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What is Microsoft Azure and why is it so successful?
Microsoft Azure (also known as Azure) s a cloud computing service administrated and controlled by Microsoft for application management through data centers managed by Microsoft.
It is a public cloud platform
that provides a large collection of services including platform as a service
(PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and managed database service
capabilities. It used the virtualization technology and at Microsoft data
centers and offers more than 600 services. Most of the computer hardware can be
emulated in software. Computer hardware is generally a set of instructions that
are permanently, or semi-permanently, encoded in silicon. Emulation layers are
used to map software instructions to hardware instructions. Emulation layers
allow virtualized hardware to execute in software like the actual hardware
itself.
Microsoft Azure relies
on operating system, named Microsoft Azure, to function its fabric layer. It is
a cluster hosted at Microsoft's data centers that manage computing and storage
resources of the computers and assigns the resources to applications running on
top of Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure is often being cited as a cloud layer
on top of a number of Windows Server systems that use Windows Server 2008 and a
customized version of Hyper-V, known as the Microsoft Azure Hypervisor to
provide virtualization of services.
Azure is a colossal
collection of servers and networking hardware that runs an intricate set of
distributed applications. These applications manage the configuration and
operation of virtualized hardware and software on those servers. The management
of these servers contributes to the strength of Azure and makes extremely
powerful equipment. With Azure, users do not have to manage and upgrade their
hardware as Azure does this on its own.
It was designed by
Microsoft in 2010 to offer cloud services where users could build, test,
deploy, and manage their applications on the data centers of Microsoft. These
data centers are present across the globe. Microsoft provides various services
in various domains including Compute, Database, Content Delivery, Networking,
and many more.
Azure offers an API
built on REST, HTTP, and XML that allows a user to interact with the services
provided by Microsoft Azure. Microsoft also provides a client-side managed
class library that comprises the functions of interacting with the services. It
also combines with Microsoft Visual Studio, Git, and Eclipse. In addition to
interacting with services through API, people can manage Azure services using
the Web-based Azure Portal. The portal enables users to browse active
resources, alter settings, launch new resources, and view basic monitoring data
from active virtual machines and services.
It is free to start and
follows a pay-per-use model, which implies you pay only for the services you
use. It supports multiple programming languages, including Java, Node Js, and
C#. In addition to that, it data centers around the world. There are around 50 Azure
data centers spread across the globe that is also the highest number of data
centers for any of cloud platforms. All these are just a few of the many
reasons that contribute to Azure’s gigantic success in the technical field.
Azure Services:
Azure offers more than
200 services that are classified into 18 categories. These categories include
computing, networking, storage, IoT, migration, mobile, analytics, containers,
artificial intelligence, and other machine learning, integration, management
tools, developer tools, security, databases, DevOps, media identity, and web
services.
Below we have discussed
some of the major services offered by Microsoft Azure.
1.
Computing Services
a. Cloud
Service: This service enables the user create scalable applications within the
cloud. Once the application is deployed, everything, including assigning, load
balancing, and health monitoring, is managed of by Azure.
b. Service
Fabric: Using the service fabric, the process of developing a microservice
becomes extremely simplified. Microservice is an application that comprieses
other collections of smaller applications.
c. Functions:
Using the functions, the user can create applications in any programming
language. One of the best parts about this service is that the user needs not to
worry about hardware requirements while developing applications because Azure
manages that. All the user needs to do is provide the code.
2.
Networking
a. Azure
Content Delivery Network: Azure Content Delivery Network is for sending content
to users. It uses a high bandwidth, and content can be sent to any person
across the globe. The Content Delivery Network service uses a network of
servers placed around the globe so that the users can access the data at a much
faster rate.
b. Express
Route: This service lets the users connect them on-premise network to the
Microsoft cloud or any other services that the user want, through a private
connection. The only communications that will happen here would be between the
organization’s network and the service that the users want.
c. Virtual
network: The virtual network enables the user to have any of the Azure services
communicate with one another privately.
d. Azure
DNS: This service enables the user to host the DNS domains or system domains on
Azure.
3.
Storage
a. Disk Storage: This service enables the user to
select from either HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or SSD (Solid State Drive) as their
storage option along with their virtual machine.
b. Blob
Storage: This service is augmented to store a large amount of unstructured data,
including text and even binary data.
c. File
Storage: This is a managed file storage service that can be accessed via
industry Server Message Block (SBM) protocol.
d. Queue
Storage: Using the queue storage, the user can provide stable message queuing
for a colossal workload. This service can be accessed from anywhere across the
globe.
Why Azure has become so successful?
Microsoft Azure is used
for its strong flexibility, integrated delivery pipeline, security, disaster
recovery, and faster speed of service. The platform is cost-efficient and is
widely used by various IT enterprises for its improved infrastructure.
