Dive Brief:
- Microsoft Azure and Informatica are working together to help companies migrate analytics portfolios to cloud, Microsoft said in an announcement Tuesday.
- While companies are undergoing — or have already completed — infrastructure migrations to the cloud, attention is turning to other assets. It was only a matter of time before companies started thinking about data, John "JG" Chirapurath, general manager of Azure Data, Analytics, Blockchain & AI at Microsoft, told CIO Dive.
- Migrations have paved the way for businesses to look at data estates, according to Chirapurath. Under the partnership, Azure and Informatica will help companies understand what data is in their warehouse and offer code conversion for on-premise appliances to the cloud.
Dive Insight:
As a leading cloud provider, behind Amazon Web Services in market share, Microsoft is trying to make modernization and migration as seamless as possible.
Building on-premise conversions to the cloud across a technology portfolio — from infrastructure to analytics — creates viable technology for businesses, wherever they are in a modernization strategy. It also caters to Microsoft's large existing customer base, some of which preceded the cloud era.
Rather than taking on all types of technology on its own, Microsoft has partnered with leading providers in other spaces. The company recently connected cloud services with Oracle.
Now Microsoft is teaming with Informatica, Gartner's industry leader in data integration tools, ahead of companies like IBM, SAP and SAS.
The deal caters to joint customers and puts the burden of aspects like code conversion on the vendors, according to Chirapurath.
The partnership speaks to the growing role data plays in the enterprise. Companies are collecting as much information as they can, but until analytics are applied, the data yields little insight.
Enterprise analytics is going through a "renaissance" as more companies work to manage and analyze collected data to determine patterns, said Chirapurath.
As companies add data, on-prem systems can't keep up with the data volume, said Chirapurath. In response, companies are migrating to the cloud to build scalable analytics systems to analyze and visualize the data.
