What is the big deal about Cloud computing
Cloud computing means offering various IT services over the Internet, such as computing power, network components, software, and much more. You pay only for what you consume. Patent programs and applications often used diagrams that looked like a cloud, this is how the name originated.
There are 3 different types of Clouds:
- Public Cloud
The services are available to everyone. The resources are owned and offered by an external cloud provider (Azure, AWS, Google) and managed over the Internet. No upfront investment is required. One only pays for the resources used or taken. Resources are always readily available - Private Cloud
These are resources used exclusively by users of one company or organization. The resources can be located in an on-premises data center or hosted by an external service provider. One disadvantage is that this requires the purchase of physical hardware over which the owner has full control. The organization remains responsible for hardware maintenance and updates - Hybrid Cloud
A combination of both, where data and resources are shared. This form offers the most flexibility, allowing organizations to determine where applications should be run but retaining responsibility for security, compliance, and legal requirements
Almost all companies use the Cloud in one way or another. This can be through the use of SaaS services or, for example, Microsoft 365 for the use of Exchange or Teams, for example.
The main advantages of Cloud computing are :
- Security
The Cloud provider is responsible for and aware of the latest security best practices - Work anywhere anytime
The resources are available anywhere (if desired), and work can be done from any location - Scalable
No need to estimate in advance what capacity will be needed now and in the amortization period - Pay for use instead of ownership
You only pay for the usage, and the resources grow with the company - Always sufficient capacity available
Additional capacity or services are immediately available
Cloud & security
This all sounds very nice, of course. But is that Cloud secure enough? Can’t everyone access my confidential data? Long story short, the security of the Cloud is almost always better than at companies locally. The suppliers of Cloud services invest to the maximum in their security and protection. No one wants to be in the news in a negative way. All the hardware of these Cloud services is located in multiple data centers using the latest technology. This means they are, therefore, inaccessible to burglars, disasters, and former employees. In addition, the providers are up to date with the latest best practices and (because of their scale) constantly aware if an incident occurs. The service provider is always on top of security 24x7x365, and not many companies can say that.
So what exactly is Azure?
Azure is Microsoft’s Cloud service and consists of a wide range of Cloud services that are constantly being expanded and improved. With Azure, you can deploy and make available the Cloud services you or your business needs in your favorite way.
Azure Portal
The 1st step with Azure is usually to use the Azure portal. This is a web-based management interface that allows resources to be deployed and managed. Management of Azure can be done using many different ways. It doesn’t matter if someone prefers the Azure Portal or wishes to use (for example) PowerShell to automate things.
Azure Marketplace
The Azure Marketplace connects partners, software vendors, and startups and makes their services – optimized for Azure – easily available. All these applications and services are certified for and tested on Azure.
Azure services
Azure consists of 1800+ services. The most commonly used services can be divided as follows:
- Compute
the hosting services that are responsible for hosting and also running the application workloads - Networking
Providing and unlocking compute services so that they can be accessed from any location in the world - Storage
Azure offers multiple forms of storage, so this always fits a business need - Mobile
A collection of mobile back-end services for iOs, Android, and Windows apps - Databases
Azure offers multiple database services. Depending on the data type and volumes. All of these can be accessed in various ways - Web
Providing and hosting web applications and web services - Internet of Things
Connecting physical devices to the Internet and making them more innovative and interconnected - Big data
Azure also has multiple services to support big data. This, combined with an almost infinite capacity, offers enormous possibilities that were virtually unattainable without Cloud services - AI
Think of Machine learning and learning from huge amounts of data resulting in artificial intelligence - DevOps
Structure to connect people, processes, and technology. DevOps allows you to deploy and manage technology, monitor processes and connect people. Azure DevOps offers a wide range of (process-based) services
Azure tenant
It all starts with requesting an Azure tenant. A tenant is an Azure AD link to Azure and can be seen as a container that houses all of Azure’s online services.
A tenant is associated with a single entity (person, company, or organization) and can contain one or more subscriptions.
Azure subscription
A subscription is a container that contains all the data and services used. The monthly costs are calculated on this basis. A tenant consists of one or more subscriptions. Each subscription results in a monthly invoice.
Resource groups
All resources are deployed in a resource group. This can be thought of as a directory on a hard drive where files (read: Azure services) are stored. All Azure services use resource groups that are associated with a subscription.
Check out our other Beginner’s series on:
VMware
Hyper-V
AWS
