Running head: MICROSOFT AZURE

MICROSOFT AZURE

HENOK SEIFU ID NO: 70357

NATNAEL NEGUSSIE ID NO: 70370

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY

SUBMITION DATE: SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

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MICROSOFT AZURE

Introduction

"cloud computing" appeared as early as 1996, with the first known mention in

a Compaq internal document. The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing

equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977. Cloud computing have become the

necessary thing in todays business world. Major activities of a company can easily done through

different cloud computing platforms. cloud computing is the delivery of computing services

which includes servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over

the Internet to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. Cloud

computing is deployed under three models public, private and hybrid. The most popular cloud

computing tools are Microsoft Azure, Amazon web service, Digital ocean, Google cloud

platform and IBM cloud.

Microsoft Azure was announced in October 2008 and it was released in February 2010.

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform which is developed by Microsoft and it is used

for crating solutions, increasing effectiveness and making the future ready for our business

operation by building, testing, deploying and managing applications and services through the

data center. There are three major Microsoft Azure clouds: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),

Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). Azure cloud computing gives

different services like computer service, mobile service, storage service, data management,

messaging, media service, and machine learning. [ CITATION Thi \l 1033 ]

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Purpose of the Report

The report has been presented in a detailed way to address the following topics

 What is cloud computing?

 What is Microsoft Azure?

 To state and describe types of Azure clouds

 To clearly describe the architecture of Azure

 To list and define the components of Azure

 To state application, advantages and disadvantages of Azure

 To analyze the business facts related with Azure

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services which includes servers, storage,

databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet to offer faster

innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. We have to pay only for cloud services

we use, helping us to lower our operating costs our, run our infrastructure more efficiently, and

scale as our business needs change.

Benefits of cloud computing

Cloud computing has shifted the traditional way of conducting business different reasons

on why we use cloud computing is listed below:

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Cost: Cloud computing highly reduces the capital expense of purchasing hardware and

software and building of datacenters which cost a huge amount (the racks of servers, the round-

the-clock electricity for power and cooling, and the IT experts for managing the infrastructure)

Speed: this is one of the main characteristics of cloud computing because services

provide self service and on demand, so we can access a huge data in a matter of seconds which

gives a lot of flexibility to our business and taking the pressure off capacity planning.

Global scale: the benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale

elastically. In cloud speak, more or less computing power, storage, bandwidth—right when

they’re needed, and from the right geographic location.

Reliability: Cloud computing makes business continuity easier, data backup, disaster

recovery and less expensive because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the

cloud provider’s network.

Security: cloud providers offer policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen our

security posture overall, helping us to protect our data, apps, and infrastructure from potential

threats.

Types of cloud computing

There are different types of cloud computing which we have to choose in a way that is right

for us. Those several different models, types, and services have evolved to help offer the right

solution for your needs.

1. Public cloud
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This are clouds which are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service providers,

which deliver their computing resources, like servers and storage, over the Internet. Microsoft

Azure is an example of a public cloud. With a public cloud, all hardware, software, and other

supporting infrastructure is owned and managed by the cloud provider. You access these services

and manage your account using a web browser. 

2. Private cloud

A private cloud refers to cloud computing resources used exclusively by a single business

or organization. A private cloud can be physically located on the company’s on-site datacenter.

Some companies also pay third-party service providers to host their private cloud. A private

cloud is one in which the services and infrastructure are maintained on a private network. 

3. Hybrid cloud

Hybrid clouds combine public and private clouds, bound together by technology that

allows data and applications to be shared between them. By allowing data and applications to

move between private and public clouds, a hybrid cloud gives your business greater flexibility,

more deployment options, and helps optimize your existing infrastructure, security, and

compliance

What is Microsoft Azure?

The Microsoft Azure is a trusted cloud which operates hybrid seamlessly, that we can

build our own terms in order to make the future ready for our business operation. The Azure is a

private and public cloud platform which have more than 200 products and cloud services

designed to help in creating new solutions to solve day to day challenges in order to operate
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effectively. It can also help us to build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds, on-

premises with the tools and frameworks of our choice.

