Importance of Azure Cloud Services

Cloud Service Providers
When the Cloud was launched in the market, a few organizations bought the entire infrastructure, and now they provide these services to people across the globe. Thus, the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) are the organizations that provide infrastructure, network services, or business applications in the Cloud. These Cloud services are hosted in a place called data centers that companies or individuals can access via network connectivity. The enormous advantage of using a Cloud Service Provider comes in efficiency and productivity. Instead of people or an organization creating their own infrastructure, in order to support internal services and applications, the services can be purchased, leased, or rented from the Cloud Service Provider. The CSPs provide services to multiple customers that use the shared infrastructure. One such Cloud Service Provider is Microsoft Azure which is the second-largest Cloud computing platform in the world and is exponentially growing. Above 80% of the Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Azure for fulfilling their Cloud service requirements.

Microsoft Azure

Azure is a Cloud computing platform that Microsoft offers. It’s an online portal to access and manage resources and services provided by Microsoft. It was launched in 2010, which is significantly later than when AWS was found but is not far behind AWS. It is free to start and follows the pay-per-use model.

Microsoft Azure is no different from the other Cloud platforms that use virtualization, which is an emulation of computer hardware in software. The fact that most of the computer hardware works by following an encoded set of instructions has made it possible. The virtualized hardware can make the software function like real hardware by mapping instructions. Azure has multiple data centers with a huge number of physical servers that execute virtualized hardware for customers. It runs on a mighty collection of networking hardware and servers that host many complex applications. These applications manage the operation and configuration of the software and virtualized hardware on these servers. This complex coherence makes Azure a robust Cloud platform. Azure deals with the maintenance and up-gradation of computer hardware and ensures that their clients are not bothered.

Uses of Azure Cloud Services

Azure is swift, pliable, and above all, an affordable Cloud platform. There are multiple uses of Azure Cloud services that are listed below:

1. App Development: Users can virtually create any web application on Azure.
2. App Hosting: After development, users can also host their applications.
3. Software Testing: Users can also test their web applications on Azure.
4. Virtual Machine Creation: Users can add virtual machines to their IT infrastructure using Azure.
5. Virtual Hard Drives: Users can expand their virtual machines’ fleet with virtual hard drives (or cloud-based storage).
6. Integration and Synchronization: Azure allows its users to integrate their cloud-based applications with the ongoing IT infrastructure.
7. Business Intelligence: Azure is undoubtedly a powerful business intelligence tool that allows its users to capture and store essential metrics that measure their application’s activities.

Why Microsoft Azure Cloud Service?

The Azure Cloud platform is now becoming common knowledge, but there are certainly other reasons to choose Azure:

• Enhanced Backup and Disaster Recovery: Microsoft Azure not only offers flexibility but also provides advanced site recovery and built-in integration. Azure permits you to backup your data virtually in any programming language, OS, or location where you can set backup schedules daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever schedule you please.
  Azure also offers site recovery features that can improve your data’s backup system by providing offsite replication and long-term data retention. It stores three backups of the data on three unique locations in the data center, in addition to another three backups in a remote data center.
• Create and Host Web and Mobile Applications: Azure acts as an ideal platform for developing, hosting, and managing web and mobile applications. It makes them autonomous and adaptive with features like automatic patch management, autoscale, and integration for on-premises applications.
• Incorporation with Active Directory: Azure can perform with your Active Directory, enhancing your existing access and identity potential. Azure is exceptional due to its expertise in broadening your Active Directory’s environment to a worldwide level while maintaining direct control.

Azure Cloud Services Best Practices

Since the primary role of Azure Cloud services is to ensure that the application delivers business value by meeting the functional requirements of your organization, few finest approaches can be applied to any Cloud provider, technology, or architecture:

• Design with Security in mind: Since data is like a golden goose, you must use encryption protocols to protect your data. Security must be at the forefront.
• Design for Scalability: Beauty of the Cloud computing lies in the ease of scaling performance. In order to be scalable, it must be capable of shifting resource capacity according to the demand.
• Design for Recoverability: A considerable part of this is designing an architecture that is efficient in recovering from failure within the required timeframe by both the clients and the stakeholders.
• Design for Efficiency: Design your Cloud infrastructure in a way that makes application development cost-effective. If you identify the potential areas of inefficiency and waste, you can make sure that IT resources are efficiently used.

List of the Azure Cloud Services List

There are a lot more than 600 Azure Cloud Services that Microsoft offers, and the list is consistently growing. These Cloud services can be classified into the following significant categories:

1. AI and Machine Learning
2. Compute
3. Analytics
4. Blockchain
5. Media
6. Storage
7. Identity
8. Web
9. Mixed Reality
10. Containers
11. Developer Tools
12. Internet of Things
13. Management and Governance
14. Networking
15. DevOps
16. Integration
17. Databases
18. Mobile

These classified sections of services also offer more sub-services.

Azure with InfoSecTrain

Several Fortune 500 companies globally have observed great success with Azure. Due to this widespread usage, Azure professionals are in high demand and generously paid in the market. You can take the initial step towards getting certified by joining Infosec Train as we are the leading training provider that will provide you an exposure to the varied challenges. We are also one of the prominent training providers and are globally recognized. We have highly skilled and certified trainers who design the entire action plan and coach you towards laying a strong foundation for Azure to upskill your knowledge to a proficient level. Azure training with Infosec Train will help you have a better comprehension of the subject.

AUTHOR
Devyani Bisht ( )
Content Writer

“ Devyani Bisht is a B.Tech graduate in Information Technology. She has 3.5 years of experience in the domain of Client Interaction. She really enjoys writing blogs and is a keen learner. She is currently working as a Technical Services Analyst with InfosecTrain. “