The Microsoft technology stack: a practitioner's guide
August 27, 2026
We are 99% certain: you're already using the Microsoft stack. At this very moment. You may simply not even notice it.
Your emails in Outlook, numbers in Excel, or a Dynamics 365 product running on Azure that nobody in an organization even remembers buying. The pieces of the MS stack are already hiding in the familiar apps the majority treat as a base. Most likely, these tools were never chosen as one solution. They snowballed, decision by decision, until the integrations became a total mess.
Here's the thing. Most organizations have no idea how the stack really works; they don’t know how they can really benefit from it. We do know. At Global Mediator, we build and maintain business software on this stack every day. We'll show you exactly what you own and why it is important.
What is the Microsoft technology stack?
A technology stack is a combination of tools, languages, frameworks, and services. It’s used to build and run software. When talking about the Microsoft stack, it is also that set, supplied mainly by one vendor (MS in this case). It’s engineered in a way that it usually does not need a third-party glue for its components to fit together.
Let’s visualize it in layers – it’s easier this way. At the bottom, there is the operating system and infrastructure: Windows Server and the Azure cloud. Above that goes the data layer, where SQL Server, Azure SQL, and Dataverse store and serve information. The next layer is the development and applications, built with C# on .NET. At the top, users get their business applications: Dynamics 365, the Power Platform family, and the MS 365 suite, which they work with practically every day.
Integration – or how everything works together – is crucial. It makes these components a stack rather than a set of separate products. Each piece connects to the next one. You log in once through Entra ID and that identity applies throughout the ecosystem. Data can sit in Dataverse as a single source of truth, not in several disconnected copies. APIs follow a predictable flow. As a result, all processes are coherent. If set up properly, of course.
That’s the intent of design. In reality, it’s the execution that determines how the system works.
Key strengths of the Microsoft stack
Its biggest strength is the one that often gets overlooked: most tools are already familiar to the team. Your team already uses Windows and already knows Excel. Adoption doesn’t cost much when the new solution looks like the tools people have used for a decade or two.
The second backbone is integration. Microsoft owns most of the layers, meaning the connections between them are tested, documented, and supported by a single vendor. For example, when a Business Central record needs to show up in Teams or start a Power Automate flow, every component is designed to work with the next. Most tools know how to use the data the others produce, or can use standard connectors for that. That shortens development time and removes many integration risks.
Then comes the support ecosystem. The processes and functionality are well documented. The partner network is huge, so there's always someone to help. Finding a developer who knows C#, AL, or Azure is more realistic than finding good professionals for some niche technology, which directly affects hiring costs and project schedule.
Three more benefits are worth mentioning. Microsoft offers enterprise-grade security and centrally manages it through Entra ID and Microsoft Defender. Scalability comes built into Azure, so a solution used by fifty users can also be successfully used by several thousand without many extra tweaks, if a solution is architected for cloud scaling. And the licensing. While it’s not cheap, it's predictable enough for companies to set a budget. Financial teams and CFOs appreciate this last benefit the most.
It doesn’t take many tweaks if the solution is right. It usually fits naturally.
Key Microsoft stack technologies
The stack is a collection of specific products, technologies, and components. Let's get deeper into the details, beyond any marketing fog, to know exactly what they do.
Azure is the cloud foundation. It hosts web apps, virtual machines, databases, and hundreds of managed services that modern software leans on. Today, many of Microsoft’s business solutions run on or connect to Azure in some form.
.NET and C# form the core development platform. .NET 10 is the current long-term support version, released in November 2025, and C# remains the main language for building server-side logic, APIs, and desktop applications across the ecosystem.
It’s data that SQL Server and Azure SQL deal with. While SQL Server runs on your own servers or a VM, Azure SQL is a database fully managed in the cloud. Both use the same language (T-SQL). This makes moving between them less painful than most cross-database migrations.
Dataverse sits on the next level. It's the structured data service that Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform build on. Dataverse makes sure business data is held in a defined schema, not raw tables. When an app, a flow, and a report all reach for the same customer record, they all read it from a single copy in Dataverse.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is the ERP core of the Microsoft stack for small and medium-sized businesses. It’s a unified system to manage finance, sales, inventory, and operations – all in one place. Developers use AL to extend it. It’s a purpose-built language, written in Visual Studio Code with the AL Language extension. This is the layer we live in every day, and it's where most of our Business Central development takes place.
The Power Platform extends and complements Business Central. Power BI enriches analytics, Power Apps helps create low-code applications faster, Power Automate automates workflows, and Copilot Studio helps build conversational AI agents. Overall, Power Platform helps teams build many solutions without a full development cycle.
On top of MS 365, there’s Outlook, Excel, Word, and Teams, the software used daily. It’s rarely perceived as a stack, but it absolutely is.
How does it all hold together? Two tools stitch everything together. Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are the editors; Azure DevOps and GitHub deal with source control and deployment pipelines. For instance, a clean pipeline can deploy a tested AL product to production in minutes. We rely on these to safely ship code. They are also critical in quality assurance, which helps keep releases from breaking production.
