Microsoft Azure

From the start, we were struck by the enormous potential of the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model to generate an entirely new level of value for our customers.

We could virtually eliminate the cost and complexity of buying and managing the hardware and software infrastructure underlying GEP SMART. We could also provide the very highest levels of availability, security and business continuity.

But who to work with? In the end, there was really no question. Microsoft Azure Platform provides our customers one of the most robust, most reliable and most secure IT infrastructures on the planet. Truth is ,Microsoft has experience in designing, managing, and securing world-class data centers in diverse locations around the world that few can match.

These centers are designed and constructed with stringent levels of physical security and access control, power redundancy and efficiency, environmental control and state-of-the-art recoverability capabilities. And they are the same data centers that run many of the world's largest online services. (The physical facilities have achieved broad industry compliance, including ISO 27001 and SOC / SSAE 16 / SAS 70 Type II and within the United States, FISMA certification.)

What's more, Microsoft Azure is the seedbed of an entire ecosystem of third-party developers, eager to innovate and improve a vast range of related, performance-enhancing applications — from middleware to specialized business components. And that's critical to our vision of continually raising the bar for ourselves and our products.

And with unparalleled levels of availability, security and business continuity guaranteed, we can focus on what we do best – providing the most innovative, most intuitive and most effective sourcing and procurement tools on the market. When you add it all up, it's GEP SMART.