Introduction to Microsoft Windows Azure and Services

 Today I am going to talk about the Microsoft cloud services named as Microsoft Windows Azure services. As a cloud platform from Microsoft that provides a wide range of different services, Windows Azure lets you build, deploy, and manage solutions for almost any purpose you can imagine. Whether you’re a large enterprise spanning several continents that needs to run server workloads, or a small business that wants a website that has a global presence, Windows Azure can provide a platform for building applications that can leverage the cloud to meet the needs of your business. 

In a typical enterprise environment, developers create and test their applications in a test environment that only partially simulates the final production environment. For example, an application might be developed and tested on a non clustered host for eventual deployment onto clustered hosts. 

Fig 1.1- Azure Services

Mismatches like this between your development and production environments can slow the development process for business applications because certain problems might be missed in testing and only become apparent when the applications are deployed to production, which might necessitate further testing and development until the applications are behaving as intended.

Compute services

Windows Azure Web Sites is a scalable, secure, and flexible platform you can use for building web applications that run your business, extend the reach of your brand, and draw in new customers. It has an easy-to-use self-service portal with a gallery of the world’s most popular web solutions.

Fig1.2- Azure Cloud Services

• Virtual Machines This service provides you with a general-purpose computing environment that lets you create, deploy, and manage virtual machines running in the Windows Azure cloud.
• Web Sites This service provides you with a managed web environment you can use to create new websites or migrate your existing business website into the cloud. 
• Mobile Services This service provides a turnkey solution for building and deploying apps and storing data for mobile devices. 
• Cloud Services This service allows you to build and deploy highly available and almost infinitely scalable applications with low administration costs using almost any programming language. 

Windows Azure Virtual Machines is a scalable, on-demand IaaS platform you can use to quickly provision and deploy server workloads into the cloud. Once deployed, you can then configure, manage, and monitor those virtual machines, load-balance traffic between them, and connect them to other Windows Azure Cloud Services running web roles and worker roles. 

You can copy virtual hard disks (VHDs) from your on-premises environment into Windows Azure to use as templates for creating new virtual machines. And you can copy VHDs out of Windows Azure and run them locally in your datacenter. 

Network services 

With the Windows Azure platform, however, you can now easily extend your on-premises datacenter into the cloud, and Windows Azure Virtual Network is key to making this possible. For example, you can use Virtual Network to create and manage a virtual network that uses a private IPv4 address space in Windows Azure. 

Fig 1.3- Azure Network Services

You can also use Virtual Network to create a secure link between your on-premises IT infrastructure and your virtual network in Windows Azure. By creating a hybrid IT infrastructure that combines your on-premises network and your virtual networks in Windows Azure, you can securely connect your cloud-based applications to your on-premises information systems. 

• Virtual Network This service allows you to treat the Windows Azure public cloud as if it is an extension of your on-premises datacenter. 
• Traffic Manager This service allows you to route application traffic for the user who is using the application to Windows Azure data centers in three ways: for best performance, in round robin fashion, or using an Active/Passive failover configuration 

Data services 

Windows Azure data services allow businesses to store, access, analyze, and protect their data while making it available from anywhere and at any time. From storing data in SQL databases in the cloud to analysis and reporting, Windows Azure provides different services that can meet the needs of your business. 

Whether your data is stored on-premises or in the cloud, Windows Azure helps keep your data safe with automated backups. Windows Azure also ensures high throughput and low latency with managed caching of application data. 

Fig 1.4- Azure Data Services

And it can help protect private cloud solutions deployed with Microsoft System Center 2012 by replication and recovery at a secondary location. 

• Data Management This service lets you store your business data in SQL databases, either with dedicated Microsoft SQL Server virtual machines, using Windows Azure SQL Database, using NoSQL Tables via REST, or using BLOB storage. 
• Business Analytics This service enables ease of discovery and data enrichment using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting and Analysis Services or Microsoft SharePoint Server running in a virtual machine, Windows Azure SQL Reporting, the Windows Azure Marketplace, or HDInsight, a Hadoop implementation for Big Data. 
• HDInsight This is Microsoft’s Hadoop-based service which brings a 100 percent Apache Hadoop solution to the cloud. 
• Cache This service provides a distributed caching solution that can help speed up your cloud-based applications and reduce database load. 
• Backup This service helps you protect your server data offsite by using automated and manual backups to Windows Azure. 
• Recovery Manager Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager helps you protect business critical services by coordinating the replication and recovery of System Center 2012 private clouds at a secondary location. 

App services 

• Media Services This service allows you to build workflows for the creation, management, and distribution of media using the Windows Azure public cloud. 
• Active Directory This service provides you with identity management and access control capabilities for your cloud applications. 
• Notification Hubs This service provides a highly scalable, cross-platform push notification infrastructure for applications running on mobile devices. 
• Messaging This consists of two services (Windows Azure Service Bus and Windows Azure Queue) that allow you to keep your apps connected across your private cloud environment and the Windows Azure public cloud. 
• BizTalk Services This service provides Business-to-Business (B2B) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) capabilities for delivering cloud and hybrid integration solutions. 
• Multi factor Authentication This service provides an extra layer of authentication, in addition to the user’s account credentials, in order to better secure access for both on-premises and cloud applications