Microsoft Azure: All You Need to Know

Image for representative purpose only.

Microsoft Azure- A notable excellence in the field of cloud computing

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing services developed by Microsoft for developing, testing, deploying and executing applications and systems through a global Microsoft-administered data centres. For wide variety of different programming languages, tools and frameworks, counting both Microsoft definite and third party software and systems, Azure provides Software as a service(SaaS), Platform as a service(PaaS) and Infrastructure as a service(IaaS). In the year 2008, on October Azure was announced and it was released in February 1 2010 as “Windows Azure”. Later in the year 2014 on 25th of March it was renamed as “Microsoft Azure”. Microsoft Azure offer services for developing and deploying cloud solutions with the help of the following resources that are very much essential. The following are the list of resources that are very vital:

i) Azure Virtual Network: The network that is isolated within the Microsoft Azure service.

ii) Name Resolution Service: Within the cloud, it is used for internal hostname resolution.

iii) Azure Express Route : This is provided by the connectivity provider. This is extending on-premises network into the virtual network over a allocated private connection.

iv) Azure Traffic Manager: Within various geographies in the cloud services it controls how to distribute the user traffic.

v) Application Gateway: Works at the system layer and acts as a reverse-proxy service, abolishing the client connection and promoting requests to back-end the endpoints.

What is Virtual Network?

The method of connecting hardware and software network resources and network functionality into a single, software-based regulatory entity is known as network virtualization. Virtual Network is also known as a VNet. It constitutes a Logical boundary which is defined by private IP address space that we nominate. We can allot IP address space into a single or multiple subnets. This makes it functionally comparable to on-premises networks. VNets are similar to AWS Vitual Private Cloud, offering wide varieties features like the ability to customize Inter-Virtual Machine connectivity, Virtual Private Networks(VPN), access control, Domain Name Server, routing and DHCP Blocks.

In a Network Function, Virtualization Architecture is a virtualized network function, or VNF, is responsible for administering definite network functions that run in one or more virtual machines on above the hardware networking infrastructure, which can include routers, switches servers, cloud computing systems and more. Azure Virtual Network grants to securely connect cloud infrastructure to our on-premise datacentre. Virtual Networks allow to formulate a virtual lab by allowing connectivity to on-premises resources with the help of Point-To-Site and Site-to-Site VPN connections. Virtual Network also works as a DHCP server, which allows configuring a DNS Server to be sublet out when the VM is a circuited up in the cloud. In broad definition, a virtual network structure is a more current organization design. This structure means that the business subcontracts most of its necessary functions to some other different businesses, and equalize their activities from its headquarter to gain proficiency in the competitive market. Network virtualization is broadly classified as either external virtualization, joining many networks or parts of networks into a virtual unit, or internal virtualization, providing network-like functionality to software containers on a single network server. External network virtualization joins or subdivides single or multiple local area networks (LANs) into virtual networks to enhance a large network's or data center's efficiency. A virtual local area network (VLAN) and network switch composed the key components. Internal network virtualization construct a single system with software containers, such as Xen hypervisor control programs, or pseudo-interfaces, such as a VNIC, to imitate a real-time network with software. This can enhance a single system's efficiency by isolating applications to independent containers or pseudo-interfaces. The capabilities of VNet are as follows:

i) Isolation: VNet are segregated from one another. One can create and depurate VNet for development, testing and production that use the similar CIDR address block.

ii) VNet Connectivity: VNet to VNet gateway needs to be configured to setup a network between VNets.

iii) On-Premises Connectivity:  VNets can be joined to on-premise networks via point to site and site to site.

iv) Internet Connectivity:  Automatically all Azure VM and Cloud Services role instances are connected to a VNet and have connection to internet.

v) Connectivity to Azure Resources: Cloud Services and VMs can be connected to the same VNet. These resources can combine to the same VNet. These resources can join to each other using private IP address, even if they are on different subnets. 

vi) Load Balancing: It can load balances to servers.

vii) Routing: Azure give permits to the Users defined routes and BGP routes.

viii) Filtering of Traffic: Virtual Machine and Cloud Services role instances network traffic can be permeate outbound and inbound by target IP Address and port source IP Address and port and protocol. 

Cloud Computing: An Arm of Digitalization

Image for representative purpose only.

Major role of Cloud Computing in boosting up the paces of modern digitalization 

What is a Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a model for enabling appropriate, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources such as network, servers, storage, application, servicesand so on that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort that is the service provider interaction.

