What is Azure Cloud- Getting Started
Today in this article we will start with the basics of Azure cloud and understand “What is Azure Cloud”.
Cloud computing gives you a great ability to acquire computing power for your application. So here instead of buying a physical server, you rent computing power in Cloud for any of the requirements like website hosting, application/services hosting, etc.
Today in this article, we will cover below aspects,
Azure cloud is integrated cloud services to build, deploy and manage applications through a global network i.e their data center
The largest benefit of the Cloud is you get computing power as per your will and requirements. You pay only for what you use thereby reducing the budget and amount of work required for hosting and maintenance of your resources and application.
In general, any physicals datacenter setup requires many resources few are listed below,
- Servers
- Hardware
- Network
- Capex
- Storage
- Racks
- Power Supply
- Security
- Maintenance cost
- + Many more
All the above components are configured for you by Cloud services so that you only concentrate on the business you are running. More importantly, you pay only for used resources, helping you give scope for managing the budget effectively.
Great benefits you get out of the Cloud are Self-service and un-limited scaling, cost-saving, etc.
Azure as Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
Azure can act as PaaS(Platform as service) and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Azure as PaaS and Azure as IaaS are distinct from each other which we will see in our upcoming articles. Azure helps your project teams to focus on the organization’s business rather than spending time and effort on IT infrastructure
Multiple benefits of Cloud
Below are the top benefits of Cloud in general
High Availability and Business Continuity
The high availability of systems is the biggest benefit you get from the cloud. Average 99.99% availability benefits to a large extent while performing the cost-sensitive operation. Continues availability, business continuity requires a significant amount of effort, technology but IaaS makes everything easy to manage.
Agility
Cloud computing gives you the power to address new business requirements rapidly thereby helping the organization to achieve Speed to market. Organization focusses its effort on business rather than IT infrastructure
Cost
Buying physical hardware and software requires heavy capital expenditure. By using Cloud computing one could eliminate that cost easily
Speed
Cloud resources including VMs, Services computing power can be provisioned with just a few mouse clicks, giving a lot of flexibility in achieving business objectives.
Scaling
Required resources can be acquired based on requirements or demand. One can scale up the required resources or scale down the resources as required. A scalable system helps you serve your client better with optimal efficiency.
Elasticity
This is an extension of Scaling with the added feature of enabling it to grow or shrink the resources in an automated way.
Fault Tolerances
Cloud computing provides you the ability to handle system faults like a failure of
- networking failures
- hardware failures
- power failures etc.
Reliability and Disaster recovery
Cloud computing makes it easy to perform data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity easier and less expensive because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network.
Security
Security is not an afterthought. Many cloud providers offer a well-defined set of policies, technologies, and controls to secure your data, applications, and infrastructure from potential cyber hacks or threats.
Getting Started
You can create a server or VM in just a few minutes. We will step by step all the details in our upcoming series on Azure learning.
Prerequisites
Before we get started please make sure you have an Azure account registered.
If not done so, please go for free registration using the below link,
Once the account is created, you shall be able to use different services offered by the azure cloud.
I shall be covering more on Azure hosting and details architecture and design of cloud applications in this new series on the Azure cloud.
Kindly stay tuned!
References:
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Happy Coding !!
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