Azure uses a technology known as virtualization, a priori, nothing new up to this point.

Virtualization separates the close coupling between a computer’s CPU or server and its operating

system by means of an abstraction layer called a hypervisor. The hypervisor emulates all the

functions of a real computer or server and its CPU in a virtual machine. You can run multiple

virtual machines at the same time and each virtual machine can run any compatible operating

system such as Windows or Linux.

Types of Azure clouds

Cloud computing types are service deployment models that let us choose the level of control

on our information and the types of services you need to provide. There are three main types of

cloud computing services, sometimes called the cloud computing stack because they are built on

top of one another.

1. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Is the foundational cloud platform layer which is used for Internet-based access to storage

and computing power. The most basic category of cloud computing types, IaaS lets you rent IT

infrastructure servers and virtual machines, storage, networks and operating systems – from a

cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Advantages:

 It offers efficient design time portability

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 It is advisable for the application which needs complete control

 IaaS offers quick transition of services to clouds

 The apparent benefit of laaS is that it frees you from the concerns of setting up many

physical or virtual machines.

 Helps you to access, monitor and manage datacenters

Disadvantages:

 Data security issues due to multitenant architecture.

 Vendor outages make customers unable to access their data for a while.

 The need for team training to learn how to manage new infrastructure.

2. Platform as a service (PaaS)

The second cloud computing type is platform as a service (PaaS) that gives developers the

tools to build and host web applications. PaaS is designed to give users access to the components

they require to quickly develop and operate web or mobile applications over the Internet, without

worrying about setting up or managing the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage, networks

and databases.

Advantages:

 Minimal Development

 Cost-Effective Development
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 Reduced Pressure on Internal Resources

 Pre-Built Sophisticated Tools

 Opportunity for Scalability.[ CITATION htt2 \l 1033 ]

Disadvantages:

 Portability issues can occur when you use PaaS services

 There may be different environment at Azure, so the application needs to adapt

accordingly.

3. Software as a service (SaaS)

Software which is centrally hosted and managed. It is a single version of the application is

used for all customers. SaaS is a method for delivering software applications over the Internet

through which cloud providers host and manage the software applications, making it easier to

have the same application on all of your devices at once by accessing it in the cloud. [ CITATION

Mic \l 1033 ]

Advantages of SaaS:

 Lower costs. SaaS has a differential regarding costs since it usually resides in a shared or

multitenant environment where the hardware and software license costs are low

compared with the traditional model

 Scalability and integration

 New releases (upgrades)

 Easy to use and perform proof of concepts.

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Disadvantages of SaaS:

 Insufficient Data Security. This is one of the top concerns for companies who are looking

to opt for a SaaS-based application model

 Difficulty with Regulations Compliance

 Cumbersome Data Mobility

 Low Performance

Azure key Concepts

Data center: by choosing the closest region to our customers we can deploy applications

into different data centers around the globe.

Resources: a resource is an individual computer, networking data or app hosting services

which charged individually. Some common resources are virtual machines (VM), storage

account, or SQL databases.

Regions: Azure is a global cloud platform which is available across various regions

around the world. The selected region represents datacenter where our application runs.

Resource groups: is a container which holds related resource for an Azure solution.

Automation: Azure allows you to automate the process of creating, managing and

deleting resource by using PowerShell or the Azure command-line Interface (CLI).

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Resource Manager templates: It is a JSON which defines one or more resource to

deploy to a resource group. It also establishes dependencies between deployed resources.

Azure portal: The Azure portal is a web-based application which can be used to create,

manage and remove Azure resource and services.

Azure command-line interface (CLI): The Azure CLI is a tool that you can use to

create, manage, and remove Azure resources from the command line.

REST APIs: Azure is built on a set of REST APIs which help us to perform the same

operation that we do in Azure portal Ul.

Azure PowerShell: PowerShell is a set of modules that offer cmdlets to manage Azure.

Architecture

To understand it, let’s take a look at the hardware architecture of the data center.