Cloud Computing Components:

a) Front End: The part seen by the client or user, i.e. the computer user. Front end includes the client's network and the applications used to access the cloud through user interface such as web browser. For example Client Computers-mobile, thin/thick computers.

b) Back End: Back end is the 'cloud' itself, comprising various computers, servers and data storage devices. Server farm (distributed servers); Storage farm (distributed storage); Data farm (distributed datacenter).

Cloud Computing Basics:

The following are the cloud computing basics:

a) Server Technology: Grid Computing (1995) and Virtualization (1960).

b) Storage Technology:SAN (1994), SSD (1970), Flash Memory (1980).

c) Storage Efficiency Technology:Data De-duplication (2005), Cloning (1996) and Thin Provisioning (2002)

d) Application Development Technology :

• Object Oriented Programming (1960)
• Service Oriented Architecture(2004)
• Web services: SOAP(1998),WSDL(2000),Rest(2001)
• Languages: Java(1995), Dot Net(2002), Perl(1995), Python(1989)

Dependencies for Cloud:

There are mainly two dependencies for Cloud:

a) To be effective: Advanced web browsers and dependable networks

b) To be efficient: Multiple, massive datacenters with Low-touch support paradigm.

Cloud Terminology:

Principles of Cloud Computing

There are mainly six principles of Cloud Computing:

i) On demand service: It is completely automated. Users abstracted from the implementation. It is near real-time delivery (seconds or minutes). Service accessed through a self-serve web-interface.

ii) Ubiquitous network access.

iii) Multi-Tenancy: Resources are drawn from a common pool. Common resources built in huge economies of scale, and Common infrastructure runs at high efficiency.

iv) Location Independent Resource Pooling.

v) Rapid Elasticity: Resources are dynamically allocated between users. Additional resources are dynamically released when needed or may be fully automated.

vi) Metered: No up-front initial investment is required to get started/Users pay only for services used/Underlying hardware costs are irrelevant.

Types of Cloud Computing Deployment Models:

i) Private Cloud: Private cloud is cloud infrastructure, which is operated solely for a single company, whether managed internally or by a third-party, and hosted either internally or externally. When a private cloud project is undertaken it requires significant engagement to virtualize the business environment, and requires the organization to reevaluate decisions about existing resources.

ii) Public Cloud: A cloud is called "public cloud" when the services are used over a network that is open for public use. Public cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle, Microsoft and Google own and operate the infrastructure at their data center and access is generally via the Internet. AWS, Oracle, Microsoft, and Google also offer direct connect services called "AWS Direct Connect", "Oracle FastConnect", "Azure ExpressRoute", and "Cloud Interconnect" respectively, such connections require customers to purchase or lease a private connection to a peering point offered by the cloud provider.

iii) Hybrid Cloud: Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community or public) that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. Hybrid cloud can also mean the ability to connect collocation, managed and/or dedicated services with cloud resources.

iv) Community Cloud: A community cloud in computing is a collaborative effort in which infrastructure is shared between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns, whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally.  The costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud.

Delivery Models Based on Services:

1) Software-as-a-service (SaaS): 

Applications at Scale (for End Users) -Third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.SaaS removes the need of a company to install and run applications on their own computer system or in their own data centers. This reduces the expense of hardware acquisition, provisioning and maintenance, as well as software licensing, installation support and maintenance. The benefits of SaaS model includes:

• Payments are flexible.
• Cloud services like SaaS offer high scalability
• Updates are automatic.
• Easy Accessibility.

2) Platform-as-a Service (PaaS): 

Execution Platforms at Scale (for Developers)- Platform base service is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an application. The benefits of PaaS are:

• Initial investments are less and risk is less.
• New features and immediate updates can be done.
• Quick implementation and more agile support.
• Data Security.
• Increased Availability.

3) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): 

Infrastructure at Scale (System Administrators) –It is a cloud computing technique that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet.It is an online service that provide high-level APIs used to dereference various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc. A hypervisor thatruns the virtual machines as guests. Pools of hypervisors within the cloud operational system can support large numbers of virtual machines and the ability to scale services up and down according to customers' varying requirements. The benefits of IaaS are:

• The infrastructure cost of IaaS model is low.
• Faster time to market.
• Computer resources are well distributed as a service. This may include CPU, storage space, virtual network switches and many more.
• IaaS is good when it is the time to expand or scale in response to company’s requirement.
• IaaS provides greater reliability in which cloud providers can spread resources across data centers.
• We need to pay only for those services that we need.