Microsoft Azure is commonly referred to as Azure. People used to only know Azure as a cloud computing platform but what Azure actually is?
What is Azure?
At its core, Azure is a public cloud computing platform which usually described as having “limitless potential” and “unlimited possibilities” —with solutions including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) that can be used for services such as analytics, virtual computing, storage, networking, and much more. It can be used to replace or supplement your on-premise servers.
The Azure cloud platform is more than 200 products and cloud services designed to help you bring new solutions to life—to solve today’s challenges and create the future. Build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds, on-premises, and at the edge, with the tools and frameworks of your choice.
Here are some quick facts about Azure.
· Flexible – Move to compute resources up and down as needed
· Open – Supports almost any OS, language, tool, or framework
· Reliable – 99.95% availability SLA and 24×7 tech support
· Global – Data housed in geosynchronous data centers
· Economical – Only pay for what you use
Azure is a fast, flexible, and affordable platform and its pricing and capabilities make it the best public cloud offering on the market. Now let’s take a look at how to put it to work for you.
Azure pricing and costs
Similar to other public cloud providers, Azure uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model that charges based on usage. However, if a single application uses multiple Azure services, each service might involve multiple pricing tiers. In addition, if a user makes a long-term commitment to certain services, Microsoft offers a discounted rate.
Given the many factors involved in cloud service pricing, an organization should review and manage its cloud usage to minimize costs. Azure-native tools, such as Azure Cost Management, can help monitor, visualize and optimize cloud spending. It's also possible to use third-party tools, such as Cloudability or RightScale, to manage Azure resource usage and associated costs.
Example of Azure Cost Management dashboard to monitor Cloud usage.
That’s all for today. To know more about Azure, stay tuned to our next blog. We will be posting the next topic of Azure on “What can Azure do for your business”. Peace out!!
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