Common use cases and industries
Relying on a stack pays back wherever a business needs structured operations. ERP and financial management are at the top of the list. An example of using a stack: a manufacturing business. Business Central is used to track raw materials, production orders, and margins in one system. Then, Power BI on top visualizes the data for the management board.
Industries like distribution and retail lean on the same combo for inventory, purchasing, and stock control across multiple locations. A unified tech stack is also an advantage in the integration with e-commerce front ends and warehouse systems.
Businesses that provide professional services use it in a different way. They mostly benefit from resource planning, project accounting, timesheets, and invoicing automation with Power Automate.
We often see a pattern: a company connects Business Central to its project-tracking tool to let finance and delivery start working from a single source. For such cases, we have our Jira Connector for Business Central: to sync project data between the two systems, so nobody needs to copy any data manually across tools.
Industries that have to follow strict compliance rules, like finance, healthcare, or the public sector, choose the stack for its security and audit capabilities. Centralized identity and secure logging are critical there. Microsoft kept that in mind while crafting the stack.
What’s in common for the above? It’s data that has to stay consistent across many functions. That's the issue the stack addresses best.
Microsoft stack vs. competing stacks
Admitting that no stack wins every comparison saves you a painful project.
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If we compare open-source stacks, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Python, or Perl stack), MEAN (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js), and the Java ecosystem, Microsoft is more about cohesion than flexibility. Open-source is a way to free licensing and infinite customization. But it also implies that organizations assemble and support the pieces themselves. The Microsoft stack licenses cost more, but it is the vendor who supports the whole chain. For a business that wants to focus on operations rather than maintaining infrastructure, such a trade-off usually gives Microsoft an advantage.
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Talking about Google Cloud and Google Workspace, the contrast is more vivid at the application layer. To some extent, Google has an edge over Microsoft in collaboration and cloud-native analytics. But there is nothing like Business Central in Google, no mature ERP sitting inside its ecosystem. Businesses with a serious focus on financial and operational management often choose the MS stack as a more complete one.
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Speaking of cloud infrastructure, AWS is the real heavyweight here. It’s often ahead of Azure on the breadth of services it offers. Yet AWS doesn't ship its own ERP. A workaround: running ERP and productivity tools from other vendors and integrating them on top. Using the combo of Azure + Dynamics means running organizations’ infrastructure and applications on a single platform.
We'll be honest: we're biased because we build on Microsoft. For most businesses, having everything connected beats stitching tools together yourself. We've learned that from doing the work every day, not from a brochure.
“Here's a tip based on real experience. Go for the Microsoft stack when you need integrated business applications, predictable support, and a workforce that already knows the tools. If you need ultra-low licensing costs or highly specialized technologies, opt for different solutions.”
- Nicolai Krarup, COO at Global Mediator
The future of the Microsoft stack
Currently, two major forces are influencing the MS stack. Both change how solutions are crafted.
The first global force is AI. It weaves directly into the products. Copilot now runs inside Business Central, MS 365, and the Power Platform. It drafts documents, suggests journal entries, and answers data questions in plain language. And it’s built in. Microsoft accompanies the layers companies already pay for with generative AI. This way, the benefit is available without additional purchases, though certain scenarios may require additional investments for extra AI capacity or credits.
Microsoft trusts in the cloud. That’s the second major trend. Yes, on-premises Business Central still exists, but Microsoft bets on the online version and invests heavily in its newest features and AI capabilities. The direction is pretty obvious. Companies still running BC or NAV versions that are nearing the end of support do face a migration ahead. It doesn’t have to be painful if properly planned.
Cloud migration needs discipline. It’s not luck that helps move years of financial data without losing its integrity. It’s a method. That is why structured data migration and a planned path to the cloud help more than ever. And once you're in the cloud, the focus shifts to keeping the environment healthy through professional Business Central cloud maintenance.
Low-code technologies are also popular. Power Platform will deal with more business logic, while people who aren't traditional developers will handle the platform itself. With this in place, the stack attracts more audience, in addition to deepening its tools.
Final thoughts
The Microsoft technology stack isn't a single product you buy. It's the set of tools that is highly likely already used across your business processes, from Azure under the hood to Excel in every operation.
Choosing the Microsoft tech stack, you get things that do work together. One login works across the entire system. Proven integrations that are already tested. A single vendor to call when something breaks, as well as staff who already know the tools. Yes, it costs you licensing fees, and it means being tied fairly closely to one vendor. But for most companies actually running on Dynamics 365 and Business Central, that's a worthy trade-off.
Why does it matter? Because understanding the inside of a stack turns a bunch of distributed tools into a solution that works as one. Paying for software and benefiting from using it makes a great deal of a difference.
Businesses that squeeze the most out of the stack are the ones that make these tools work together, instead of simply letting them pile up. Connect them, make them work together, and the rest will follow.