Pictured above: Macquarie's Naran McClung (left) and Microsoft's Rachel Bondi (right)

Macquarie Telecom's cloud services division has launched its Azure practice today, following a strategic agreement with Microsoft.

The agreement to use Azure as its public cloud offering will see Macquarie Cloud Services deliver Azure managed services to customers across Australia.

Macquarie Cloud Services can manage Azure workloads offshore for Australian-headquartered businesses as a tier one Microsoft cloud services provider (CSP).

The dedicated Azure practice is led by experienced Microsoft specialist, Naran McClung.

“Partnership remains firmly within Microsoft's DNA, and our business market segments see high adoption of Microsoft technologies – so combined with our existing relationship, our undiluted focus on Azure makes perfect sense,” McClung says.

“We've invested heavily in people, accreditations, product development automation, and we're helping Australian businesses embrace Azure to its fullest expression. This will lead to successful migrations, cost savings and predictability, refined IT architecture and true cloud-native operations for our customers.

The agreement expands Macquarie Cloud Services' offering and enables it to bring public cloud into its managed hybrid IT services, which is timely as recent predictions from Gartner indicate that up to 60% of organisations will use an external service provider's cloud-managed service offering, double the 2018 percentage.

Macquarie Cloud Services has already been working closely with Microsoft to provide Azure managed services to a number of customers and solve real challenges in the process.

“Our customers want to maximise their value from Azure and adapt with the platform as it evolves. They look to us for insights, facilitated change and the assurance of our ongoing focus,” adds McClung.

“With its sole public cloud focus on Azure, Macquarie Cloud Services is poised to support both new and existing medium and corporate businesses with innovation, transformation and next-generation operations and resource optimisation,” Microsoft chief partner officer Rachel Bondi says.

“Macquarie Cloud Services enjoys consistently strong customer feedback, and we are delighted to work with a partner of this calibre, as it brings the benefits of Azure – the most secure and trusted public cloud – to its clients.

“This agreement builds upon our 18-year history of providing mission-critical cloud/hosting services to Australian businesses,” adds Macquarie Cloud Services Group executive James Mystakidis.

“It also enhances our partnership with Microsoft as we continue to evolve our Hybrid cloud blueprint.