face processes of reception, digitalisation and analysis were improved, achieving greater efficiency and quality in the delivery of documentation.
On the other hand, improvements in the development and implementation of the web portal for online service requests enabled a 24/7 service that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, whatever the device. Through this portal, users can manage all available CCPSD procedures easily and securely.
It is important to note that the solution implemented by the CCPSD will serve as a basis for the 31 chambers in the rest of the country, so that they can also improve their business registration services.
The implementation was organic
The implementation took a record 14 days, partly due to the simplicity and ease of use of the tool, with more than 100 active users segregated in both the CCPSD and the Chamber of Commerce and Production of the province of Santo Domingo (CCPPSD).
“The implementation was so simple that we reduced the training time for internal users from one week to one day,” says Antonio Ramos.
After its digital transformation, each CCPSD analyst reviews between 80 and 120 transactions per day. On a monthly basis, there are 14,000 transactions of records, changes and modifications of documents, which entail a legal approval process.
“The most important part of this whole process has been the internal user experience. The product provides so much up-to-the-minute information that helps you make immediate decisions,” says Ramos.
An end-to-end user process
The next objective of the CCPSD is focused on the digital transformation project of the Arbitration Court, which is still governed by manual processes.
Moreover, the CCPSD’s wish for the future is to reduce the work of people with regard to the standardisation and analysis of documents by using Artificial Intelligence in its projects.
“Our intention is to make this process as self-manageable as possible for the user. We are on our way to that,” concludes Santiago Mejía Ortiz, Head of Commercial Registry at the Chamber.
Alpha Inversiones stock exchange in Dominican Republic strengthens its business model with the support of Dynamics 365
With the support of Dynamics 365, the company has obtained a 360° vision of its business, which has improved its sales operations and customer relations. In addition, it has been able to automate different processes, and comply with the regulations of the local superintendence of securities.
Alpha Inversiones is one of the most important brokerage firms in the Dominican Republic, positioned as a leading reference in the securities market. The company is dedicated to financial intermediation, with the vision of offering wellbeing to its clients through long-term relationships and intelligent investments.
In 2018, after making a diagnosis of its technological infrastructure and consolidating the commercial vision of its directors, the entity prepared a strategic plan for digital transformation in which it evaluated different options, opting primarily for Microsoft technology.
In conjunction with the company C-Ven Technologies, a Microsoft partner in the region, which already had experience working for the financial sector, Alpha Inversiones implemented Dynamics 365 for Sales as its customer relationship management (CRM) support system. In addition, StocKloud, a modern and adaptable platform for stock market management, was deployed on top of Dynamics 365. Santiago de la Cruz, IT and project manager at Alpha Inversiones says: “The main objective of this action was to have a tool that would provide a 360-degree view of each client, as well as tracking for the sales force. Previously, there was no tool where they could consult the information and interactions they had with each client”.
Benefits for the sales force
Dynamics 365 for Sales has been a valuable tool for Alpha Inversiones’ sales force. According to the IT director, the Dominican Republic’s securities market is relatively new, so winning over a potential client requires various business strategies. In this sense, he says that the investor’s confidence in the stock exchange plays a fundamental role.
Before, in order to open an account for a new customer, it was necessary to print the file for each user and initiate a manual process involving different service areas, which were responsible for validating compliance with all the requirements.
The implementation of Dynamics 365 for Sales has made it possible to strengthen alliances with investors, as well as streamline and automate customer relationship processes in a centralised manner. De la Cruz equates the execution of stakeholder onboarding as follows: “When a prospective customer asked to evaluate our service offering, the sales force would schedule a face-to-face visit, and take notes in an agenda manually. Without technology to unify the process of onboarding new customers, we often missed the opportunity to follow up, and the sale slipped through the cracks,” he says. With Dynamics 365 for Sales, we were able to automate the previous process.
Today, the interested party has the possibility to become a client of Alpha Inversiones from home, and in a matter of minutes. The process consists of completing a web form created using an Azure-based solution from C-Ven Technologies called Stockcloud. The shared data travels to Alpha Inversiones’ CRM and then this information is assigned to a broker, who is responsible for finalising the request online. Michelle Periche, Account Manager at C-Ven Technologies, comments: “It’s a complete solution: it helps foster investor relationships, create brokerage accounts, manage orders and streamline operations. It increases broker productivity by consolidating operations onto a single platform, and has integrations with Core and other systems.
Improved financial and operational control
Together with partner KCP, Alpha Inversiones implemented Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that has had a direct impact on internal operations, making it possible to link tasks that were previously done manually (accounts payable and receivable, purchasing process, fixed assets, etc.), which has resulted in agility and consolidation in internal procedures. Cristina Bermudez, KCP’s Regional Manager for the Caribbean and Central America adds:
“In the past, the client used to use five tools for accounting. Now it has been simplified to a single ERP where everything is integrated, allowing better traceability and productivity”.
For the implementation of Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations as ERP, information gathering sessions were held. The partner KCP and the accounting users of Alpha Inversiones made their design and customisation proposals, taking into account the needs of each ERP module. After consensual approval, the final configurations, balance sheet uploading, and the implementation of the tool went live. Bermudez adds: “One of the major challenges was the need to complete the project in the shortest possible time. We set ourselves an ambitious goal of six months, even though it was a big challenge. Thanks to the synergy of the Alpha Inversiones, KCP and Microsoft teams, we were able to achieve our goal.
The KCP partner offers services for different regional consulting teams, which is why it employs both on-site and remote working models. In the case of Alpha Inversiones, several project activities were carried out under these two concepts, effectively and without technical complications. During implementation, it was necessary to train around 12 people within the company, who were then responsible for passing on their knowledge to new users. Paul Saldivar, Project Manager at Alpha Inversiones says: “Adopting these two models was very practical for our projects as it made it easier to coordinate the teams, made training more fluid, and reduced costs”.
Integration with the superintendency’s reporting system
These implementations represented important challenges for Alpha Inversiones. Together with KCP, a customisation of Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operation was executed, which represented 11% of the solution. The platform enables Alpha Inversiones to automatically generate a series of financial reports for the local securities superintendence. These are delivered continuously throughout the year, as part of the requirements the company must follow to comply with local regulations. Saldivar explains: “On the one hand, we had to make sure that the processes in the ERP were in line with the superintendency’s regulations, and on the other hand, we had to make sure that they could be integrated with the platforms we were already using. Previously we used to spend a lot of staff hours to comply with the reports”.
In the words of Alpha Inversiones’ IT director, Santiago de la Cruz: “The Dominican Republic’s securities market is a young market that is constantly evolving”, which is why Alpha Inversiones is frequently in technological growth to be able to take on the challenges of the sector. For this reason, it expects to continue optimising its financial services through technological investment and the additional adoption of Microsoft solutions. Its intention is to increasingly meet the requirements of its customers and positively impact the nation’s economy.
