Research individuals shared that Azure supplies a extra environment friendly and efficient platform for his or her Ubuntu workloads, maximizing their worth in core enterprise features and supporting new expertise adoption.
Companies immediately are underneath stress to innovate quicker, scale back prices, and keep safe—all whereas making 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 providers constructed for Linux and Open Supply. Central to this transformation is Ubuntu, Canonical’s enterprise-grade Linux distribution, which integrates seamlessly with Azure’s IaaS and PaaS. Collectively, they ship excessive efficiency, reliability, and enterprise assist—plus a broad set of instruments to make migration easy and environment friendly.
To convey a data-driven perspective to those advantages, Microsoft commissioned Worldwide Information Company (IDC) to conduct a enterprise worth research* primarily based on interviews with organizations that moved their Ubuntu workloads from on-premises to Azure. Research individuals shared that Azure supplies a extra environment friendly and efficient platform for his or her Ubuntu workloads, maximizing their worth in core enterprise features and supporting new expertise adoption. Utilizing the information derived from these interviews, IDC analysts created a typical buyer profile to signify widespread experiences and enterprise outcomes. The consolidated knowledge from research individuals exhibits that operating 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 value of operations.
- 63% quicker to deploy new compute assets and 52% quicker to scale to new enterprise alternatives.
- 85% much less unplanned downtime affecting customers.
- $30.63M increased income per group per yr.
Quantified advantages of Ubuntu on Microsoft Azure
IDC interviewed stakeholders concerned with Ubuntu workloads on Azure, uncovering vital advantages cited by individuals, together with:
Run mission-critical workloads with strong efficiency and suppleness
Organizations operating workloads resembling knowledge 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 are able to scale improvements and experiment with applied sciences like GenAI, ML, and large knowledge analytics with out infrastructure constraints.”
The research individuals additionally highlighted the benefit of migrating Ubuntu workloads to Azure and the flexibility so as to add or take away capability as wanted. Good points in agility and improvement had been notable, with customers in a position to regulate and scale their Ubuntu environments extra quickly and flexibly in Azure, decreasing deployment-related friction on improvement and enterprise actions.
“Scalability is among the causes we moved to Ubuntu on Azure. We now have speedy scaling and versatile deployment, which improve our responsiveness to enterprise wants by nearly 40%.”
Strengthen safety and empower your IT groups
Safety was one other standout profit for organizations adopting Ubuntu on Azure. They skilled enhanced operational resilience and decreased publicity to safety and efficiency dangers. Azure’s built-in safety instruments, together with Microsoft Defender for Cloud, provide steady safety evaluation menace detection, and actionable suggestions. This allows IT groups to proactively determine vulnerabilities, reply swiftly to potential threats, and keep strong safety, in the end supporting enterprise continuity and fostering belief with clients and stakeholders.
“Ubuntu on Azure supplies built-in security measures resembling Microsoft Defender for Cloud, which is a steady safety evaluation and actionable suggestions. This proactive strategy helps us determine vulnerabilities earlier than they are often exploited, which is what all of us are looking for.”
As well as, 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 improvement cycles, and enabled groups to make quicker progress on business-critical tasks by leveraging built-in AI instruments and infrastructure that assist speedy experimentation and deployment.
“With Ubuntu on Azure, we leverage AI and refocus our IT crew. Managing on-premises infrastructure was tough, however Azure AI providers enhanced our purposes and drove innovation. We’ve shifted IT assets from upkeep to strategic tasks, bettering productiveness by 25%.”
Scale back operational prices whereas scaling effectively
Organizations additionally realized vital value efficiencies with Ubuntu on Azure. By profiting from Azure’s pay-as-you-go pricing and eradicating {hardware} upkeep burdens, companies achieved notable infrastructure and licensing financial savings.
IDC discovered that clients decreased the price of operating Ubuntu workloads by a mean 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 yr.
“Ubuntu on Azure has decreased our direct IT prices by 40%, and it additionally optimizes our useful resource allocation, so we’ve got higher operational effectivity and workers time financial savings.”
“Ubuntu on Azure presents vital value financial savings and scalability in comparison with on-premises options. It additionally supplies glorious integration and interoperability and helps handle knowledge challenges, enhancing completeness, accuracy, and availability to assist enterprise selections.”
Be taught extra from the IDC research
*IDC White Paper, sponsored by Microsoft, The Enterprise Worth of Ubuntu on Microsoft Azure, doc # US52857024, January 2025.