Organizations around
the globe have started to understand the significance of using cloud services
for their business. Microsoft Azure is the best cloud computing service in the
modern era that is redefining the methods in which an organization performs its
business operations in a more scalable and safe manner. With the use of deeply
integrated Microsoft Azure, companies can rapidly create, deploy, and manage
simple to complex applications with ease. Microsoft Azure also supports a
variety of programming languages, frameworks, operating systems, databases, and
devices which allows the organizations to leverage tools and technologies
trusted by them.
With over 200 services
and several benefits, Microsoft Azure is certainly the fastest-growing cloud computing
platform being used by the organizations nowadays. The growth in the implementation
of Azure by enterprises is generating various opportunities for professionals
having competence in this technology.
One of the most
significant benefits for organizations is that Microsoft Azure vast
availability across all its various datacenters. Microsoft currently operates
in over 50 regions worldwide and is available in 140 countries / nations. This
makes Azure a perfect choice if the user is operating a global business. As a
result of its huge presence, the tech giants have the capacity to offer a
service-level agreement that guarantees up to 99% availability. This implies
Azure can only experience a combined downtime of 4.5 hours per year. That is
par excellence, making Microsoft the leading cloud service vendor in the world.
It also enables the
organizations to build, run, and manage their own custom web software using
different tools and programming languages. Some of these languages are Oracle,
Linux, Ruby, Java, Kubernetes, .NET, Python, MySQL, and PHP etc. This enables
organizations to design state-of-the-art applications for both mobile devices
and the web while making the most of several management resource available on
Azure. Azure’s interactive and user-friendly development platform offers a
separate testing environment to allow organizations to make the most of their
internal web apps and end-user experiences.
Security is one of the
most important aspects that someone considers before selecting any cloud
service provider. Data stored on Azure is protected by a strong encryption process.
Every Microsoft datacenter is equipped with proxy card access readers,
biometric scanners, and two-factor authentication. When coupled with company’s
cybersecurity systems, Azure’s top-notch cybersecurity tools make sure of the
integrity, availability and privacy of delicate customer’s data. With
Microsoft’s extremely strong and unmatched cybersecurity, organizations across
the globe fight off cyberthreats, data breaches, malware, and similar
cyber-attacks. Microsoft Azure has been created keeping under consideration the
industry-leading security process Security Development Lifecycle which is
commonly known as SDL. It helps to encapsulate the security at the core of the
organization in order to keep the private data and services safe and protected
on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Microsoft Azure provides the best compliance
coverage for the companies in the market with compliance coverage of about 50
compliances and this is the reason why a number of Governments across the globe
have started to trust Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure enables
the IT teams to focus on their business without being concerned about the local
competencies or data storage equipment maintenance. Microsoft Azure enhances
the speed and ease of deploying current web and mobile applications with very
less or no downtime. An integrated development environment accelerates the
learning curve, making it easier for your business teams to master the platform
within a very short span of time. As Microsoft Azure has more international
reach than its competitor cloud service provider, it is easier for the tech
giants to roll out faster content while delivering the optimal user-experience.
Microsoft Azure can
help the organizations design an application that can function easily,
unaffectedly, and can accommodate around 10 to 10 million users at once with no
additional coding. Microsoft Azure is capable of offering storage that is
flexible, safe, secure, and performance-efficient storage services on the
cloud. It automatically becomes easier to change the settings as desired and
make the use of more processors for the application which is required to be
brought into use.
Microsoft Azure has
been created in such a way that it can easily comply with Microsoft Excel and
other Microsoft Office 365 applications that enable the enterprises to
visualize their data in such a way that it can help uncover several business
insights easily that would assist the organization move ahead in the market. As
the demand increases rapidly, more and more Business Intelligence (BI) options
have been added by Microsoft to comply with the transient needs of the
organizations.
Microsoft Azure’s
exceptionally remarkable hybrid capabilities make it the most peculiar cloud
computing service provider for the organizations and distinguish it from its
competitors. Azure is well known for its facilitating capability with easy mobility
and a consistently dependable platform between both on-premise and the public
cloud. It is strong enough to provide a broad range of hybrid services such as
virtual private networks (also known as VPNs), Caches, Content Delivery
Networks (also known as CDNs), and Express Route connections which
automatically improve the usability and performance of the applications.
In the past few years,
the Microsoft customer base has been increasing rapidly due to the goodwill and
trust gained by Microsoft which has allowed Microsoft to occasionally provide
big discounts to the customers and regularly have special discounts for the
business organizations. It is expected that the cost of Microsoft Azure is to
go down as the competition with AWS and Google is getting higher day by day.
There are multiple
top-notch service providers in the market like Amazon Web Services, AWS, and
Google who are offering the same services just like Microsoft Azure. However,
what sets Microsoft Azure apart from its competitors is the faster speed at
which Microsoft has been launching new elements in its Azure service which
consequently takes Azure to the top level of the market. Microsoft Azure came
into the market at a much later stage as compared to its competitors but it is
vividly evident that Azure has managed to win the trust of all the
well-established organizations in the world with its work power, efficiency,
and making the task of the organizations much easier. All these reasons
contribute significantly to the success of Microsoft Azure in the market.
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