Microsoft Azure is now popularly known as Windows Azure, the cloud computing platform that is developed by Microsoft for building, managing and deploying the applications and the services through the network of Microsoft data centers. It offers IaaS and PaaS services and supports various programming languages, frameworks and tools, including the third-party and Microsoft-specific software and systems.
Characteristics
Azure is the Microsoft's cloud application platform. Recently in 2012, Azure came up with the following features:
¢ The websites allow the developers to build the sites by using PHP, ASP.NET, Python or Node.js, and can be distributed by using Git, FTP or Mercurial Server.
¢ The virtual machines allow the developers to travel from the infrastructure without changing the code, and thus can run the Linux machines and the Windows Server. Cloud services also support the automated deployments and multi-tier scenarios. Microsoft's Platform Service is used in order to create extensive applications and services.
Data Management
The SQL Database, which was previously well-known as the SQL Azure Database, works to scale and extend applications in the cloud by using SQL server technology.
Media Services
Paas can be used for content protection, encoding, and streaming or analytics. The Microsoft Azure Platform offers an API built on the HTTP, REST and XML which allows the developer to connect with the services which is offered by Azure. Moreover, it also integrates with Git, Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio. It also provides the managed library class which epitomizes the functions of connecting with the services.
Other Services
Websites
It helps in the hosting of websites. The customers create the sites in ASP.NET, PHP, Python or Node.js and you can also select from various open source applications available in the gallery in order to deploy. This consists of an aspect of Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings for the Azure.
Virtual Machines
The Azure virtual machines consist of Infrastructure as the service providing from Microsoft to the public cloud. As the preview, these machines supported the Windows Server 2008 and 2012 systems and distributors of Linux. The customers can also create the Virtual Machines, which they have control in order to run the Data Centers.
Cloud Services
The cloud computing services are the containers of the hosted applications. The applications are usually public web applications, like e-commerce solutions or websites. Developers write code, mainly for the cloud services in different programming languages. They can also be used in the private processing engines for some other work, like processing orders or the analyzing data. However, some of the software development kits are commenced by Microsoft for Java, Python and NET. The other languages support through the open source projects.
Implementation
Azure uses the specialized operating system known as Microsoft Azure in order to run "fabric layer", which is hosted at Microsoft's data centers, which manages the storage and computing resources of the computers and the provisions of the resources to the application running on the of Azure. Reliability and Scaling are controlled by the Azure Fabric Controller. The Microsoft Azure is described as the "cloud layer" on the Server Systems that use Windows Server 2008 and also the customized version of the Hyper-V, popularly known as the Azure Hypervisor in order to provide virtualization of the services. So, the environment and the services don't crash if the server crashes within the data center and offers the management of the user's web application, such as the load balancing and the memory resources.
Privacy
Microsoft Azure has stated, according to the USA Patriot Act, the US government has the access to the data ven though the hosted company is not American and the data resides outside the USA. Azure is a compliant with E.U. data Protection Directive. In order to manage the Security and Privacy related concerns, Microsoft has created the Microsoft Trust Center.
