Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. It is a comprehensive set of cloud services that developers and IT professionals can use to build, deploy, and manage applications through Microsoft-managed data centers. Azure provides both platforms as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) services and supports many different programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. Many Azure services are available as free or “pay-as-you-go” services that customers can use on an as-needed basis. Microsoft also offers specialized Azure services for particular workloads such as artificial intelligence, big data, gaming, internet of things, and virtual reality. In addition to these cloud-based services, Microsoft also offers various on-premises versions of some Azure services. The on-premises versions are designed for customers who want to use Azure technologies without moving their entire infrastructure to the cloud. Microsoft currently offers more than 200 different Azure services.

Azure is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. It provides software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) that supports many different programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.

Azure was announced in October 2008, and released on February 1, 2010, as Windows Azure. Microsoft began using the name Microsoft Azure in March 2014. Azure is comparable to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform but focuses on integrating with other Microsoft software, such as Visual Studio, Active Directory, and Office 365.

Azure offers both Platforms as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Services are hosted in Azure Data Centers in regions across the globe. Microsoft manages the data centers housing the services, while the customer manages the services themselves.

Azure provides numerous services that can be used individually or together to build apps. These services include:

• compute: Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, Batch, Service Fabric
• storage: Blob Storage, Table Storage, Queue Storage, Disk Storage
• databases: SQL Database, DocumentDB, MySQL Database, PostgreSQL Database
• networking: Virtual Networking, ExpressRoute
• developer: Visual Studio Team Services
• management: Azure Automation, Backup
• security: Azure Active Directory
• analytics: HDInsight
• media: Media Services
  Some of the features that make Azure attractive to developers are its scalability and high availability. Developers can start with just a few resources and scale up as needed without having to provision additional hardware. And if one region becomes unavailable, Azure automatically fails over to another region without disrupting service.