Essar Group unleashes power of cloud with Windows Azure

INDIA: In an effort to offer its customers Web-based applications with high performance and scalability while maintaining low infrastructure and management costs, multinational conglomerate Essar Group has implemented Windows Azure,Microsoft’s cloud services platform, to deliver some of its applications.

A leader in various business sectors, including steel, energy, power, communications, shipping ports, logistics and construction, and with operations in more than 25 countries across five continents and revenues at $17 billion, Essar remains competitive in an aggressive marketplace through a focused effort on superior customer service.With its enterprise customers in mind, the company sought to enhance its offerings with a cloud version of some of its applications.

Microsoft Services approached Essar with a cost-effective solution in Windows Azure that allowed the company to obtain the benefits of both public and private cloud computing while also reducing the level of IT maintenance required to manage the applications on-premises. Because it is hosted in Microsoft datacenters, Windows Azure is able to provide developers with on-demand computing and storage, as well as the ability to scale and manage Web applications.

Essar expects that the delivery of its applications through Windows Azure will enable the company to increase profitability and reduce costs by as much as 65 percent. Because IT staff members are also no longer allocating time to infrastructure management, they can devote more time to mission-critical operations.