Microsoft Azure Basics

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform developed by microsoft to build, deploy and manage applications in microsoft managed datacenters.

What is cloud computing?

When we say cloud then it means data is stored on internet. there are organisations that provide cloud computing platforms and are called as vendors like Google,Amazon Microsoft etc. Microsoft Azure is provided by microsoft.

Cloud computing usually is classified in three categories: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. However, as the cloud matures, the distinction among these is being very less. 

SaaS : Software as a Service

When a software is centrally hosted and managed for end customers then it is called software as a service. for example office365. 

typically SaaS uses multi tenant architecture and same version is used for all customer. other example of SaaS includes mails, dropbox etc.

PaaS : Platform as a Service

With Paas , you deploy your application in a application hosting environment that is provided by cloud vendor.

so here you develop the application and cloud vendor provides the platform to deploy and run it.

here developer do not thinks about the infrastructure and focuses only on development.

Microsoft Azure provides several PaaS features like Web apps feature of app service. 

here developer do not need to think about VM's and all those thing. just build and deploy your application.

IaaS : Infrastructure as a Service

With Iaas , cloud vendor runs and manages server farms running virtualisation software, enabling you to create VM's that run on the vendor’s infrastructure. Depending on the vendor, you can create a VM of windows or linux and install anything on it.

Azure provides ability to create VM's of windows or Linux and it provide ability to setup virtual network , load balancer and storage etc.

it also provide ability setup many other services that can be used.

Azure Services

Microsoft Azure provides many services in cloud.

to understand better it is grouped in four categories below.

a.  Compute services :

following service comes under this category.

Azure Virtual Machines—both Linux and Windows

Cloud Services, App Services (Web Apps, Mobile Apps, Logic Apps, API Apps, and Function Apps)

Batch (for large-scale parallel and batch compute jobs)

RemoteApp

Service Fabric

Azure Container Service.  

b. Data services  : 

following services comes under this category.

Microsoft Azure Storage (comprised of the Blob, Queue, Table, and Azure Files services)

Azure SQL Database

DocumentDB

StorSimple

Redis Cache. 

 c. Application services  :

following services comes under this category.

this includes services that you can use to help build and operate your applications

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)

Service Bus for connecting distributed systems

HDInsight for processing big data

Azure Scheduler

Azure Media Services. 

d.  Network services :

following services comes under this category

Virtual Networks

ExpressRoute

Azure DNS

Azure Traffic Manager

Azure Content Delivery Network.