Table of Contents
I’ve worked with Microsoft Azure, a sophisticated cloud platform. It is a suite of cloud solutions that meet several needs, not a single service. Azure can host websites, create backup solutions, use cloud computing, develop applications, manage e-commerce websites, monitor services, or analyse data. One of my favourite Microsoft Azure features was the Content Delivery Network. In addition to Microsoft’s servers, it offers three plans that leverage Akamai, Standard Verizon, and Premium Verizon content delivery networks (CDNs). Adaptability can vary your game depending on your demands.
One of Azure’s biggest advantages is its ease of integration with other Microsoft products and services. It integrates easily with Azure storage, online applications, and media services. Development and management are more efficient with this integration.
Azure’s CDN administration is also user-friendly for developers. Software developers and network managers benefit from PowerShell and.NET management. A REST API and Node.js make it easy and flexible to manage. The Standard plan of Azure has support for custom domain names, HTTPS, HTTP/2, geo-filtering to restrict access by country, load balancing, and DDoS protection. Azure has other intentions. These capabilities keep Azure-hosted apps and services fast and secure.
Microsoft Azure Specifications
Microsoft Azure is an all-encompassing cloud platform that provides a wide variety of services to cater to the requirements of companies of varying sizes. You may construct, launch, and manage a wide variety of cloud-based apps with Azure.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Compute | Azure offers several VM sizes and types for different applications. These include tiny, general-purpose VMs and huge, machine learning and high-performance computing VMs. |
| Storage | Azure offers managed discs, blob storage, and file storage. These methods can store operating systems, programmes, photos, videos, and documents. |
| Networking | Azure provides virtual networks, load balancers, and firewalls. These services can secure and reliably network cloud-based applications. |
| Databases | Azure provides relational, NoSQL, and in-memory databases. These services can store and handle data for many applications. |
| Analytics | Azure provides big data, machine learning, and AI analytics. These services can help you analyse data and make smarter decisions. |
| DevOps | Azure provides CI/CD, container orchestration, and infrastructure as code DevOps services. You can automate software development and deployment with these services. |
| Security | Azure provides identity and access management, threat protection, and data encryption. These services can secure your cloud-based apps and data. |
| Visit Website |
What is Microsoft Azure?
Organisations can store data and run their services on Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud platform. Using Microsoft-supported data centers, users may construct, test, launch, and manage their web-based services with the help of this utility program. Azure is a Microsoft-backed cloud service that gives developers full reign over their creations. All major programming languages and frameworks are supported, and setting it up is a breeze. Microsoft Azure is the most globally distributed cloud platform, with 58 datacenters located in every major area on the planet.
More than 90 standardization guidelines are met by this cloud service. Microsoft Azure is used by market leaders across many different industries, including the airline, courier, fashion, news media, nonprofit, and many more. With Azure, customers can create hybrid IT environments that are ready for the future and enjoy the benefits of a customized online infrastructure for their businesses.
Microsoft Azure review: Pricing
The fees for Microsoft Azure CDN are determined by the amount of bandwidth used. The costs of data transfer differ from region to region for Amazon CloudFront and other CDNs. Similar to Amazon CloudFront, the standard pricing for Akamai and Verizon plans is $0.081 per gigabyte (GB) for North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and $0.233 for South America. In North America, if you consume 150TB of data in a month, you will pay $0.056 per GB for the last 100TB of data. Rates decrease after 10TB.
Premium Verizon customers will pay between $0.4158 and $0.466 per gigabyte for the first 10 terabytes of bandwidth, but there are discounts available for further usage. Even the Standard plans can cost double as much as KeyCDN, which is a significant difference from even the most affordable providers like Bunny ($0.005/GB). It is less expensive than many high-end enterprise content delivery networks (CDNs), but its integration with Microsoft technologies could be worth paying extra for.
Microsoft Azure review: Setup and Configuration
One of the clouds that is one of the easiest to set up and start running is Microsoft Azure. After it has been implemented, it is also one of the simplest to manage. This is due, in no little part, to the fact that Microsoft, in contrast to the Linux Foundation, which is the foundation upon which the majority of other clouds are founded, has spent a considerable amount of effort developing user-friendly administrator tools.