In each data center there is a collection of servers located in server racks. Each server

rack contains many Blade servers, as well as a network switch that provides network

connectivity and a power distribution unit (PDU) that supplies the power. Sometimes, the racks

are grouped together into larger units that are known as clusters.
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Currently there are 54 Azure regions and another 6 on the way. The service is available in

more than 140 countries around the world. Each server includes a hypervisor to run multiple

virtual machines. A network switch provides connectivity to the servers. A server in each rack

runs a special software called Fabric Controller. In turn, Each Fabric Controller is connected to

another special piece of software known as the orchestrator.

The orchestrator is responsible for managing everything that happens in Azure, including

responding to user requests. It assigns services, monitors the maintenance of the server and the

services that run on it, and returns the servers to normal when an error occurs. Each instance of

the Fabric Controller connects to another set of servers running orchestration software in the

cloud, commonly known as a front-end. The front-end hosts the web services, the RESTful API

and the internal Azure databases used for all functions that the cloud carries out. [ CITATION sim \l

1033 ]
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Users make the request using the Orchestrator’s web API: the web API can be called on

by many tools including the Azure Portal user interface

Azure Service Fabric, is based on these processes, an advanced and interesting service

which we will see in a future post.

Therefore, and to simplify things, Azure is an immense collection of servers and network

hardware, together with a complex set of distributed applications which orchestrate the

configuration, the functioning of the virtualized hardware and these servers’ software. And it is

this orchestration which makes Azure so efficient: users are now not responsible for maintaining

and updating the hardware, as Azure takes care of all this in the background.

Azure Domains (Component)

First one is to compute operations such as app hosting ,development and deployment of

developed apps on the azure platform .some examples here are batch processing ,make

application easily accessible to the user for a fee whenever the user requires it .Next we have the

storage component this lets azure users store information on a secure server they can have access

to it anytime as long as they have the required internet connection .There are different types of

storage possible Blob storage ,Queue storage, file storage ,Table storage .Then we have the

database component which can be split into three SQL Database ,document DB and Redis Cache

.Followed by content delivery network component this means be accessible to the user any time.

The security +identify component keeps the user information safe and knows what to do in case

of threats. Followed by the monitoring management services, easily manage azure. Another

component is being able to give mobile and web services. Last component is workflow to help

organization estimate workflow cost.

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Traditional vs. Azure cloud computing

One of the difference between the traditional and azure cloud computing is that the

traditional way offers more control and security for relevant business data ,application, and

infrastructure .This reason is because when we use the tradition system we have the equipment

and software on hand meaning we have the physical version(meaning that we have to keep up

with the newest version for software's and for physical equipments the newest models ) , not

unlike cloud computing everything is virtual .Also people believe that have access to the

"physical" properties allows more control and can prove to have many more benefits .Another

main difference would be that the traditional method has a customized process and configuration

meaning that since this system was made to do this work so it might have different ways of

doing it(might be even more specific with results ) but when we look at azure it's just a

standardized process and configuration. The final difference we would like to point out is when

using the traditional way, we build the software's with what we want in mind so the software

does what we want but with cloud computing it might not be what we necessarily want. Because

cloud computing is like an off the shelf software.

But as everything the traditional method has a few limitations:

 First one being that the traditional method can be complex and rigid meaning that they can't

easily adapt to new situations.

 The company needs to have a good knowledge of ad hoc infrastructure,

 Another big limitation will be that the company must buy every time the updated version of

the hardware or software

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 For the traditional infrastructure can be challenging to scale to meet changing business

requirements

Applications of Azure

Azure has different applications, first one being infrastructure service. This is where

instead of having our own system we pay another company to handle our servers, data basically

we would be outsourcing our IT department. but this will help cut cost, help small business

compete.

Next is for mobile apps, since azure can understand any programming language ( PaaS

can handle any languages )people can just focus on the quality of their coding .

following we have the feature of web application. Meaning that instead of having to buy the

software we can make a payment every time we need it and just use azure to run the software via

browser. This will also cut cost and thanks to azure we gain access to other soft-wares form the

same company that might help us in this case, Microsoft.

Finally, we have storage, backup, recovery and data management. The whole point here

is that Azure will store all our information on a secure server so that our information is protected.

