What is Microsoft Azure?

 Microsoft Azure is an ever-expending set of cloud-based computing services available to businesses, developers, government agencies, and anyone who wants to build an app or run an enterprise without having to manage hardware.

Summary

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft's comprehensive collection of cloud-based alternatives to physical hardware and services. Azure virtual machines run all of Microsoft's server products as well as a wide range of third-party products including Linux distributions and third-party software; the Azure product line also includes a comprehensive collection of services that developers can use to build cloud-based apps. This guide offers an executive-level overview of Microsoft Azure services, including product offerings and prices.

What is Azure?

Whenever I’m asked about what Microsoft Azure is, the simplest answer is this: Azure is a cloud computing platform that can provide everything a business needs to run all or part of its computing operations virtually—including servers, storage, databases, networking, analytics and more.

Traditionally, the only option available to companies was to build and manage the physical hardware needed for computing, including servers, disk storage and Ethernet switches. But today, companies can use a public cloud computing platform like Azure, Aws, Google Clouds and many more, which purchases and maintains all the computing hardware. This means companies can effectively “rent” hardware resources as needed.

Microsoft Azure is a broad, ever-expanding set of cloud-based computing services that are available to businesses, developers, government agencies, and anyone who wants to build an app or run an enterprise on the internet without having to install and manage hardware or server software. It has been the fastest-growing business segment for Microsoft in recent years and will probably overtake Windows in terms of revenue within two or three years. You can pick and choose among Azure’s services to get the support needed for your business operations—namely building, deploying, and managing applications. And because you’re renting the computing resources, you don’t have the costs and inefficiencies (like a dedicated IT department) associated with the physical hardware that naturally goes along with those activities. Many companies today are choosing to use some combination of cloud computing and on-premise datacenters. Some are even utilizing multiple cloud computing services depending on their needs and requirements.

"The cloud is just someone else's computer." But that oversimplification describes only one small part of the Azure business: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), in which cloud-based services replace physical hardware. So if you’re concerned about making a dramatic change in your computing environment, or feel like you’re committing to a single service provider for life, don’t worry. Instead, you’ll want to focus on determining the viability of cloud computing in relation to your company’s needs. Often, designing some combination of the cloud with an existing on-premises setup is the best way to get the ball rolling.

Who uses Microsoft Azure?

Businesses of all sizes find value in using the public cloud, and many of them are choosing Azure. In fact, Azure is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies.

Azure is also appealing to many small and medium sized businesses. One reason for this is that it helps SMBs avoid huge capital outlays for equipment; it also removes the burden of upgrades and maintenance, as smaller organizations may not have in-house experts readily available to provide support. And because Azure makes it easy to add or remove computing resources in minutes as compared to hours (or days!), it provides increased flexibility that businesses simply wouldn’t have with a traditional on-premise datacenter.

What are the benefits of Microsoft Azure?

The most obvious benefit of Azure's IaaS offerings is that your organization doesn't have to buy, configure, maintain, and repair hardware to run cloud-based workloads. Savings start with the cost of the hardware but encompass a far greater number of indirect costs, including the physical space required to house those servers as well as the electricity to keep them running.

Because Azure-based resources are virtual, they can't fail unexpectedly and result in downtime while you wait for repairs or a replacement. Virtual hardware resources can scale up or down in a way that physical hardware can't, making it possible to deal with sudden surges in traffic to an Azure-based website. Large organizations that have to meet global privacy requirements for data storage and transfer can easily move data and services to a region of their choosing.

For developers, Azure offers instant access to services for developing mobile apps, designing IoT devices, connecting to online storage and database resources, and deploying container technology. In addition, Microsoft has invested heavily in machine learning and AI tools for developers.

What are the features of Azure ?

1. Disaster Recovery
2. Elasticity
3. Development Tool
4. Cost Efficiency
5. Easy Access to Resources

Disaster Recovery : Azure offers an end-to-end backup and disaster recovery solution that is simple, secure, scalable and cost-effective—and can be integrated with on-premises data protection solutions. In the case of service disruption or accidental deletion or corruption of data, recover your business services in a timely and orchestrated manner. The Azure backup and disaster recovery solution is simple to architect, cloud-native, highly available and resilient.

A recent survey from Information Technology Intelligence Consulting showed that 79% of corporations require a minimum of 99.99% uptime for “mission-critical hardware, operating systems and main line of business applications.” The survey data also showed that 81% of businesses (across 47 vertical markets) estimate the average hourly cost of downtime exceeds $300,000. One-third of responding companies indicated that just a single hour of downtime could cost anywhere from $1 million to over $5 million. Is it any wonder that most businesses are making disaster recovery a high priority while looking for easier ways to implement it?

With Azure, you get access to:

Multiple datacenters for data storage, which allows you to deploy a cloud service to different locations around the world.

