Study members shared that Azure gives a extra environment friendly and efficient platform for his or her Ubuntu workloads, maximizing their worth in core enterprise features and supporting new know-how adoption.
Businesses immediately are below stress to innovate sooner, scale back prices, and keep safe—all whereas getting ready for an AI-driven future. As a part of this shift, many organizations are turning to Microsoft Azure to modernize their infrastructure. In doing so, they discover that migrating to Azure helps meet these evolving calls for by bettering agility, strengthening safety, and laying the muse for AI readiness.
Microsoft Azure helps your migration and modernization journey with companies constructed for Linux and Open Source. Central to this transformation is Ubuntu, Canonical’s enterprise-grade Linux distribution, which integrates seamlessly with Azure’s IaaS and PaaS. Together, they ship excessive efficiency, reliability, and enterprise help—plus a broad set of instruments to make migration clean and environment friendly.
To carry a data-driven perspective to those advantages, Microsoft commissioned International Data Corporation (IDC) to conduct a enterprise worth research* primarily based on interviews with organizations that moved their Ubuntu workloads from on-premises to Azure. Study members shared that Azure gives a extra environment friendly and efficient platform for his or her Ubuntu workloads, maximizing their worth in core enterprise features and supporting new know-how adoption. Using the info derived from these interviews, IDC analysts created a typical buyer profile to characterize frequent experiences and enterprise outcomes. The consolidated information from research members exhibits that working Canonical Ubuntu workloads on Azure delivers the next advantages:
- 306% three-year return on funding with an 11-month payback on funding.
- 35% decrease three-year price of operations.
- 63% sooner to deploy new compute sources and 52% sooner to scale to new enterprise alternatives.
- 85% much less unplanned downtime affecting customers.
- $30.63M greater income per group per 12 months.
Quantified advantages of Ubuntu on Microsoft Azure
IDC interviewed stakeholders concerned with Ubuntu workloads on Azure, uncovering vital advantages cited by members, together with:
Run mission-critical workloads with sturdy efficiency and suppleness
Organizations working workloads reminiscent of information analytics, engineering simulations, and machine studying, expertise elevated agility and operational effectivity with Ubuntu on Azure. By leveraging Ubuntu on Azure, companies can scale seamlessly and reply swiftly to altering market circumstances, guaranteeing optimum software efficiency whereas accelerating innovation and sustaining a aggressive edge.
“With Ubuntu on Azure, we’ve unlocked AI adoption. We can scale innovations and experiment with technologies like GenAI, ML, and big data analytics without infrastructure constraints.”
The research members additionally highlighted the benefit of migrating Ubuntu workloads to Azure and the flexibility so as to add or take away capability as wanted. Gains in agility and growth had been notable, with customers in a position to alter and scale their Ubuntu environments extra quickly and flexibly in Azure, lowering deployment-related friction on growth and enterprise actions.
“Scalability is one of the reasons we moved to Ubuntu on Azure. We now have rapid scaling and flexible deployment, which enhance our responsiveness to business needs by almost 40%.”
Strengthen safety and empower your IT groups
Security was one other standout profit for organizations adopting Ubuntu on Azure. They skilled enhanced operational resilience and lowered publicity to safety and efficiency dangers. Azure’s built-in safety instruments, together with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, supply steady safety evaluation risk detection, and actionable suggestions. This allows IT groups to proactively determine vulnerabilities, reply swiftly to potential threats, and preserve sturdy safety, in the end supporting enterprise continuity and fostering belief with clients and stakeholders.
“Ubuntu on Azure provides built-in security features such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud, which is a continuous security assessment and actionable recommendations. This proactive approach helps us identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, which is what we all are looking out for.”
In addition, IT groups have been in a position to shift their focus from maintenance-heavy duties to extra strategic, innovation-driven efforts, together with AI initiatives. The transition to Azure simplified operations, streamlined growth cycles, and enabled groups to make sooner progress on business-critical initiatives by leveraging built-in AI instruments and infrastructure that help speedy experimentation and deployment.
“With Ubuntu on Azure, we leverage AI and refocus our IT team. Managing on-premises infrastructure was difficult, but Azure AI services enhanced our applications and drove innovation. We’ve shifted IT resources from maintenance to strategic projects, improving productivity by 25%.”
Reduce operational prices whereas scaling effectively
Organizations additionally realized vital price efficiencies with Ubuntu on Azure. By making the most of Azure’s pay-as-you-go pricing and eradicating {hardware} upkeep burdens, companies achieved notable infrastructure and licensing financial savings.
IDC discovered that clients lowered the price of working Ubuntu workloads by a median of 35% over three years, saving $6,500 per Azure VM. Many additionally noticed a 29% discount in annual infrastructure prices, equating to roughly $581,100 per 12 months.
“Ubuntu on Azure has reduced our direct IT costs by 40%, and it also optimizes our resource allocation, so we have better operational efficiency and staff time savings.”
“Ubuntu on Azure offers significant cost savings and scalability compared to on-premises solutions. It also provides excellent integration and interoperability and helps address data challenges, enhancing completeness, accuracy, and availability to support business decisions.”
Learn extra from the IDC research
*IDC White Paper, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Value of Ubuntu on Microsoft Azure, doc # US52857024, January 2025.