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Which Azure Compute Service should you use for Enterprise Application Development?

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10 reasons why to choose Azure for your Enterprise

Enterprises across the globe are realizing great success with business solutions powered by Cloud. They are redefining the way they do business with scalable & secure cloud-enabled enterprise applications. Globally, 90% of Fortune 500 companies are using Microsoft Azure to drive their business. Using deeply-integrated Azure Consulting services, enterprises can rapidly build, deploy, and manage simple to complex applications with ease. Azure supports a wide range of programming languages, frameworks, operating systems, databases, and devices, allowing enterprises to leverage tools and technologies they trust.

Here are some of the major reasons to choose Azure for your enterprise:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities: Azure boasts an enticing combination of IaaS and PaaS services. IaaS enables enterprises to outsource their infrastructure on Azure and pay for what they use and PaaS lets them create their own web apps & solutions without having to buy and maintain the underlying groundwork. Top Azure consultants from the Microsoft partner community can work with Enterprises to leverage Azure PaaS & IaaS to build enterprise apps on the Cloud for accelerated business growth.

Security Offerings: Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) is an industry leading security process on which Azure has been designed. It comprises security at its core and private data & services stay safe and secure on Azure Cloud. Microsoft Azure offers the was the best compliance coverage of over 50 compliance offerings and is the most trusted cloud platform by U.S. government institutions. Also, it is the first to embrace the new international standard for Cloud privacy, ISO 27018. Thus, Microsoft guarantees the best in terms of safety for all operations and data on the Azure Cloud.

Scalability and Ductility: Applications that run easily, unaffectedly and scale from 10 to 10 million users can be created without any additional coding by using Azure. Azure Storage provides ductile, safe, secure and performance-efficient storage services in cloud. It becomes simpler to change settings and use more processors for the application to use.

Unmatched Hybrid Capabilities: Azure has hybrid capabilities that makes it unique. Azure facilitates easy mobility and a reliable consistent platform between on-premise and public Cloud. Azure provides a broader range of hybrid connections including virtual private networks (VPNs), caches, content delivery networks (CDNs), and ExpressRoute connections to improve usability and performance.

Integrated Environment with Other Microsoft Tools: Organizations dependent on Microsoft tools like Office 365, Outlook and SharePoint invests in a cloud platform that impeccably integrates with Microsoft products. Use of Azure simplifies operations by using the same virtual on-premise machines like Windows and Linux.

Analytics and Intelligence capabilities: Azure facilitates SQL and NoSQL data services and built-in support for digging deeper into data and uncovering key insights for improving business processes and decision making. Azure is the only cloud platform that offers Blockchain as a Service (BaaS), Machine Learning consulting, Bots, and Cognitive APIs capabilities.

Easy learning curve: Familiar tools such as Visual Studio, ASP.NET, and programming languages like Visual Basic, C++, C#, etc., are used to develop cloud native applications, it is thus easy for consultants to develop cloud based enterprise applications.

Cost Efficient Platform: Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go model allows you to pay for what you use to build or expand resources using Azure services. This cuts down the IT administration costs to a minimum as infrastructure is taken care by Microsoft on Azure. It connects datacenters to the cloud effortlessly and supports 42 regions like no other cloud provider.

Interoperability: Amalgamated applications can be developed for on-premises applications such as cloud database with Azure. Azure aids Internet protocols and open standards such as XML, SOAP, REST and HTTP. A software development kit for Java, PHP, and Ruby is available for applications written in those languages and Azure tools for Eclipse.

Identity & Access Management (IAM): Azure offers secure IAM capabilities with Azure Active Directory service to enable right users to access the right information. With Azure, Enterprises can adopt mature IAM capabilities to reduce identity management costs and become more agile, thus supporting innovative business initiatives.

Other public cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform also provide similar capabilities like Microsoft Azure. However, with the sheer speed that Microsoft is launching new components in Azure, it is apparent that it is scored higher in the market place. Trusted Microsoft partners such as Saviant are helping enterprises build scalable & secure cloud native applications by taking full advantage of Azure platform. As an instructive example, check how Saviant helped a US based utility service provider in building a Smart Water Metering system using the full stack of Azure services.

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Enterprise Mobility Solution for Field Engineers to Test Fiber Optic Network | Xamarin Case Study

Learn how Xamarin based Mobile App has helped achieve an efficient workflow management solution which can handle more than 100,000 Fiber-optic tests.

http://www.saviantconsulting.com/xamarin-case-studies/telecommunication-xamarin-native-mobile-app-development.aspx

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US based SaaS innovators gets smarter by moving infrastructure to Azure; enjoys security, reliability and scalability in Cloud

About Client

Headquartered in the US, the client leverages innovative technologies to help its Quick Service Restaurant customers grow their business. They specialize in three critical components; Real-world Retail experience, Advanced qualifications in Business Management & Technologies, and Customized IT solutions.

