The Partner Opportunities with Azure Are Growing

Today, there’s no doubt that cloud technology is a staple, especially as businesses continue to tackle digital transformation and cloud adoption in greater capacity. In fact, Microsoft was one of the first to recognize the growing need for a seamless hybrid cloud platform, which led to the development of Azure Stack in 2017. Although Azure has evolved since then, our vision for a single cloud-based solution stands firm.

What’s more, we are steadfast in our mission to build the momentum around Azure. You might recall that I spoke about our successful Azure co-selling motions at Inspire, and we are still investing in the opportunities for partners like you. And with the end of support for Windows Server 2008, there is a massive opportunity to assist customers with their cloud adoption and migration. Now is the perfect time to experience the booming Azure opportunity for yourself.

The exciting opportunities ahead with Microsoft Azure

Microsoft has always been a partner-led business, and all of our Azure investments are designed to empower you and your customers on the journey to the cloud. We know that the cloud has become increasingly complex, which is why we are laser-focused on helping you face any cloud adoption and migration challenge head on.  

To that end, we are focused on three key areas:

·     Enablement – We are committed to helping you align your people, business processes, and technology investments to Azure. This includes equipping you with our cloud adoption framework and providing the skills and readiness necessary to be successful.

·     Migration – We are dedicated to helping you migrate your existing workloads into Azure.

·     Innovation – We are invested in helping you modernize current applications as well as build and develop new applications to create a cohesive cloud experience that fosters innovation.

Case in point, Rubrik, an ISV whose software moves all enterprise applications and data archives to Azure, is seeing incredible success in their go-to-market investments by partnering with Microsoft to modernize their customers’ data center workloads. In fact, Rubrik added over 3,500 opportunities to their pipeline in 2019 by co-selling with Azure!

For those of you looking to capitalize on the growing Azure opportunity, we’ve introduced two new compelling initiatives that will help accelerate your migration strategy and provide cloud management at scale: Azure Lighthouse and Azure Migration Program.

Azure Lighthouse

At Inspire, we announced the launch of Azure Lighthouse, a solution that offers automated and scaled cross-customer cloud management, and extends your marketplace offers, Azure services, and licensing models to increase profitability.

Azure Lighthouse provides advanced automation so you can confidently manage multiple customers’ Azure estates at scale while also protecting your management IP. This allows you to deliver more services and better support to your customers at less cost.

There are several notable benefits to Azure Lighthouse, including:

·     Reduced manual operational tasks in migrating your customers to Azure.

·     Scalable customer management with single view management features.

·     Maximized visibility into your customers’ environments from your own platform.

·     Simplified engagement processes, such as onboarding, through automated workflows.

·     Consistent licensing constructs, including enterprise agreement (EA), cloud solution provider (CSP), and pay-as-you-go.

Azure Migration Program (AMP)

Built on feedback from customers and partners like you, AMP is a packaged and scalable migration offering that includes tools, resources, and advice from Azure Expert MSPs so you can confidently migrate your customers to Azure.

Within the program, our specialized migration experts will provide you with step-by-step guidance through our proven cloud adoption methodologies, as well as a foundation for developing new Azure skills as the service continues to evolve, so you can masterfully guide your customers through the cloud migration process.

There are several exciting core benefits for AMP partners, including:

·     Curated guidance from Microsoft experts based on proven Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure.

·     Technical skill building on Azure fundamentals with role-specific courses.

·     Free migration tools, including Azure Migrate and Azure Cost Management to optimize costs.

·     Additional discounts, offers, and investments to help you get started, such as Azure Hybrid Benefit, free Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008.

Currently, AMP is available to partners who have experience working with Azure and have demonstrated success in driving Azure adoption with our shared customers. The One Commercial Partner team has launched the Advanced Specializations certification for Azure migration, which is the first step to joining AMP.

For those new to Azure migration, I encourage you to check out our Azure Migration Center for step-by-step guidance through the process.

What’s next?

I am eager to see how you will embrace Azure and continue to drive innovation for our shared customers. Learn more about Azure Lighthouse and see if your Azure expertise is a fit for AMP. Be sure to check out our Advanced Specializations and stay up to date on all Azure news.

Until next time,

Alyssa Fitzpatrick