What is Microsoft Azure? Everything You Need to Know!

Microsoft Azure is a powerful cloud computing platform that has become quite popular in recent years. Azure provides organizations with the tools and services needed to build, deploy, and manage applications and services on the cloud. Organizations using Azure highly prefer professionals with Microsoft Azure Administrator certification for Azure jobs. In this blog post, we will explore what is Microsoft Azure, why it matters, how it works, and many more details. We will also discuss Azure products and services, pricing and costs, benefits, certifications, and competition in this post.

What is Cloud Computing?

Before diving into Microsoft Azure, it is essential to understand cloud computing. Cloud computing simply refers to the on-demand delivery of computing services, such as servers, storage, databases, networking, etc., over the internet. Cloud computing eliminates the need for businesses to invest in physical infrastructure, saving them valuable time and money. Additionally, cloud computing allows its users to scale up or down as needed, without worrying about infrastructure limitations and associated capital expenditure. You can explore courses in Cloud Computing and become job-ready by enhancing your technical and professional skills.

What is Microsoft Azure in Simple Terms?

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides users with a range of services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Azure allows users to build, deploy, and manage applications and services on the cloud, reducing the need for physical infrastructure. Presently, it delivers more than 600 services via its platform. Azure offers numerous benefits like scalability, cost savings, flexibility, and security.

Why Use Microsoft Azure?

After knowing what Microsoft Azure is, you may want to discover diverse applications of Azure.

• App Development: Azure supports application development, allowing the creation of any web application.
• App Testing: You can utilize Azure for testing purposes once you have developed any software successfully.
• App Hosting: Azure can aid in hosting the application after the completion of the testing phase.
• Virtual Machine Creation: With Azure, you can create virtual machines (VMs) in any desired configuration.
• Sync and Integrate: Azure permits integration and synchronization of virtual devices and directories.
• Gather and Store Metrics: Azure enables the collection and storage of metrics, which can assist in identifying efficient strategies.
• Virtual Hard Drives: Azure offers virtual hard drives (VHDs) that offer a significant amount of data storage. VHDs are extensions of virtual machines used for storing large amounts of data.

How Does Microsoft Azure Work?

When you sign up for Azure, you can access all the services that are available on the Azure portal. These services enable you to create cloud-based resources like databases and VMs, which can be assembled into operational environments to store data and host workloads. These services allow you to build, deploy, and manage applications and services on the cloud.

Azure provides you with a multitude of tools and services, including:

• Virtual machines: It provides you with virtual machines that can be used to run applications and services on the cloud.
• Storage: With Azure, you get several storage options, including blob storage, file storage, and disk storage.
• Databases: You get multiple database options on Azure such as SQL Database, Cosmos DB, and MySQL.
• Networking: Azure offers several networking options like virtual networks, load balancers, and VPN gateways.
• Security: Azure provides many security options to secure your cloud resources, including advanced threat protection and compliance certifications.

Azure also offers third-party vendors the opportunity to provide software directly using its platform, with variable costs depending on the subscription fee for the application and usage fee for the infrastructure utilized to host it.

Azure Support Options

Microsoft provides five different customer support options for Azure - Basic, Developer, Standard, Professional Direct, and Enterprise (Premier). These plans have different scopes and prices, with Basic support offered for free.

• Basic support: Available to all Azure accounts.
• Developer support: Costs $29 per month and has extra support features over and above the Basic support ones.
• Standard support: Costs $100 per month and has extra support features over and above the Develop support ones.
• Professional Direct support: Costs $1,000 per month and has more support features than the Standard support option.
• Enterprise (Premier): Microsoft has not revealed the pricing for this support option.

Azure Products, Services, and their Usage

Azure provides you with several products and services. Some prominent ones are listed below:

A. Compute Services

1. Azure Virtual Machines: Azure Virtual Machines is an IaaS offering that allows users to deploy and run virtual machines in the cloud. It provides users with the flexibility to choose from a wide range of pre-configured virtual machine images, or users can create their own custom virtual machines.
2. Azure Functions: Azure Functions is a serverless compute service that allows users to run event-driven, serverless applications in the cloud. It provides users with a fully managed platform that automatically scales based on demand and allows users to run their code without having to manage infrastructure or servers.
3. Azure Service Fabric: Azure's Service Fabric offers a streamlined approach to developing microservices. Microservices refer to applications that bundle smaller applications within them. The Service Fabric service significantly simplifies the development process of microservices, making it more accessible to developers.

B. Networking Services

1. Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN): Azure CDN is designed to deliver content to users with high bandwidth. By utilizing strategically placed servers around the world, the CDN service ensures that content can be transferred to any user globally, with minimal delay.
2. Virtual Network: The Virtual Network service provided by Azure enables private and secure communication between any Azure services. This network ensures that Azure services can interact with each other with complete privacy and security.
3. Azure DNS: Azure DNS, on the other hand, allows you to host your DNS domains or system domains on the Azure cloud, making it easy to manage and maintain your domains.
4. Express Route: Express Route is a service that enables private connections between your on-premises network and Microsoft cloud or other preferred services. With this service, communication only occurs between the enterprise network and the targeted service, ensuring secure and efficient data transfer.

