Cloud computing in Dynamics 365

 Cloud computing in Dynamics 365

 Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the internet (the cloud)—to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change.

• Gain an understanding of cloud computing.
• Explore deployment options for Dynamics 365 applications.

Microsoft Trusted Cloud

• 2 minutes

Cloud providers are also responsible for ensuring the safety and security of your data. As companies rapidly shift from on-premises technology infrastructure to cloud computing, legal and compliance professionals find themselves facing new questions from their organizations:

• Can we move to the cloud in our industry?
• What are the compliance requirements?
• What industry security standards do we need to think about?
• What should we look out for in our cloud services contract?

These questions are just some of the questions that today's legal and compliance professionals must master and explain to their boards.

Through its long-standing relationship with the legal and compliance community, Microsoft has developed a wealth of resources on the key regulatory and compliance considerations associated with cloud computing. We took advantage of this wealth of resources to build the trusted cloud.

The trusted cloud is built on four foundational principles:

• Security: Protecting you from external cyberthreats. Microsoft's comprehensive approach to security helps protect your data wherever it may be—in a data center, on a phone, on a desktop, or in transit through the internet.
• Privacy: Giving you control over access to your data. Microsoft invests heavily in technology development and practices to ensure your privacy is actively protected. Microsoft provides the necessary tools to control both the privacy and administrative aspects of the data you put in the Microsoft cloud.
• Compliance: Unparalleled investment in meeting global standards. Microsoft is adopting new certifications and partnering with regulators and standards bodies proactively to develop new regulations and standards when identifying opportunities to increase digital privacy and safety.
• Transparency: Clear insight into our policies and procedures. Microsoft is working tirelessly to increase its own transparency and the transparency of the industry and its regulators. Microsoft submits to third-party audits, publishes reports detailing government requests for customer data, and notifies individual customers when possible.

Let’s review cloud computing and see how it can benefit you.

Benefits of cloud computing

You’re probably using cloud computing services right now, even if you don’t realize it. If you use an online service to send email, edit documents, watch movies or TV, listen to music, play games, or store pictures and other files, it’s likely that cloud computing is making it all possible behind the scenes.

Cloud computing is a significant shift from the traditional way businesses think about information technology (IT) resources.

Following are some reasons why you should turn to cloud computing services:

• Cost
• Global
• Performance
• Scalable, elastic, and flexible
• Productivity
• Reliability

Let’s discuss each benefit.

Cost

Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software. You no longer need to set up and run on-site datacenters with racks of servers. You no longer need round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, or the IT experts for managing the infrastructure. The cost adds up fast.

This consumption-based model brings with it many benefits, including:

• No upfront infrastructure costs.
• No need to purchase, manage, and maintain costly infrastructure that you may not use to its fullest.
• Pay for additional resources only when they're needed.
• Stop paying for resources that are no longer needed.

Global

The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale elastically. In cloud terms, that means delivering the right amount of IT resources—more or less computing power, storage, or bandwidth—right when they’re needed, and from the right geographic location.

Performance

The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure datacenters. The providers regularly upgrade to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This configuration offers several benefits over a single corporate datacenter, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.

Security

Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen your security posture overall. They protect your data, apps, and infrastructure from potential threats.

You have physical security—who can access the building, who can operate the server racks, and so on. You also have digital security—who can connect to your systems and data over the network.

Scalable, elastic, and flexible

Cloud providers offer cloud computing services self-service and on demand. You can provision vast amounts of computing resources in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks. Cloud computing gives your business flexibility and takes the pressure off capacity planning.

Cloud computing supports both vertical and horizontal scaling, depending on your needs:

• Vertical scaling, also known as scaling up, is the process of adding resources to increase the power of an existing server. Some examples of vertical scaling include adding more CPUs and adding more memory to support increased data collection.
• Horizontal scaling, also known as scaling out, is the process of adding more servers that function together as one unit. For example, you have more than one server processing incoming requests.

Scaling can be done manually or automatically based on specific triggers, such as CPU use or the number of requests and resources that can be allocated or de-allocated in minutes.

Productivity

On-site datacenters often require a racking and stacking hardware setup, software patching, and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks. Your IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.

Reliability

Cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity easier and less expensive because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network.

Now let's review how a provider can help you comply with your industry’s regulations and standards.