Our Results

The Azure IaaS solution helped create a secure, reliable & scalable environment, which provides high availability of 99.95% uptime SLA. It reduced hosting costs by 25% and enhanced the speed of applications by 25%. The solution also ensured data recovery and implementation failover, in the event of any catastrophe assuring that their business will keep running.

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IoT Case Study | Cloud-enabled Drone Privacy System

An American defense company addresses privacy concerns of the US citizens for geospatial imagery using Cloud-enabled Drone Privacy System 

About the Client

Based in Virginia, US, our client is a defense company that provides engineering, technical, systems integration, and scientific services to various departments of United States, including the NSA, and other U.S. government civil agencies & few commercial markets. 

Our Results

The Cloud-enabled Drone privacy system supports resolution-degradation of IoT-originated, geospatial imagery. The system based on an Azure-installed privacy registration service has the potential to serve as a privacy guard for citizens. It can also reduce liability related to publishing imagery of property without an owner’s permission.

Read More

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Everything you Need to Know about Mobile App Development Using Xamarin

Developing similar individual native mobile app to run on Android, iOS, and Windows need considerable time and efforts. On the contrary, developing a cross-platform native mobile app using a single framework reduces these efforts significantly. Xamarin is one such platform that gives an average of 75% of shared code and reduces development time by more than 60%.

Let’s walkthrough why Xamarin scores high in developing cross-platform native mobile apps:

Xamarin is Equipped with Visual Studio Xamarin with Visual Studio builds a powerful and modern IDE. It includes various features, such as sophisticated project, project template library, and code auto completion to name a few. It provides .NET/C# framework to generate high performance real-native binary code output resulting in true native applications. With good knowledge of C# and Xamarin’s code reuse feature, it is easy to develop a cross-platform native mobile app within weeks.

Ensures Faster go-to-market with shared core logic Xamarin allows components such as data access layers, business objects and app logic to be shared across multiple platforms. That means, the core logic is written once and deployed across various platforms. Up to 90% of code is shared across the three major mobile platforms leaving the rest to be platform specific. This ensures faster go-to-market. For instance, after developing an iOS app, if the enterprise plans to develop same app to target Android users, then it can be an arduous job for developers to write the code from scratch. However, Xamarin makes this job simpler to create iOS app with ready-to-use shared code.

Lowers Learning Curve and go-live within weeks It is highly inefficient and costly to learn, develop, and maintain different codes for the same application across multiple platforms. However, Xamarin requires only C# language skills. Developers can thus avoid spending time in learning separate programming environments as single code works for multiple platforms. This diminishes the learning curve for the developers and accelerates app deployment.

Offers Xamarin Component Store Xamarin provides a ready-to-use component store. A collection of striking charts, graphs, UI controls, cloud services, beautiful themes, and various powerful features are readily available in the store. This helps the Xamarin consultants to add-on these components easily in minutes in Xamarin studio or visual studio to speed-up their mobile app development process.

Provides Secure Backend using AMS With the global partnership of Xamarin and Microsoft, .NET Portable Class Libraries are made available with deep integration with Visual Studio. These also provide support to Microsoft Azure Mobile Services on Android and iOS. With this feature, a secure and scalable backend is created for multiple mobile platforms.

Supports SDK Integration and Readiness for Future Xamarin works with the latest SDKs and utilizes some of the common and platform-specific APIs. It strongly binds APIs and SDKs of multiple platforms to generate high-quality applications. This result in Xamarin mobile apps with effective user-friendly interface. This unique SDK integration feature of Xamarin helps in providing support for new features, as soon as they are inserted in the operating system of the device.

Advocates minimal Bugs Xamarin output results in apps with fewer bugs due to its shared code technique. It becomes easy to maintain bug-free code, as the core application code is validated once for multiple platforms. Developers use Xamarin TestCloud, a mobile app testing module, which helps in testing apps with fragmentation, reports, continuous integration, and object-based UI testing. Enterprises can use Xamarin Insights, a real-time app monitor module, which helps in monitoring the performance and health of Xamarin apps.

Recently,

Xamarin Ultimate

has been made available, which bundles Xamarin Platform, TestCloud, Insights, and Xamarin University in to a single package. This provides an end-to-end solution in building, testing, and monitoring mobile applications. This can help businesses to accelerate the mobile app development life cycle.

Thousands of tech savvy enterprises and developers have adopted this next-gen technology in enterprise mobile development. A leading food services provider, based in UK, has successfully deployed a Windows phone application using Xamarin. They are now planning to deploy an android application, which functions similarly to their existing Windows app. As more than 75% of the shared code is ready-to-use in Xamarin, new android app can be easily developed and deployed. This will ensure faster go-to-market and development cycle of mobile app.

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5 ways How IoT and Analytics help Enterprises drive Business Growth

Technology is playing a major role in shaping business growth, disrupting industry verticals and providing the catalyst for business modernization – through optimizing the business operations, engaging their customers, empowering their employees or upgrading the products. IoT and Analytics platforms are transforming businesses with their rich capabilities to gain quality insights through connected data-driven solutions. Microsoft Azure platform is helping enterprises in this revolution through Azure IoT and Analytics services.

