Macquarie Cloud Services, part of Macquarie Technology Group, launched a global-first software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering on the Microsoft Marketplace, unlocking previously unavailable services, benefits, and value for Australian organisations transacting directly with Microsoft on an enterprise agreement.
Macquarie Guard is a full-turnkey SaaS solution that automates practical guardrails into Azure services, enabling continuous cost optimisation and governance, accelerated development, and greater speed to market.
Macquarie Guard will also allow Azure customers on Microsoft agreements to draw down on their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), unlocking credits and incentives much faster and helping CIOs make the most of their public cloud investment.
Macquarie Guard features Macquarie Cloud Services’ industry-leading Managed Azure intellectual property (IP) and associate services architecture, as well as more than 50 unique function applications with enhanced monitoring, reporting, and security capabilities.
“Macquarie Guard is the culmination of the unique IP across our 120-strong team and our experience providing leading Azure cloud services to Australian organisations,” said Macquarie Cloud Services Head of Azure, Naran McClung.
“Our purpose is to help customers that are underserved and overcharged succeed. We’re ready to bring that expertise and our NPS-proven service to a whole new segment, right as organisations are increasing their cloud footprint and looking to technologies like AI and machine learning.”
Macquarie Guard’s 24×7 automated operations deliver auto-remediation, auto-healing, continuous cost optimisation, compliance and governance, advanced logging, alerting, monitoring, ticketing, and reporting.
“Macquarie Guard’s AI-powered guardrails help organisations liberate their teams from burdensome resource and infrastructure management and spend more time on meaningful and secure change,” said McClung.
The launch follows Microsoft recently announcing it would invest A$5 billion in the next two years to bolster Australian cyber security, cloud, and AI capabilities.
“Customers are truly seeing what real transformation means by leading with securing their data,” said Microsoft Chief Partner Officer Australia and New Zealand, Vanessa Sorenson.
“Macquarie Cloud Services is part of this transformation journey Microsoft is on. Together, we can provide a secure lens and guardrails around customers’ cloud environments, safeguard their data, and service what they truly need to transform.”