MICROSOFT AZURE
1. INTRODUCTION
A rapid growth in networking technologies and newly enabled features has resulted in a
tremendous growth in user data and computation capability requirements for application
design . Cloud computing is a promising new paradigm that provides agility, scalability and
efficiency to the software design methodologies of the information technology (IT) industry.
Microsoft Azure is one of the leading cloud service providers and a strong competitor of
Amazon Web Services. Azure is a rapidly growing company, offering a complete suite of
services for creating and using applications in the cloud. From virtual machines that run web
applications at scale to cloud-based data storage and management, we offer everything you
need to start your project in the cloud today. It provides both PaaS and IaaS services and
supports many different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both
Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.
2. HISTORY
Microsoft Azure was first announced October 28, 2008. A cloud computing operating
system which was targeted at Business and Developers without additional coding. The
original name Windows Azure was a deliberate response in competition to the Amazon EC2
and Google App Engine. Windows Azure was built as an extension of the Windows NT
which was the beginning of Microsoft Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS). Windows Azure
was an internal project which went by the code name “Project Red Dog”.
It went on various generation from when it started like 1st,2nd,3rd,4th & now presently it
adopted Kubernetes which changed the way the cloud operating is done, force Microsoft to
take advantage of the trend by launching the Azure arc which enables customers to manage
Virtual Machines (VMs), physical or on-premises machines and other workloads managed
by Kubernetes from a single control plane. The Azure Arc has an edge over its competitors
because it brings legacy and modern workloads to a level playing field.
3. WORKING
Azure is a huge collection of servers and networking hardware, which runs a complex set of
distributed applications. These applications orchestrate the configuration and operation of
virtualized hardware and software on those servers.
The orchestration of these servers is what makes Azure so powerful. With Azure, users don't
have to maintain and upgrade their hardware as Azure does this behind the scenes.
4. AZURE STORAGE
Azure Storage is massively scalable, so a user can store and process hundreds of terabytes of
data to support the big data scenarios required by scientific, financial analysis and media
applications. Further, the user can store the small amounts of data required for a small
business website. Such capabilities are also required for development of new analytic
features . Wherever the user needs to fall, the users pay only for the data they store.
Azure Storage supports clients using a diverse set of operating systems (including Windows
and Linux) and a variety of programming languages (including .NET, Java, and C++) for
convenient development.
5. SERVICES PROVIDED
Microsoft lists over 50 Azure services including: Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure
Active Directory, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, API Management, Application
Gateway, Visual Studio Application Insights, App Service, Automation, Backup, Batch,
BizTalk Services, CDN, Cloud Services, Azure Container Service, Data Catalog, Data
Factory, Data Lake Analytics, Data Lake Store, Azure DevTest Labs, AzureDNS,
DocumentDB, Event Hubs, ExpressRoute, HDInsight, Azure IoT Hub, Key Vault, Load
Balancer, Machine Learning, Managed Cache Service, Media Services, Mobile
Engagement, Mobile Services,MultiFactor Authentication, Notification Hubs, Operational
Insights, Redis Cache, RemoteApp, Scheduler, Search, Security Center, Service Bus,
Service Fabric, SiteRecovery, SQL Database, SQL Data Warehouse, SQL Server Stretch
Database, Storage, StorSimple, Stream Analytics, Traffic Manager, Virtual Machines,
Virtual Network, Visual Studio Team Services, VPN Gateway.
6. KEY FEATURE
6.1 COMPUTE
These services provide virtual machines, containers, batch processing and remote
application access.
1. App services, platform as a service (PaaS) environment letting developers easily
publish and manage web sites.
2. WebJobs, applications which can be deployed to a Web App to implement
background processing. That can be invoked on a schedule, on demand or can run
continuously. The Blob, Table and Queue services can be used to communicate
between Web Apps and Web Jobs and to provide state. Refer to fig. 1 to view various
services covered
6.2 NETWORKING
This group includes virtual networks, dedicated connections and gateways, as well as
services for traffic management, load balancing and domain name system (DNS)
hosting.
1. Virtual Network, a hosted Virtual private network.
2. Azure DNS, a DNS domain hosting service. It provides domain name resolution
services using the cloud infrastructure of Microsoft Azure. The Azure DNS services
are integrated with other Azure services in terms of APIs, billing, credentials.
3 .Express Route allows creation of private connections between Azure datacenters
and infrastructure that’s on your premises or in a colocation environment
6.3 DATA & STORAGE
This category includes Database offerings for SQL and NoSQL, as well as
unstructured and cached cloud storage. Azure Storage provides the flexibility and
hyper-scale needed to store and retrieve large amounts of data.
7. CHALLENGES
● Multiple agreement
● CSP agreement limitation
● Omitted cost information
● Limited cost breakdown
8. CONCLUSION
We got to study about one cloud computing platform: Microsoft Azure. First, we study what
Microsoft Azure is. Following this, we go through its benefits and various services provided
by Microsoft Azure.
