Microsoft Azure: Integration with Cloud Made Easy
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Microsoft Azure: Integration with Cloud Made Easy

CIO Review

Ever since its inception, the primary operation of most cloud platforms has always been––managing data and developing applications in a fast-paced and rapidly evolving enterprise IT environment. Moreover, today’s technological scenario portrays a situation where most enterprises are migrating to the cloud––in a bid to inject agility and flexibility into their IT operations. Identifying this trend, cloud service providers are developing cloud platforms embedded with a multitude of functionalities; extending their seamless support to myriad enterprises across the globe. Microsoft’s Azure is one such platform which is known to be both-Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). It can act as a fully cloud-based service or even a hybrid service that integrates with an organization’s existing applications, data center, and infrastructure.

According to Forrester’s latest reports, although Microsoft Azure is staged on the second spot after Amazon Web Services, the platform, in the most recent quarter, experienced a year-over-year growth of a staggering 100 percent and above. Irrespective of the position, Azure’s capability to offer hybrid connections with a consistent platform, and compatibility with the .Net programming framework tends to have an edge over AWS. Facts also suggest that Azure’s annualized revenue run rate has increased by $13 bn. Although the above-mentioned figures may change from quarter-to-quarter, they seldom show any sign of decline in the coming future.

Maximizing Cloud Benefits through Azure

The essence of any cloud solution lies in its flexibility to manage multiple applications, infrastructures, and services. While offering flexibility, Microsoft Azure stages a modular and integrated design; and it can be deployed across any organization irrespective of their size. Moreover, with Azure, enterprises also have the freedom to pay only for what they use; and the usage preference can be changed anytime. In this manner, enterprises can deploy infrastructures that are capable enough to meet a wide array of business, and technology needs such as web hosting, networking, storage and servers.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

When it comes to IT infrastructure, Microsoft Azure’s benefits of being an IaaS are enormous. Innovatively, it offers the convenience and expandability of a cloud infrastructure; ditching the need to deploy and maintain on-premises storage devices, servers, or support systems. Most importantly––as an added advantage––enterprises can also modify the size of their infrastructure anytime.

Platform-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Apart from being an IaaS, Microsoft’s Azure also stages a highly functional PaaS environment embedded with an all-inclusive set of modular and integrated web services. These web services enable Azure to manage an organization’s hardware as well as software infrastructures; paving a path towards building business-centric solutions. Furthermore, Azure services can be used to stage development and testing environments, implement virtual machines, databases, servers and many more. It offers enterprises the power to decide the exact amount of hardware and software infrastructure needed to be managed.

A crucial feature–Microsoft’s PaaS enables users to bring their own applications to the cloud. Later, users can implement those applications without the need to manage virtual machines, or maintain the servers and operating systems.

Versatility in Integration

Technically, Microsoft Azure’s existing web service modules are integrated with other set of relevant modules. Moreover, these web service modules, along with the entire Microsoft Azure platform are integrated with a series of third-party web services, databases, operating systems, frameworks, and many more. With a wide network of data centers across the globe, Microsoft Azure also allows enterprises to run their versions in several locations.

Today, Microsoft Azure––acting as an efficient PaaS––is deployed on a large scale across the web and mobile devices as enterprises realize that agility plays a vital role in building and deploying applications. This considerable change is known as the driving factor for boosting customer, partner, and employee engagement across multiple environments and devices.

Moreover, focused on meeting the demands of today’s rapidly-evolving IoT landscape, Microsoft’s latest service––the Azure IoT Hub––aims to connect millions of IoT devices worldwide. It enables detailed monitoring and also stages a highly secured device-to-cloud and cloud-to-device messaging environment.

Also Read: - How To Add Extra Security With Microsoft Azure Multi-Factor Authentication

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