Azure Site Recovery, a service that helps ensure your critical business applications stay online during an outage or disruption by replicating those workloads from a primary site to a secondary location.

Azure Traffic Manager, which automates network routing to different locations (predetermined by you) in case of a region-specific failure.

3x data replication, which means all the data you store in Azure is copied three times, either to a single or a secondary datacenter.

Elasticity : Azure elasticity as a service is referred to a cloud service that enables in automatically scaling Azure hosted resources in par with the demand and configured parameters. It provides Azure Administrators with the ability to auto scale Azure infrastructure and resources as and when needed. Typically, Azure elasticity as a service is delivered through an Azure Monitoring and Automation Software that monitors the systems for certain conditions and automatically scales / downscales infrastructure as needed.

Development Tool : Traditionally, on-premise computing environments don’t have a lot of room for development and testing. That often means companies have to purchase new hardware/software for development purposes, or push off development tasks until they have sufficient room in the system. The result is decreased productivity, fewer innovations and higher costs.

Azure, on the other hand, is the perfect place for development! Since you’re only paying for the resources you need (known as utility computing), developers can easily build out all possible scenarios and run through testing without having to purchase new equipment. On top of that, developers gain immediate access to a variety of templates, services and solutions, helping reduce the time it takes to bring new innovations to market.

Cost Efficiency : One of the greatest benefits of Azure (or any public cloud platform) is its cost-efficiency. There are three primary reasons Azure is so practical when it comes to cost:

? You won’t have to make the large initial investment associated with building an on-premise or remote datacenter. Cloud computing also eliminates the need to buy additional software for development or increased workloads down the road. You won’t need to purchase replacement hardware (as most computing hardware has an average lifecycle of 2-3 years).

? You’ll avoid the costs associated with service calls and warranty renewals.

? You won’t have to pay for any resources other than those you need, as Azure bills per second used, rounded down to the last minute.

Easy Access To Resources : Azure’s cloud computing service gives IT departments access to a huge number of resources they wouldn’t normally have with an on-premises datacenter. For instance, many forward-thinking companies are looking to apply machine learning and automation to their data analysis to enable better decision-making. Using Azure, you can easily incorporate those capabilities into your systems—no data science expertise or costly resources needed. Or, you may want to deploy a Linux server, which, in a traditional computing environment, requires a series of rules to get up and running. This can take anywhere from several hours to a few days to complete. But with Azure, you can set up your Linux server in less than five minutes

How Companies Use Microsoft Azure.

Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS)

The most basic set of services rapidly gaining popularity is the IaaS cloud computing model.

Let’s compare IaaS to traditional on-premises datacenters. With on-premises, it’s your responsibility to manage every component of the datacenter, from business applications to virtual machines and networking.

By using the Azure IaaS service, you’re essentially putting data on a server in the cloud that you can fully control. Maintaining the physical hardware becomes a non-issue because Microsoft takes care of the servers for you. You also don’t have to worry about the expenses associated with failing hard drives and hardware maintenance. What you will have to do is monitor, manage and patch your virtual machines and their operating functions, so it’s still a very hands-on arrangement. In summary, IaaS is the cloud service model that feels like a typical on-premises setup while giving you freedom for running applications you want.

Platform As A Service (PaaS)

PaaS is the next step in cloud service models—it’s the platform on which you roll out your applications. While using PaaS, your responsibility is to manage specific applications and the database, while Microsoft takes care of all other services required to run your application (including middleware, the operating system, VMs, servers, storage and networking). Therefore, responsibility for the success of your application is shared between your organization and Microsoft, with both parties delivering key elements.

A move to PaaS lets you devote more time to developing your application, rather than maintaining the operational functions that support it. Most companies that use PaaS do so because they’re interested in flipping a traditional, monolithic and console-based application (e.g. those that run in a separate console window rather than in a browser, like Word or Outlook,) to a web-based application.

But whether or not you decide to make the move to PaaS you’ll have to consider the required investment. Depending on the size and the complexity of your application, this change may require employing a development team to handle the conversion.

Software As A Service (SaaS)

A SaaS arrangement with Azure handles all infrastructure and IT functions, leaving your SaaS application to run in the cloud on top of Azure. It’s not a platform, it’s an actual application in itself—think Office 365, Salesforce, Basecamp, etc. Everything underneath the application is automated, e.g. patching the VMs.

Your company might consider moving from PaaS to SaaS if you want to be almost completely hands-off. A transition to SaaS may be ideal if your application is highly automated and accessible over the internet, and doesn’t have any lingering dependencies on a specific underlying operating system (OS) or a particular type of middleware. For example, if your application relies on an older OS that isn’t supported in Azure (like any version earlier than Windows 2008 R2), a more complex level of development is required to make the transition from PaaS to SaaS successful.