C. Storage Services

1. Azure Blob Storage: Azure Blob Storage is a cost-effective and scalable object storage solution that allows users to store and manage unstructured data like images, videos, and documents. It provides users with the ability to easily scale up or down their storage capacity as needed, and offers features such as automatic tiering, geo-replication, and access controls to ensure data durability, availability, and security.
2. Azure Disk Storage: Azure Disk Storage enables you to choose between HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or SSD (Solid State Drive) storage options for your virtual machine. This allows you to optimize your storage selection based on your specific requirements.
3. Azure File Storage: Azure File Storage is a managed service designed to store files that can be accessed via the industry-standard SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. This makes it an efficient and accessible file storage solution.
4. Azure Queue Storage: With Azure's Queue Storage service, you can provide reliable message queuing capabilities for large workloads. This service can be accessed from anywhere in the world, making it a convenient solution for global teams.

D. Other Azure Services

1. Azure App Service: Azure App Service is a PaaS offering that allows users to build, deploy, and scale web, mobile, and API applications quickly and easily.  
2. Azure SQL Database: Azure SQL Database is a fully managed relational database service that provides users with high availability, scalability, and security features.
3. Azure Kubernetes Service: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a fully managed container orchestration service that allows users to deploy and manage containerized applications in the cloud.
4. Azure DevOps: Azure DevOps is a suite of cloud-based development services that allows users to collaborate on code, build and deploy applications, and automate the software delivery process.
5. Azure Marketplace: Azure Marketplace is an online store that allows users to discover, purchase, and deploy software and services from Microsoft and its partners.

Azure for DR and Backup

Azure provides businesses with disaster recovery (DR) and backup services to protect their data and applications in the event of a disaster. Azure Site Recovery is a DR service that replicates virtual machines and physical servers to the cloud, providing businesses with a failover option once a disaster strikes. Azure Backup is a backup service that allows businesses to back up their data to the cloud, ensuring that their data is protected and recoverable in the event of data loss.

Privacy and Security in Microsoft Azure

Security and privacy are top priorities for Microsoft Azure. Azure provides you with several security features, including advanced threat protection, compliance certifications, and access control. Azure also complies with several industry standards, including ISO 27001, HIPAA, and SOC 2. Additionally, Azure offers you several privacy features such as data encryption, data residency, and data retention policies.

Azure Pricing and Costs

Azure's pricing model is based on pay-as-you-go, meaning that businesses only pay for the services they use. Azure offers several pricing tiers, namely a free tier, a pay-as-you-go tier, and an enterprise tier. Azure also offers several cost management tools like cost analysis and budget alerts to help businesses monitor and optimize their Azure costs.

What are the Benefits of Microsoft Azure?

With Azure, you can reap several benefits, including:

• Scalability: Azure allows you to scale up or down as required in different situations, making it highly scalable. With high scalability, they can handle sudden spikes in workloads easily.
• Cost Savings: Azure's pay-as-you-go pricing model can help you save more costs compared to traditional infrastructure. Additionally, Azure eliminates the need for you to invest in physical infrastructure, thereby allowing you to invest your time and money in more important things.
• Flexibility: Azure supports a range of programming languages, frameworks, and operating systems, making it easy to integrate with existing applications.
• Security: Azure offers robust security features like advanced threat protection and compliance certifications, making it a secure platform for hosting sensitive data.
• Innovation: Azure provides several innovative services, including Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure IoT, helping businesses to stay ahead of the competition.

Who Uses Microsoft Azure?

Microsoft Azure is used by businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprises. Azure is used by businesses in a range of industries, including healthcare, finance, retail, and government. Some of the top companies using Azure include NBC, Coca-Cola, and Samsung.

Significant Outages of Microsoft Azure

Like any technology platform, Microsoft Azure has experienced some significant outages in the past:

• On September 28, 2020, Azure Active Directory suffered from a prolonged outage that affected several Azure services, such as Azure DevOps, Azure Sentinel, and Azure Kubernetes Service.
• On 15th March 2021, a 14-hour outage caused by an Azure Active Directory outage affected multiple Microsoft services, including Azure, Office, Teams, Dynamics 365, and Xbox Live. This was followed by a smaller DNS outage on April 1, 2021.
• On 13th October 2021, Azure VM services and some other Azure services experienced an outage that lasted approximately eight hours.
• On January 25, 2023, Azure customers encountered network connectivity problems that resulted in prolonged network latency and timeouts when attempting to connect to Azure region-hosted resources and other Microsoft services like Power Platform and Microsoft 365.

However, Microsoft has been working to improve Azure's reliability and resilience by investing in new technologies and redundancies to prevent outages in the future.

Microsoft Azure Competition

Microsoft Azure competes with several other cloud computing platforms, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). While Azure is a newer player in the cloud computing space, it has gained significant market share in recent years, thanks to its robust feature set, competitive pricing, and strong security and privacy features.

What Azure Certifications are Available?

Let us explore the certifications that Microsoft Azure offers at different levels: 

1. Associate-Level

1. Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
2. Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate
3. Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate
4. Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate
5. Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
6. Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate
7. Microsoft Certified: Security Operations Analyst Associate
8. Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate
9. Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate

2. Expert-Level

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert

3. Specialty-Level

• Microsoft Certified: Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty
• Microsoft Certified: Azure IoT Developer Specialty
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Support Engineer for Connectivity Specialty

These certifications are designed for IT professionals and developers who want to validate their expertise in Azure. Besides these certifications, there are many other fundamental-level certifications offered by Azure.

Looking to the Future

In conclusion, Microsoft Azure is a cloud platform that offers businesses a large set of services, including compute, storage, and networking resources. Businesses can use Azure for countless use cases, from hosting websites and web applications to running machine learning and IoT workloads. With several certifications available, IT professionals and developers can demonstrate their expertise in Azure and help companies leverage their full potential. If you want to become a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator, enroll in KnowledgeHut’s Microsoft Azure Administrator certification training.

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