Microsoft Azure – Handy Cloud to Operate and Develop In
All-Business Cloud Platform
Microsoft is the second largest cloud provider on the market. Microsoft Azure cloud offers rich PaaS functionality and integrable SaaS products beneficial for:
SaaS Startups
Achieving faster time to market due to Azure’s compoundable services.
Small and mid-sized businesses
Getting automated migration and infrastructure construction with Azure’s PaaS services.
Businesses using Microsoft products in-house
Which then benefit from lift-and-shift migrations of their IT infrastructures to Azure.
Featured Services of Microsoft Azure
Cloud computing
Azure Functions
Serverless event- and request- triggered computing at scale with declarative access to Azure’s and third-party services.
Azure CycleCloud
Dynamically scaled computing, networking and caching environment for high-performance data processing.
Virtual Machine Scale Sets
Centralized management of autoscaled and dynamically balanced virtual machines for large workloads and big data.
Azure VMware Solution
VMware-compatible service for migration and management of your sets of VMs at scale.
Containerization
Container Instances
Running scalable isolated containers (ACIs) in Azure’s serverless environment.
Azure Kubernetes Service
A native Kubernetes orchestration tool integrable with multiple Azure development services.
Azure Red Hat OpenShift
Running OpenShift container clusters in Azure environment managed by Microsoft and Red Hat.
Azure Service Fabric
Cross-platform service to arrange and manage containers with on-demand scalability.
Databases
Azure SQL Database
Building scalable relational databases.
Azure Cosmos DB
Fast clustered NoSQL database with multi-model sub-DBs deployed in each cluster for horizontal scalability.
Azure Cache for Redis
Management of distributed Redis server instances yielding low latencies through caching.
Azure Database for MySQL/ PostgreSQL/MariaDB
Virtualization services to implement scalable databases.
Azure Database Migration Service
DB migration wizard for automated migration of workloads.
Data storage
Blob storage
Scalable data management service enabling high-throughput processing of unstructured data for big data applications.
Azure Data Lake Storage
Secure data lake management platform built around Blob storage and integrated with analytics frameworks.
Azure Disk Storage
Storage for Azure VMs with a range of options for SSDs and HDDs.
Azure Files
File share management service supporting the SMB protocol compatible with Windows, Linux and macOS.
Azure HPC Cache
Cashing of on-premises and cloud data for high performance computing tasks.
Azure Backup
Snapshot backup/recovery tool supporting encryption and prolonged data retention time.
Networking and security
Virtual Network
Environment ensuring secure and seamless communication among your on-premises and Azure-hosted resources.
Load Balancer
Optimal distribution of inbound traffic loads according to the defined rules and backend instance performance.
Azure DNS
Highly available domain hosting ensuring fast DNS queries.
Azure ExpressRoute
Broadband connection to Azure cloud services bypassing the public internet.
Content Delivery Network
Global network of edge servers to cache and distribute content at the lowest latencies.
Azure Active Directory
Identity and access management tool for Microsoft products and apps run in Azure.
Azure Firewall
Managing security policy and traffic filtering across your entire virtual network.
Azure DDoS Protection
DDoS monitoring and mitigation tool that learns traffic patterns to tune security policies.
Web Application Firewall
Firewall service with centralized protection of web apps against such exploits as SQL injections, cross-site scripting, etc.
Implementation of web and mobile applications
App Service
Full-cycle development of web apps and mobile back ends with built-in SDKs, containerization and orchestration features.
Visual Studio App Centre
Self-sustained development environment for mobile (Android, iOS) and desktop (macOS, Windows) apps.
Azure Maps
Geospatial services and SDKs for geographic context in apps.
Integrations
API Management
Centralized administering of all APIs within hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures.
Service Bus
Message broker supporting multiple protocols for async communication among apps and services.
Event Grid
HTTP-event routing tool for serverless apps and microservices.
Azure API for FHIR
Health data management service allowing FHIR-compliant management of protected health data.
DevOps tools
Azure Pipelines
CI/CD management tool for automated building, testing and deployment of code to containers, virtual machines and Azure Services.
Azure DevTest Labs
Development and testing environments self-managed by developers within defined quotas and policies.
Azure Repos
Unlimited Git repositories with internal CI/CD kit and push-pull policy management.
Azure Boards
Project management environment for planning and tracking development workflows integrable with various third-party extensions.
Azure Test Plans
QA solution helping create and trace testing scenarios as well as gather and handle user feedback.
Azure Artifacts
Package management tool enabling multi-type and multi-source package feed in your CI/CD pipelines.
Data processing and analytics
Power BI Embedded
Scalable analytics solution embedded in Azure-hosted apps at a fixed price.
HDInsight
Running open-source analytics solutions like Apache Hadoop, Spark, and Kafka in Azure.
Data Lake Analytics
On-demand big data analysis with tools to optimize reserved computing nodes.
Azure Stream Analytics
Real-time data analytics for fast-moving streams of cloud and edge data.
Azure Databricks
Scalable Apache Spark-driven analytics for data at rest and in transit.
Data Factory
No-code building hybrid ETL/ELT pipelines.
AI and machine learning
Azure Machine Learning
Drag-and-drop construction, deployment and management of ML models.
Text Analytics
Statistical extraction of insights and sentiments from unstructured texts.
Azure Cognitive Services
AI APIs, templates and domain-specific scenarios for AI deployable on-premises and in the cloud.
Azure Bot Service
No-code creation of AI bots and virtual assistants plugged into diverse communication channels.
Bing AI Services
AI-driven search capabilities with the Bing search engine.
Language Understanding
ML-driven understanding of a human speech for a machine-human communication.
Computer Vision
Visual data processing engine.
Custom Vision
Template-driven computer vision models adjusted for specific domains and scenarios.
Internet of Things
Azure IoT Central
Powerful IoT platform enabling monitoring and management of an IoT ecosystem.
Azure IoT solution accelerators
IoT assistant service helping build IoT network based on ready-made domain-specific scenarios.
Azure IoT Hub
Establishing secure communication between IoT devices and apps.
Azure Digital Twins
Context-oriented prototyping of scalable IoT spaces and processes for PoC purposes.
Azure Time Series Insights
Real-time processing and visualization of IoT data.
Azure Sphere
Hardware and software IoT solution for secure communication of devices.
Blockchain
Azure Blockchain Service
Codeless creation of blockchain infrastructures at scale.
Azure Blockchain Workbench
Blockchain app prototyping.
Common Use Cases for Microsoft Azure
Benefits of Microsoft Azure
Azure migration pays back with:
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Reduced data center footprint and infrastructure costs. |
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Improved scalability and performance of business-critical workloads. |
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Freeing IT staff from infrastructure management for higher-priority tasks. |
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Fast time-to-market with efficient development environments and pluggable native services. |
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Increased volumes and profits from online B2C sales. |
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Reduced efforts for disaster recovery. |