Synextra gains full Microsoft Azure partner status

Synextra has received Microsoft's Solutions Partner designation for Digital & App Innovation, meaning the Warrington-based company now holds all three Microsoft Azure Solutions Partner designations.

The latest designation adds to Synextra's existing Infrastructure and Data & AI accreditations, placing it among a small number of regional partners with the full set of Azure designations. Microsoft awards the badges based on customer outcomes, commercial performance and technical expertise across specific parts of its cloud platform.

For Synextra, the new designation marks a shift beyond Azure infrastructure management into software development and platform engineering. Its work is increasingly focused on helping organisations redesign applications and operating models for cloud environments, rather than simply moving existing systems into hosted infrastructure.

Microsoft's Digital & App Innovation designation covers modern application development, containers, Kubernetes, microservices and DevOps practices. It recognises partners working on cloud-native applications and modernisation projects on Azure.

This sits alongside Synextra's Infrastructure designation, which covers migration, modernisation and management of core Azure infrastructure, including compute, networking and storage. Its Data & AI designation relates to building and managing data platforms, analytics systems and artificial intelligence or machine learning workloads on Azure.

Broader Azure work

Synextra works with mid-market and enterprise customers across the UK and describes Azure as its core offering. Its expertise now extends across multiple parts of the Microsoft cloud stack, reflecting client demand for support with application modernisation, platform operations and data projects, as well as core hosting.

The business said many organisations have moved workloads into public cloud environments without redesigning systems around cloud-native methods. In practice, that means some companies run legacy applications in Azure data centres without adopting deployment pipelines, infrastructure as code, container orchestration or service architectures built for distributed environments.

That kind of reworking can be significant for companies seeking better operational resilience, shorter software release cycles and more standardised delivery methods across development teams. A growing share of Synextra's client work has moved in that direction, especially among larger organisations modernising ageing estates.

Dean Murray, Senior Platform Engineer at Synextra, described the designation as recognition of the company's recent work with customers on those projects.

"Earning the Digital & App Innovation designation is a reflection of the advanced platform engineering we deliver every day," said Dean Murray, Senior Platform Engineer at Synextra.

"We're increasingly working alongside enterprise development teams, moving beyond foundational infrastructure to drive genuine cloud-native transformations. Whether it's containerising legacy applications, automating infrastructure as code, or establishing mature DevOps cultures, we're building the environments that large-scale organisations rely on to operate with agility," Murray added.

Partner market

Microsoft's partner programme has become an important marker in the cloud services market, where customers often use vendor designations to assess external providers. The designations indicate that a partner has met thresholds in delivery, certification and customer success in specific technical areas.

For smaller regional providers, holding multiple Azure designations can help distinguish them from firms focused on a narrower slice of the platform. It can also signal an ability to support organisations across several stages of cloud work, from infrastructure migration to application development and data projects.

Synextra said that breadth matters because companies often want to avoid splitting responsibility for infrastructure, applications and data between separate suppliers. In cloud transformation programmes, those strands are closely linked, particularly when businesses are modernising legacy applications while also introducing automation, development pipelines and tighter operational controls.

The company also pointed to security as part of that wider approach, saying it aims to build security measures into platforms from the outset rather than add them later. That work is also reflected in a separate Microsoft Security designation.

The latest Azure designation formalises Synextra's position across infrastructure, data and application development within the Microsoft partner ecosystem, at a time when many customers are still moving from basic cloud hosting towards more extensive re-architecture of business systems.

Digital & App Innovation specifically recognises work in modern application development and platform engineering, including containers, Kubernetes, microservices, DevOps practices and building cloud-native applications rather than simply lifting and shifting existing ones into Azure.