Cloud Computing is the major thing in the world of Information Technology right now. Major activities in the domain can be done through the services provided in cloud computing by various platforms. Cloud Computing is the process of providing services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet, where the services can be released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
Cloud Computing has some characteristics mentioned below:
· The resources which are owned by a provider is made available to the user as a service.
· The location of the resources are not known for the user as it is available through the internet amidst the location.
· As mentioned above resources can be accessed from anywhere using web interfaces, APIs and protocols.
· Users can dynamically scale the amount of resources they are going to use and they can pay according to that.
The Cloud Computing is deployed under three models in the likes of public, private, and hybrid. The most commonly used model is the public deployment where the services are run by an organization that are not a part of the organization to which the customer or user belongs to. Private Cloud is completely opposite to the Public deployment method as the services are often consumed within a single organization. Hybrid deployment method is he combination of the both above mentioned methods.
Most Popular Cloud Computing tools:
· Microsoft Azure
· Amazon Web Services
· Digital Ocean
· Google Cloud Platform
· IBM Cloud
Microsoft Azure is the Cloud Computing platform developed by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through the data centers powered and managed by Microsoft. The major kind of services provided by the platform as SaaS — Software as a service, PaaS — Platform as a Service, and IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service. Also, the platform provides supported environment for various programming languages, tools, and frameworks which are owned by Microsoft as well as third parties.
The Cloud Computing platform of Microsoft was announced in October 2008 and it was released on February 1, 2020 in the name of ‘Windows Azure’. Then it was renamed to the current name of ‘Microsoft Azure’ on 2014. The platform over 600 services in the cloud computing under the three domains mentioned in the above paragraph. Let’s focus on some of the major services provided by Microsoft Azure.
· Computer Services:
The platform provided virtual machines which allow users to launch general purpose applications through virtual machines like Microsoft Windows, Linux. The platform enables users to access app services under PaaS where the users can easily publish and manage their websites. It enables high density hosting of websites where the sites can be developed using ASP.NET. PHP, Node.js or Python.
· Mobile Services:
It provides a feature called Mobile Engagement which collects the real time analytics data of mobile phones and provide notifications to phones according to that. Also it has a feature called HockeyApp which is used to develop and publish beta-test mobile Apps.
· Storage Services:
Azure provides REST and SDK API for storing and accessing data on the cloud. Cloud storage is one of the most common features used by more people, even general people. Table service allows users to store database and it is a NoSQL database. File service allows users to store and access data on cloud.
· Data management:
A service called ‘Azure Data Explorer’ provides tools for big data analysis. As mentioned earlier the platform provides services for database both SQL and NoSQL. The data warehouse of Azure is fully managed as cloud data warehouse which provides lightning fast query processing.
· Messaging:
The Microsoft Azure Bus provides an opportunity for the users who are running applications on Azure tools to communicate with the service provider. The bus supports four different types of communication models such as Event Hubs, Queues, Topics, and Relays.
· Media Services:
Media services are provided under PaaS services. The media services can be used for encoding, content protection, and analytics.
· Machine Learning:
Azure ML — Microsoft Azure Machine Learning is a part of Cortona Intelligence. It performs predictive analytics pf data using speech and natural intelligence under Cortona. Cognitive Services are also available in the platform which provide opportunity for developers to make their applications more intelligent, discoverable, and engaging. The services include face recognition and verification, celebrity recognition, clip art recognition etc.
· Internet of Things (IoT):
Internet of Things is one of the key elements in the modern Information Technology Era. Azure also provides services such as Azure IoT Hub, Azure IoT Edge, Azure IoT Central, Azure Sphere to enhance the use of IoT.
· CDN — Content Delivery Network:
Microsoft Azure provides a global Content Delivery Network (CDN) which can be used for audio, video, applications, images and other static files. The CDN is used to increase the performance of above-mentioned things by caching the static assets. The network is managed by certain APIs.
In the business domain Microsoft Azure is more effective compared to other cloud platforms. Major advantage of Azure is that it is cost effective. As it runs on its own servers the operational cost is low and the servers are also more reliable. The platform provides various scale of subscriptions for users which make it capital less in accessing the platform. Data recovery is also more vulnerable in Azure as it keeps backup data more efficiently. Also it provides more security tools than the local servers. Another main advantage is that Azure is easy to go type. The services can be started in a couple of clicks which make it more easier to access.
As-stated above Microsoft Azure provides more security than the local servers. Users can gain the advantage of Multi-layer security provided by Microsoft across physical data centers, infrastructure, and operations in Azure. The platform has built in controls which enables users to protect their workloads with built-in controls and services in Azure across identity, data, networking, and apps. It also the uses unique intelligence to detect the new threats and respond to them quickly by real time cyber security globally.
The demand for Azure is increasing gradually over the period. In recent times, the consumers of Azure has risen more than in the time of it’s invention. According to the analysis, the demand for Azure increases without any downfall. So it will be a great deal for people in the IT industry which will facilitate their work a lot easier, secure and efficient.
