What is Microsoft Azure?

There are various cloud computing services offered by different companies across the world. Azure is one such online cloud computing platform and portal which provides services to access and manage resources on a Microsoft-administered cloud.

About 90% of Fortune 500 companies across the globe use Microsoft Azure for their businesses. Azure enables businesses to build, deploy, and manage applications and services through a global network of data centers installed by Microsoft.

Microsoft Azure Offerings

Azure offers about 200 services which are divided into 18 categories as mentioned below:

• Compute: Azure provides virtual machines, containers, serverless computing, and other computing resources for running applications and workloads.

• Networking: Azure provides virtual networks, load balancers, VPN gateways, DNS services, and other networking capabilities to connect cloud resources and extend on-premises networks to the cloud.

• Storage: Azure offers scalable and durable cloud storage solutions, including blob storage, file storage, table storage, and disk storage.

• IoT: Azure IoT Hub enables secure and scalable communication between IoT devices and the cloud.

• AI+ML: Azure provides AI and machine learning services such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service.

• Security and Identity: Azure offers various security services, including Azure Active Directory for identity and access management, Azure Security Center for threat protection, and Azure Sentinel for security information and event management (SIEM).

• Databases: Azure offers a variety of database services, including Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB (NoSQL database), Azure Database for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB, as well as managed database services like Azure SQL Managed Instance.

• DevOps: Azure DevOps provides tools and services for application development, including version control, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), testing, and project management.

• Analytics: Azure offers services for big data analytics, including Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure HDInsight (e.g., Apache Hadoop and Spark), Azure Databricks, and Azure Data Lake Storage.

• Other services: Migration, Mobile, Containers, Integration, Management Tools, Developer Tools, Media, Web, and so on.

Benefits or Advantages of Microsoft Azure

Following are the benefits or advantages of Microsoft Azure which are enablers for enterprises to choose Azure.

1. IaaS and PaaS Capabilities: Azure offers both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities. IaaS allows enterprises to outsource infrastructure on Azure platforms. PaaS allows users to create their own apps and solutions at nominal charges (if any).

2. Security: Azure has been designed as per SDL (Security Development Lifecycle) processes. Hence, it offers security to private data and services.

3. Scalability: As it offers scalability, any number of applications can run without any extra coding requirements.

4. Storage Services: It provides ductile, secure, safe, and performance-efficient storage services on the cloud.

5. Hybrid Connections: It provides a wide range of hybrid connections to improve usability and deliver higher performance. Examples include VPNs, CDNs, caches, ExpressRoute, etc.

6. Simplified Operations: Azure helps to simplify the operations of existing Microsoft tools by using virtual on-premise machines such as Linux and Windows.

7. Advanced Services: Azure offers BaaS (Blockchain as a Service), Bots, Cognitive APIs, and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities. For data analytics, it offers SQL and NoSQL data services.

8. Developer Friendly: Due to its support for familiar tools (ASP.NET, Visual Studio) and popular languages (VB, C#, C++ etc.), it has become very easy for developers/consultants to develop cloud-based applications.

9. Pay-as-you-go Model: It supports a pay-as-you-go model which allows users to pay as per their varied requirements from time to time.

10. Supports Internet Protocols and Standards: Azure supports internet protocols and standards like SOAP, REST, HTTP, and XML. Software development kits and tools for Eclipse are available.

11. IAM (Identity and Access Management): It offers IAM (Identity and Access Management) which allows the right users to access the right information.

Conclusion

Microsoft Azure is widely used by businesses of all sizes and industries for building, deploying, and managing applications and services in the cloud.