In addition, a significant amount of time and effort has been invested in the delivery of tutorial and support information. This information is made available both for a fee in the form of full certifications offered by Microsoft Learning and for free in the form of blogs, how-to videos, whitepapers, and informal talk videos distributed through the primary Azure website as well as Microsoft TechNet.
That is not to claim that an attractive and welcoming graphical user interface will allow you to do all of your tasks. There is no way. You are still going to find yourself utilising Microsoft PowerShell rather frequently, and the fact that this scripting environment has become increasingly complicated over the years might make the learning curve for Microsoft Azure substantially steeper when it comes to the deployment of complex infrastructure and applications. In spite of this, an experienced Windows system administrator will find that the majority of the time they are completely comfortable working with Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure review: Server Network
Microsoft has data centres for its cloud platform in 52 locations across the world, and users can connect to Azure from any one of 140 countries. The United States of America is home to 11 of the 13 facilities that make up the continent of North America’s total inventory. Europe currently has eight, and numerous more are in the planning stages. Additionally, the Asia-Pacific region is well supplied by our facilities, which are located in China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Australia respectively.
The only data centre in South America is in Brazil, and there are none in Africa or the Middle East, despite the fact that Microsoft has four data centres planned for launch in those regions. Backblaze B2, a more affordable alternative to other IaaS options, only has one data centre location, and it’s in California. Amazon S3 has 14 data centres located in various parts of the world.
There are 16 in Google Cloud. You are beginning to understand. Azure’s data centre and server infrastructure are head and shoulders beyond those of its competitors. Even though this does not guarantee that Azure will provide you with speedier service, having this knowledge certainly does not hinder your chances.
Microsoft Azure review: Security
You will have the opportunity to encrypt all of the data that is saved on the server when you are creating your storage account. This strategy, which is also known as encryption while at rest, provides some confidence that readable copies of your files will not be stolen in the event that the server is compromised. The encryption technique that Azure utilises is based on the advanced encryption standard and has a bit length of 256. It’s the protocol that the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the United States recommends, and it’s also the standard that cloud providers use the most.
Microsoft takes care of managing encryption keys and stores them on a server that is different from the one where your data is stored. A cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) does not offer a private end-to-end encryption option, which is the industry standard. Numerous third-party products that are compatible with Azure and offer client-side encryption are available to you if you demand such a high level of data security.
Microsoft Azure review: Support
Microsoft requires a support plan for complete Azure assistance. If you don’t pay for assistance, Microsoft will only help with financial and subscription issues, but you can use the support forums for technical concerns. Four support plans are available: developer, standard, professional, and premier. Plans for support are expensive. The cheapest is developer support at $29/month.
Standard support costs $100, professional $1,000. The developer package covers backup, cloud storage, and business-hour email support for non-production setups. Telephone help is expected at $29 a month, but only the standard plan includes it. Azure’s support plan sounds reasonable compared to Google Cloud’s $150 monthly maintenance plan.
Final Words
If you use other Azure services or like.NET or PowerShell management, I recommend Azure CDN. I wish to share my experience with it. Azure CDN’s powerful capabilities and features help boost your cloud infrastructure. As someone who has extensively utilised Azure services for multiple projects, Azure CDN has helped optimise content delivery to end-users worldwide. If you know.NET or PowerShell, its integration with Azure’s ecosystem makes setup and management easy.
However, Azure CDN might be complicated, especially for cloud computing beginners or those with simpler demands. Its utilisation cost may also be considered. In my experience, the benefits are tremendous, but you should carefully consider whether your use case warrants the expenditure. Alternative content distribution solutions are available for less demanding users or those seeking a simpler, cheaper solution. In conclusion, Azure CDN is powerful, but you should assess your needs and budget before using it.
Microsoft Azure review: The Good and Bad
The Good
- Windows compatibility.
- Linux and container compatibility
- Good frontend management interface.
The Bad
- Average performance.
- High cost.
Questions and Answers
Scalability, data security, faster deployment, and high availability are some of the benefits offered by Azure. In today’s world, it is impossible to deploy a production application without each of these components. Azure also offers a diverse selection of services, each of which can be accessed from a single platform and meets the majority of our computing requirements.
Your CV will be more noticeable to potential employers if you earn an Azure Fundamentals Certification. This is one of the best ways to do it. Your understanding of cloud computing models, cloud governance strategy, cloud migration, and other related topics can be demonstrated with the help of certifications from industry leaders like Microsoft.