Let’s take a look at how IoT and Analytics are empowering Enterprises in driving business growth

Real-time Management of Critical Systems – With connected IoT assets, enterprises capture vast troves of real-time data that helps in tracking assets, products and day-to-day operations. Such insights can further assist in remote asset monitoring, real-time supply chain visibility, security and fraud detection, which can translate to better operations for an organization. Analytical solutions built around the real-time data, using machine learning techniques, are further helping enterprises in enabling intelligent business operations and predictive analytics.

Extended Business-Critical Operations on Mobile platform - Enterprises are leveraging Enterprise Mobility platform to enable real-time access to critical information from anywhere through handheld devices. Cross-platform mobile apps integrated with IoT and Analytics driven Cloud solutions deliver real-time insights on mobile devices. This data is helping enterprises and its consumers in taking better decisions in real-time. For example, Cloud based Smart Metering Solutionbuilt around water meters are helping the utilities and its customers with water consumption data in real-time. This system is helping the customers in taking proper decisions towards efficient water consumption.

Automated Work Management System – While automation forms the backbone process in most industries, it can be vastly improved when optimized with Analytics and IoT. It can pave the way for major improvements in the work environment like remote field-force connectivity. For example, energy wastes can be reduced with the help of smart IoT devices that bring such instances to notice. IoT solutions can even predict when a system is likely to fail, thus offloading the need to have workers manually shut them down for maintenance. Moreover, IoT and real-time analytics can aid in creating a central data repository, which can notify the identification of issues.

Disaster Planning and Recovery – IoT implementation for disaster management can turn out to be one of the biggest game changing trends. With IoT sensors and warning systems, troves of real-time data can help in effective monitoring and analysis. This helps industries or businesses in making critical decisions. For example, IoT sensors can effectively monitor the rise in levels of harmful gases in certain industry units and automatically shuts down the system with a raised alarm. Analytics solutions devised on this critical data can provide possibilities or measures to avoid the likelihood of a disaster taking place, thereby saving plenty of lives.

Proper Utilization of Business Resources – IoT and analytics can work in tandem to provide businesses with reports on planning and utilization of resources at hand. Predictive planning can aid organizations in managing resource allocations that translate to optimal performance. Further, the reallocation of jobs and resources can be based on a mix of real-time statistics and the predictive analytical solutions.

Many Enterprises are combining IoT assets with Microsoft Azure services and driving analytics through Azure machine learning solutions. Azure IoT Suite offers a hub of services to connect, monitor and control numerous IoT devices. Likewise, data based real-time and predictive analytics formulated through ML solutions are benefitting Enterprises with informed decisions. Take advantage of Azure IoT consultants and Analytics experts to securely connect IoT assets, analyse critical data, and present insights to the customers – in the way to drive business growth.

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Every enterprise is planning to mobilize their existing systems, people or business processes to amplify their operational efficiency, generate more revenue, and to improve the business growth. This needs expanding legacy or existing applications over Enterprise Mobility Platform or building new mobile applications that are best suitable for their business. On similar lines, Gartner predicted that the market demand for Enterprise mobile app development will increase by 5 times before 2018. However, finding a right development framework that helps in delivering smart secure mobile enterprise apps is challenging. Here comes Xamarin, a path-breaking platform, that is helping enterprises in developing Native or Cross-platform mobile apps. 

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Xamarin helps in the deployment of cross-platform native mobile applications, which provide best user experience and performance. It offers up to 75% code sharable across platforms such as Android, iOS, and Windows. Android mobile applications are developed using either Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio with Xamarin. Android installed.

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Both Azure and AWS offer similar IaaS capabilities for virtual machines, networking, and storage. However, Azure provides stronger PaaS capabilities which is an important piece of Cloud infrastructure today.

Microsoft Azure PaaS provides application developers with the environment, tools, and building blocks that they need to rapidly build and deploy new cloud services. It also provides the vital ‘dev-ops’ connections which are important for monitoring, managing, and continually fine-tuning those apps. With Azure PaaS, much of the infrastructure management is taken care of behind the scenes by Microsoft. Thus, developing Azure PaaS solutions allow for a 100% focus on innovation.

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Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) is the preferable design pattern to separate the user interface & business logic concerns. It contributes in making code-sharable across major platforms. The advantage of writing business logic in ViewModel and communicating View via Model results in separating the components. MVVM Light Toolkit is one of the most established frameworks for MVVM. It helps in bringing the pattern over Xamarin development framework to make code-sharable across multiple mobile platforms and accelerates the deployment process.

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IoT is topping the technology hype cycle aiming to help business entities achieve connected enterprises. IoT combined with Analytical solutions are helping enterprises solve critical business challenges such as Real-time analytics, sensors integration, maximum asset utilization, real-time supply chain visibility and many more. Amongst the many available IoT service providers, Amazon AWS IoT and Microsoft Azure IoT are the top robust providers. Both offer quality services to help enterprises in achieving their business goals. However, there are many reasons to choose Azure IoT over Amazon IoT, but here are the most important ones.