will now easier for social enterprises and start-ups to build and grow their companies and organizations and be able to solve social and environmental challenges, thanks to Microsoft’s offer of access to free cloud technologies. The offer consists of Kshs.12.1million in Azure credit plus technical support and guide.
Microsoft Azure is a collection of various cloud computing services, including remotely hosted and managed versions of proprietary Microsoft technologies and open technologies.
Traditionally, businesses and other organizations would host their own infrastructure. A business would have its own web server on its own hardware. If more power was needed, the business would have to purchase more server hardware. The business would also have to pay someone to administer that hardware and a solid Internet connection to serve its customers. Alternatively, there are hosting companies that host your services on some of their own hardware in their data centres, for a fee.
Cloud computing works differently. Rather than running your own hardware or paying for use of some specific hardware in someone else’s data centre, you just pay for access to a massive pool of computing resources provided by Microsoft. This allows you to host web servers, email servers, databases, file storage servers, virtual machines and user directories. When you need more computing resources, you don’t have to purchase physical hardware. The “cloud” shares the hardware and automatically assigns the work. You pay for as many computing resources as you need.
