New Microsoft tools boost ‘cloud OS’

One of the growing trends over the last few years has been the move to shift more functionality away from on-premises solutions to hosted dedicated servers and cloud solutions and one of the key firms pushing for this is Microsoft. It has been heavily promoting the 'cloud OS' over the last year and with new and updated tools including System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 and enhanced Azure services for Windows Server recently announced, now might be the time for businesses to start looking seriously at cloud data center technology.

Cloud OS will provide users with a consistent platform

The firm promises that the Cloud OS will provide users with a consistent platform that covers customer data centers, service provider data centers and the Microsoft public cloud, all with Windows Server and Windows Azure at its heart. This could be great news for businesses using Microsoft products at the heart of their data centers, as it might give them improved functionality and mean they can spend less time on administration tasks to keep the system up and running.

Some of the key features of the Cloud OS that might be hugely useful to firms include powerful management and automation functionality, which can take some of the burden off IT professionals and allow them to focus more heavily on innovation and delivering value for their company.

But what else could businesses stand to see as a result of adopting Microsoft Server and Cloud OS solutions? It offers a wide range range of features, such as:

• Centralised management for cloud-based applications and resources in their data centers.
• The ability to back up servers to Windows Azure, to prevent data loss and corruption.
• Monitoring solutions to ensure servers are running as effectively as possible and alert users to any performance issues.
• Easy management of a range of computing solutions, including PCs, laptops and mobile devices, from a single console.

Microsoft is trying to promote itself as being in a unique position to help businesses make the transition from on-premises data center solutions to hybrid and full cloud deployments. Therefore, if you're looking towards hosted solutions as the basis for your operations, it could be worth checking out what the company has to offer and considering if its a good fit for your operations.