Azure Cloud Services Overview (Glossary Part 1)
According to survey conducted by Gartner, 60% of companies will use an external cloud service provider by 2022. This is definitely a huge number and shows the cloud adoption trends for future.
Despite this growth in cloud computing, the cloud computing ecosystem is not that simple and easy. The three top players AWS, Azure and Google Cloud ,come their own cloud terminology to describe the features, functionality, and tools of cloud infrastructure. This is really confusing if you are moving the the cloud for first time or even moving from one vendor to another.
So to simplify your life and make it easy for you to understand , we have this post that talks about some of the key services from Azure cloud. This is the first part of our three part series on Azure cloud.
In case you have missed, we have a similar three part series for AWS cloud services, that you can read below:
AWS Services Terminology – Part 1
AWS Services Terminology – Part 2
AWS Services Terminology – Part 3
What is Azure?
Azure is a public cloud computing service by Microsoft. Also known as Microsoft Azure, it offers a wide range of cloud services. You can choose from services like compute, storage, analytics,databases,container services, networking etc.
Now let us start with some of the key Azure cloud services and understand the basic Azure terms.
Azure Services Glossary
Azure Account
- The azure account will let you access the services of Azure and your Azure subscription.
- It is possible to create multiple subscriptions in a single Azure account. To take advantage of Azure’s cloud services, you must have a subscription.
Azure App Service
- It is a fully-managed ‘Platform-as-a-Service’(PaaS). Azure App Service includes Microsoft Azure websites, mobile services, and BizTalk Services.
- It is a single product with the capabilities of whatever you need – mobile, web, or API. Each service brings something unique to the table.
Azure Classic Deployment Model
- In this model, each resource will work independently. You cannot group related models.
- You will have to manually deploy, manage, and remove each model independently.
- If you’re new to Azure, you will rarely see Classic except for VMs. It is not possible to apply tags to resources to label them for your reference.
Azure Command Line Interface (CLI)
- It is a set of commands used to create and manage Azure resources.
- Azure CLI is a cross-platform command-line interface. Thus, it is possible to manage resources on different platforms like macOS, Linux, and Windows.
- Anyone can learn CLI by Azure cloud shell, a browser-based command line tool.
Azure Powershell
- Azure Powershell is an interface that lets you automate and manage Azure services. It is a command line tool that uses a set of cmdlets or scripts to perform various tasks.
- It will create and manage storage accounts or virtual machines.
- Azure Powershell will make it easy to learn Azure with powerful features for automation. It is written in .NET .
Azure Backup
- Azure Backup is a built-in backup solution for all the resources. It will protect your data from ransomware and human errors.
- The data will be stored in an encrypted mode. The backup agent will encrypt the data and then sends it to the storage place in Azure using the network.
- Azure Backup offers a one-click backup solution at a lower cost.
Azure DevOps
- Azure DevOps is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. It helps developers to create and deploy applications withing Azure DevOps service or on-premise Azure DevOps Server.
- Nowadays, DevOps is critical for any team’s success. Azure DevOps provides an end-to-end DevOps toolchain for developing and deploying software.
Azure Cosmos DB
- Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed database service that allows you to manage your data. You can store your data across any number of Azure regions worldwide.
- It provides tools required to scale global distribution patterns and computational resources. It also supports multiple data models with one backend.
Azure Active Directory
- It is Microsoft’s enterprise cloud-based identity and access management solution. Azure Active Directory or Azure AD provides single sign-in and multi-factor authentication for further protection.
- You can find Active Directory in servers called Domain Controllers (DC). Each DC contains a catalog of users and computers. Users authenticate to DC via Kerberos or NTLM authentication. Azure AD is the backbone of the Office 365 system.
Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Azure CDN includes blobs and other static content in a cache to increase the speed of cloud services. It will place the data at strategically chosen locations and then caching it.
- Azure CDN is a secure and reliable content delivery with global coverage and extensive scalability. It is integrated into Azure services. Thus, it is easy to scale.
- Azure CDN offers a pay-as-you-go payment cycle.
Azure Site Recovery
- It is Azure’s built-in Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) platform.
- Using Azure Site Recovery, it is possible for Azure Virtual Machines, Hyper-V, Physical on-prem systems, and VMWare to fail and successfully fall back once the disaster is resolved.
- It is cost-effective.
- Other features of Azure Site Recovery are deployment and dependability. It will keep your applications running in case of planned or unplanned interruptions.
Azure Bot
- Azure Bot framework is a powerful and sophisticated framework for building chatbots, QandA bot, or your own branded virtual assistant.
- You can develop intelligent bots to enrich the customer experience while maintaining control of your data. It will help you to content to the users quickly and effectively.
- You can use open-source SDK and tools to build, test, and publish your Bots. It is also quite easy to add the language of your choice to the Bot.
So this is the first of our three part series on Azure Cloud services.
Do feel free to share your views and thoughts with us in comments.
