Hybrid Cloud Index: Microsoft Leading in Hybrid Cloud

By all accounts Amazon Web Services (AWS) leads the market among hyperscaler public cloud providers. But when it comes to hybrid cloud implementations, Microsoft’s Azure seems to be pulling ahead, according to analysis by Futuriom's Cloud Tracker Pro.

There’s nothing really surprising here. For several years, word on the street has been that despite its many advantages, AWS continues to favor its own products and services over those of other vendors and service providers. Azure, in contrast, has earned a reputation for delivering consistent, software- and cloud-driven management across environments that mix on-premises resources with cloud services.

Case in point: Metro South Health in Brisbane, Australia, opted to use Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution to migrate 150 virtual machines in its existing VMware environment to the cloud while maintaining some legacy applications on premises. The result has been savings in operational, hardware, and licensing costs. “Our skill set is very much based around VMware, so Azure VMware Solution really appealed to us. The tools we use in Azure resemble what we use on-premises,” said Harry Sturgess, manager of technology and operations at the healthcare provider.

In another instance, Portugal’s Centro Hospitalar de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (CHTMAD), a three-hospital system serving roughly 400,000 people in 34 municipalities, was able to deploy Azure Arc to extend management across its on-premises and cloud environments.