Windows Azure is a cloud computing service that is owned by Microsoft. We all know that cloud computing services mean that service providers provide the required infrastructure required to host an internet site. They take care of the management and all the features related to the infrastructure.
Azure is considered as one of the best cloud computing services of Microsoft. It allows the developers and users of it services to concentrate on building the application and not worry about the data storage or the backup or disaster recovery and features which are concerned with the management of the infrastructure that is required for the application to run successfully.
It has a lot of features which are in-built such as templates, tools and the related services that are required for all the internet services. It also helps you to use these services with the technologies that are already being used by you. Azure services can be broadly classified into the following sections:
- Compute: These are services related to remote application access and batch processing.
- Web and mobile: Services support the development and deployment of mobile and web applications.
- Data storage, Analytics and Networking: Service includes the storage of data and management and also network management such as load balancing or DNS hosting.
- Media: Services include on demand streaming of data.
- Hybrid Integration: Services include backup and recovery of data.
- Access Management: Services offered include data encryption as well as privacy of data based on user access.
- Internet of things: Services help users to monitor or capture data from devices.
- Development: Azure supports a large variety of programming languages which helps the developers to share their code and test the applications.
- Management and security: These services help administrators to manage cloud such as automation and deployment.
Azure was first introduced to public in 2010 and since then has been evolving with different features added to it every day. It has been re-named as Microsoft Azure in recent times and is a major competitor in the cloud computing services platform. It has gained a lot of popularity because of the ease of use of the services and where users doesn’t have to worry about the maintenance of their infrastructure and enjoy the unlimited services offered by it.
Microsoft has data centers across manly geographical locations to minimize the effect of loss of data and also speed up the restoration time in case of any failures. With features like reliability and data security taken care by Microsoft, companies are ready to switch to cloud computing services offered by them. Also Azure is easily adaptable in many technologies and most importantly the overhead of maintaining the services is taken out from the users who can fully involve in the development of their applications.
Many businesses use Azure only for Data storage and few others use them for the development of their web applications. With a lot of services that Azure offers and which is also cost effective and have services that run 24/7, organisations prefer to switch to Azure services rather than having an infrastructure of their own and maintain them.
Azure has reduced the need for upfront purchases of technology and the developers can create applications with their existing skills. You don’t have to learn a new language to be able to use their service. It supports both Microsoft supported and non supported languages which makes it a preferable choice for many companies.
With many competitors in place, pay as you use service is a good option that Azure provides its customers and has more data centers than others which make it more reliable to use.
P.S: The technical information written above is based purely on the information found in Microsoft website.
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