It will also manage our data meaning that give us access to it via internet when needed.

Advantage of Azure

Offers high availability

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In this case they put on "display" their flexibility meaning that any organization(small-

big) can use Microsoft azure to help get access to new software's without having to worry about

servers or anything all we need is a good internet connection.

Offers you a strong security profile

It has a good security system in place to protect client’s information from any cyber-

attack." Azure follows the DADSC approach to security: detect, assess, diagnose, stabilize, and

close".[ CITATION Bra \l 1033 ]

Offers good scalability

With this option Microsoft Azure provides the option not to buy data packs or other

upgrades needed to have access to the information we need instead we can just pay for what we

need meaning we don't have to waste more money we can just pay for what we need and resume

or daily business.

It is a cost-effective solution for an IT budget

Since we have no need for owing servers due to cloud computing even small business

have a chance in this competitive world. What we mean to say is that an IT department can be a

costly thing especially for small business but with this know they might not need a huge IT

department just a few people with the knowledge of cloud computing.

Use of any framework, language or tools.

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Another big advantage to this is that any coding language can be used (java, C++)

meaning that this will let us focus more on the coding since we don't have to worry if it will

accept the different codes put in place.

Access to app connectors within the Microsoft family products

This more a feature but we will list it as an advantage because when using Azure, we will

have the option to use other products of the same company here its Microsoft

Disadvantage of Azure

Managing Azure

It's not a huge a disadvantage but it's worth noting because azure is not a self-managing

system even if it will drastically drop our IT department cost we still need people to manage it

with some experience with Microsoft Azure (this can be seen as both an advantage and

disadvantage) Platform expertise available

In this case the disadvantage is that when converting from a physical to microsoft azure is

that we will not have the same computing speed. Meaning that our computing speed will be

faster when owing servers.

Almost all eggs in one basket

By this expression they meant to say that we will only have Microsoft azure to handle all

of our information, meaning if something should happen to them like get hacked, we might lose

all of our information. Not only that there also the angle what if Microsoft doesn't fulfill

something they promised and we can't proceed with our daily business. The point i wanted to
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prove here is that if anything should go wrong, we will be directly affected with no other

contingency plans

Issues of speed

This will depend on our location if we are in the United states, Europe, Australia, India,

Japan and china this won't be an issue because all business will have access to all the information

when they want too. But for south America there is only one region available that can access the

information and for Africa there are two regions but no active servers yet. So, this software

provides more benefits if our business is located in states, Europe, Australia, India, Japan and

china.

Business facts

Microsoft Azure has over 700 million users. A lot of companies use Microsoft azure for

their day to day activity. We couldn't get an accurate number for their revenue " The company

does not detail specific Azure revenue figures, but said that its commercial cloud revenue topped

$50 billion for the fiscal year - a first for the business.". Their annual expenditure a stated on the

page they roughly spent 58billion dollars for servers." Capital expenditures, which includes data

centers, servers, and networking, came to $5.8 billion. [ CITATION Ale \l 1033 ]

Conclusion

What we were able to learn while doing this report are the concept of cloud computing

that cloud computing is a service offered to businesses from small to large to manage, store, our

information in a secure manner. This will help businesses cut costs since they won't need to

develop an IT department but that doesn't mean they still don't need any personnel with IT
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capability .It might reduce cost but we still need a couple of people that are familiar with it in

case of any problems .Then we saw the different types of cloud computing :public, private and

hybrid cloud. Public cloud is operated by a third party and own all hardware software and other

things and provide service to us for a fee. Private clouds are owned by a company and only the

people in the company have access to it. And finally, hybrid cloud is a mix of the two to give

business a greater flexibility.

The main point of this research was Microsoft Azure, this a trusted cloud which a lot of

business use ,There are three types Azure clouds IaaS, PaaS, SaaS ,all three have their

advantages and disadvantages .Then we learned about the different azure components: Compute,

Storage , Database, Security, Integration services...The different application of azure and how it

can help businesses as well as individual programmers. And finally, the advantages and

disadvantages of Azure.
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