What is Microsoft Azure? How does it work? And how can it help your Company to save money and grow? SQL Experts tell you how.
You have probably heard of Microsoft Azure, or at least, of the cloud concept.
Cloud computing presents a great opportunity for Companies. Specifically, with Azure servers, you can have the infrastructures you need flexibly: physical servers, networks, virtual machines, development platforms, storage … Yes, in Azure you can build virtually anything, computerly speaking!
You can have a metaphora of the cloud services taking Pizza as a service as an example.
What is azure?
Azure is a public pay-per-use cloud that allows you to quickly compile, deploy and manage applications in a global network of Microsoft datacenters
But attention, “public cloud” does not mean that anyone can access your business information, but that anyone with an Internet connection can make use of this cloud and that only if they have the appropriate credentials, they can access your Azure portal, where all services are generated and managed.
How does it work?
In the Microsoft Azure portal there are different infrastructure and platform services so you can “mount” the services you need in a simple way, when you really need it and with a few clicks.
In your portal you have a [New +] button and from there, you just have to choose the region of the datacenter where your service will be and then the type of service with its characteristics. For example, in the case of wanting to create a virtual machine you could select the type of machine as Windows Server 2016 Datacenter, then fill in all its features (disk space, RAM …). In this creation process, a specific username and password is defined to be able to log in to this virtual machine.
Among the services, you have infrastructure (IaaS: storage, networks, virtual machines …) and platforms (PaaS: SQL high availability databases, CMS for web development, backend for mobile applications …). They are compatible with all types of technology: Oracle databases, Linux, php, iOs, My SQL, Android, php …
There is a new service which is a kind off intermediate between Paas and VM which is managed instances
Managed instance is a new deployment option of Azure SQL Database, providing near 100% compatibility with the latest SQL Server on-premises (Enterprise Edition) Database Engine, providing a native virtual network (VNet) implementation that addresses common security concerns, and a business model favorable for on-premises SQL Server customers. The managed instance deployment model allows existing SQL Server customers to lift and shift their on-premises applications to the cloud with minimal application and database changes. At the same time, the managed instance deployment option preserves all PaaS capabilities (automatic patching and version updates, automated backups, high-availability ), that drastically reduces management overhead and TCO.
These azure services are guaranteed with 99.99% availability, and in case of failure in superior availability, Microsoft undertakes to compensate for damages. In addition, it has all the certifications in the field of security and data protection.
Great advantages: Flexibility and pay per use. When is it really useful?
This powerful business solution for managing your infrastructures and applications has great advantages: we highlight flexibility and pay per use.
With Azure, it is no longer necessary to invest in physical machines and the maintenance they entail. In this way, the deployment is simplified since we do not have to commit to long amortization periods, it speeds up the configuration process and allows us to adapt our systems to our needs in a few minutes, with total flexibility. In addition, it has tools to monitor performance and thus predict whether it is necessary to scale or not our machines, and consequently, pay for what you really need. For this reason, we distinguish three situations in which, without a doubt, we recommend using Azure services:
In the deployment of a solution in which the increase in use will be exponential (or unknown) and we cannot guarantee the maximum demand peak with guarantees.
When you know that the demand for the service will fluctuate over time.
In development or test environments that could later be used or not, or that can be “turned off” promptly and then reactivated.
By Hugo Bernachea – SQL Experts Consultor
On SQL Experts we can help you implementing, deploying, migrating, configurating and tuning your servers on the cloud, please, call us at:
