Transforming the Digital Workspace: Microsoft's Power Platform

Today’s digital workspace is transforming the way people work. The modern workforce requires access to information and people wherever they are — at home, in the office, or outside of either location. To support these increasingly mobile workers, businesses need a digital workspace that enables access to applications, data and people from any device with minimal friction. Microsoft’s Power Platform is a hybrid cloud solution for the modern workplace. It unifies the management of identity, collaboration and communication apps with security, voice services, artificial intelligence and analytics services across on-premises and cloud environments. This blog post will explore what Microsoft’s Power Platform is and how it can help you transform your workspace.

Why Leverage a Cloud-Based Digital Workspace?

With the rise in the number of remote and mobile workers, companies face challenges when it comes to managing and securing data and applications that are outside their corporate boundaries. To overcome these challenges, many companies have begun leveraging cloud-based collaboration and communication tools to reduce IT costs and improve employee productivity by enabling employees to work from anywhere. While there are numerous benefits to using cloud-based collaboration and communication tools, it is important to consider the security and compliance issues that may arise when storing data outside of an organization’s firewall. This is where a cloud-based digital workspace solution can help. A digital workspace is a cloud-based solution that provides the tools for people to work together, communicate and access information seamlessly across devices and locations. A digital workspace enables organizations to provide employees with the tools and resources they need, regardless of whether they are working from the office or from home. It also addresses the security, compliance and management challenges that come with offloading work tools to the cloud. A cloud-based digital workspace solution allows businesses to centralize the management of communication and collaboration tools, including security features, to provide a consistent and positive user experience across devices.

What is Microsoft’s Power Platform?

Microsoft’s Power Platform is a hybrid cloud solution that unifies the management of identity, collaboration and communication apps with security, voice services, artificial intelligence and analytics services across on-premises and cloud environments. Power Platform consists of Azure Sphere, Azure Active Directory and Azure Information Protection.

The platform also consists of Microsoft 365, which brings together Office 365 and Windows products. Together, these services make up Microsoft’s Power Platform, enabling businesses to provide a modern, secure and compliant digital workspace where employees can securely access information, apps, data and people from any device. The following describes how these services fit together to create the Power Platform.

• Azure Sphere - Provides security and privacy in an Internet of Things (IoT) world by securing endpoints with built-in hardware root of trust security.
• Azure Active Directory - Provides identity and access management for cloud applications and internet-based workloads.
• Azure Information Protection - Protects data from accidental or malicious exposure, as well as enables compliance with regulatory standards.
• Microsoft 365 - Provides a set of tools, apps and services for collaboration and productivity across devices.

?How the Power Platform Supports a Digital Workspace

Microsoft’s Power Platform supports a digital workspace by unifying identity, collaboration and communication tools across on-premises and cloud environments. The platform also supports the adoption of cloud-first and hybrid IT strategies. The following describes how the Power Platform supports a digital workspace.

• Identity - Provides a common identity experience across apps and environments with Azure Active Directory.
• Collaboration - Includes a set of intelligent communication tools, including Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Groups and Microsoft Flow.
• Communication - Provides a secure and compliant communications service with Azure Information Protection.
• Security - Provides a highly scalable security service with Azure Security Centre.
• Analytics - Provides insights into IT operations and business performance with Azure Analysis Services.

?Key Features of the Power Platform

The following highlights the key features of the Power Platform.

• Feature Description Identity - Azure Active Directory Identity management and provisioning are critical for managing the user experience and enforcing security policies across apps and devices.
• Azure Active Directory unifies the management of users, groups and device identities across on-premises and cloud environments. Authentication and authorization are based on user claims that are issued by identity providers such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others.
• AD FS and Azure AD are the core identity and access management services that are available with Power Platform.
• Collaboration - Microsoft Teams is available on desktop, web, iOS and Android mobile devices. Teams bring together chat, voice and video calls, Office documents, meeting invites and other resources.
• Power Apps is a low code / no code modern app builder that allows companies to build line-of-sight business applications.
• Power BI is a data visualisation tool to allow key stakeholders to quickly interrogate high quality data.
• Power Automate is a workflow automation tool that allows users to connect apps, such as SharePoint, with flows to automate tasks.
• Power Virtual Agents is create powerful AI-powered chatbots for a range of requests - from providing simple answers to common questions or resolving complex issues through conversation.
• Communication - Azure Information Protection Azure Information Protection provides users with a single place to manage the security of their content. It makes it easy to apply security labelling and protection to data, both in transit and at rest. It also enables compliance with regulatory standards like GDPR, PCI DSS and ISO 27001/27018.
• Security - Azure Security Centre Azure Security Centre manages the security and compliance posture of on-premises and cloud environments. It provides a single view of an organization’s security state and enables administrators to take action to improve their security posture.
• Analytics - Azure Analysis Services Azure Analysis Services provides self-service business intelligence (BI) capabilities in the cloud. It uses SQL-based analytics, which most people are familiar with, along with Power BI, a more user-friendly tool designed for non-technical users.

?Key Takeaway

As businesses modernize their IT environment, it is important to transform the digital workplace to support a collaborative, mobile and cloud-first culture. Microsoft’s Power Platform is a hybrid cloud solution that unifies identity, collaboration and communication tools with security, voice services and analytics services across on-premises and cloud environments. The Power Platform also provides a set of tools for collaboration and productivity across devices, including Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Flow for communication and collaboration, Azure Information Protection for data security, Azure Security Centre for security and Azure Analysis Services for data analytics.