What's the Difference Between AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud?

 

Aws vs Azure vs Google Cloud

Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform are the top cloud service providers that dominate the worldwide cloud market. Each of them has its own advantages. AWS is known for its large global presence and scalability options, while Azure is better at integrating with other services and providing better security. Whereas, GCP's advanced data management and machine learning features set it apart.

Whether to opt for Cloud Computing has become an irrelevant question today; now, the question arises, which cloud platform to go for? So, how will you decide which one to choose? How do you conclude the big AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud debate? To give answers to all such questions, we are here with a detailed comparison of all these giant cloud service providers.

Read More: Top 50 Azure Interview Questions and Answers

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud Computing is the on-demand availability of computer resources like servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence through the internet or cloud medium. It eliminates the need for individuals and businesses to self-manage physical resources themselves, and only pay for what they use.

Cloud computing uses a network (most often, the internet) to connect users to a cloud platform where they request and access rented computing services. A central server handles all the communication between client devices and servers to facilitate the data exchange.

Read More: What is Cloud Computing? A Beginner’s Guide to Microsoft Azure

There are three different cloud computing deployment models:

Read More: Azure Roadmap to Become Azure Developer

Benefits of Cloud Computing

• Decreased CapEx

No matter which cloud computing service model is used, enterprises only pay for the computing resources they use. It lets you offload some or all of the expense and effort of purchasing, installing, configuring, and managing mainframe computers and other on-premises infrastructure.

• Reduced Infrastructure Maintenance

As cloud computing provides all the resources through the internet it eliminates the need for physical storage and maintenance. It helps the businesses to focus on other goals and initiatives.

• Increased Availability

Due to cloud computing, any organization can now use enterprise applications in minutes instead of waiting weeks or months for IT to respond to a request, purchase and configure supporting hardware, and install software. This feature empowers users—specifically DevOps and other development teams—to help leverage cloud-based software and support infrastructure.

• Scalability

Cloud computing provides elasticity and self-service provisioning, so instead of purchasing excess capacity that sits unused during slow periods, you can scale capacity up and down in response to spikes and dips in traffic. You can also use your cloud provider’s global network to spread your applications closer to users worldwide.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. It offers nearly 200 fully featured services to individual developers, large enterprises, and even governments. With AWS, you can leverage the latest technologies to experiment and innovate more quickly. The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes thousands of systems integrators specialized in AWS services and tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) who adapt their technology to work on AWS.

Below is the list of popular AWS Users:

• Coursera
• Expedia
• Netflix
• Coinbase
• Formula 1
• Intuit
• Airbnb
• Lyft
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• Coca Cola

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud platform. It not only provides Windows-based services but also supports open-source languages, technologies, and platforms, giving anyone the freedom to build and support any application. It offers almost 200+ services in 78 regions available in 140 countries.

Below is the list of popular Azure Users:

• Bosch
• Audi
• ASOS
• HSBC
• Starbucks
• Walgreens
• 3M
• FedEx
• Walmart
• HP
• Mitsubishi Electric
• Renault

Read More: AWS vs. Azure: Key Differences between AWS and Azure

Google Cloud

Google provides the Google Cloud Platform. It is a suite of cloud computing services that runs on the same infrastructure that Google uses internally for its end-user products such as Google Search engine and YouTube. It currently offers over 100 services spanning computing, networking, big data, etc. It is the smallest of the three cloud providers yet offers robust cloud services to power and support any kind of application.

Below is the list of popular Google Cloud Users:

• Toyota
• Equifax
• Nintendo
• Spotify
• The Home Depot
• Target
• Twitter
• Paypal
• UPS

Aws vs Azure vs Google Cloud

Now, we'll compare the three cloud providers in terms of various parameters.

1. Common Services

1. Compute Services

Here is a look at each platform's computational capabilities individually.

Services	AWS	AZURE	GCP
IaaS	Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)	Azure Virtual Machine	Google Compute Engine
PaaS	AWS Elastic Beanstalk	App Service	Google App Engine
Container	AWS Elastic Container/Kubernetes Service	Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)	Google Kubernetes Engine
Serverless Functions	AWS Lambda	Azure Function	Google Cloud Functions

Read More: An Introduction to Azure App Services

2. Database Services

Services	AWS	AZURE	GCP
RDBMS	Amazon Relational Database Service	Azure SQL/ Database for MySQL/PostgreSQL	Google Cloud SQL
NoSQL	DynamoDB, Simple DB	Azure Cosmos DB, Table Storage	BigTable, Cloud Datastore

3. Storage Services

Services	AWS	Azure	GCP
Object Storage	Amazon Simple Storage Service	Blob Storage	Google Cloud Storage
File Storage	Elastic File System	Azure File Storage	Google Filestore
Cold Storage	Amazon Glacier	Azure Archive Blob Storage	Google Cloud Storage Nearline
Virtual Server Disks	Amazon Elastic Block Store	Managed Disks	Google Compute Engine Persistent Disks
Data Warehouse/Data Lake	Amazon Redshift	Azure Synapse Analytics	Google BigQuery

4. Networking Services

Services	AWS	Azure	GCP
Virtual Network	Amazon Virtual Private Cloud(VPC)	Virtual Networks (VNets)	Virtual Private Cloud
Load Balancing	Elastic Load Balancer	Azure Load Balancer	Google Cloud Load Balancing
Firewall	AWS Firewall / Web Application Firewall	Azure Firewall	Google Cloud firewalls
DNS	Amazon Route 53	Azure DNS	Google Cloud DNS
CDN	Amazon CloudFront	Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN)	Cloud CDN
Peering	Direct Connect	ExpressRoute	Google Cloud Interconnect

5. Specialized Services

Services	AWS	Azure	GCP
DevOps	CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodeStar	Azure Boards, Pipelines, Repos, Test Plans, Artifacts	GCP DevOps CloudBuild, Artifact Registry
AI & ML	Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Comprehend, Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly	Azure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Bot Service, Cognitive Services	Vertex AI, AutoML, Dataflow CX, Cloud Vision, Virtual Agents
IoT	FreeRTOS, IoT Core, Greengrass, IoT Analytics, SiteWise	Azure IoT Hub/Central, IoT Edge, Azure Sphere, Azure RTOS	Google Cloud IoT Core
AR & VR	Amazon Sumerian	Azure Mixed Reality (Spatial Anchors/Remote Rendering)	ARCore
Game Development	Amazon GameLift	Azure PlayFab
Business Analytics	Amazon Quicksight	Azure Power BI	Looker
End-User Computing	Amazon Workspaces	Azure Virtual Desktop

Read More: Top 10 Most Used Microsoft Azure Services

2. History And Open Source

AWS	Azure	GCP
AWS came into the market in 2006	Azure started services in 2010	GCP launched in 2008
AWS has been friendly with the open-source model from the beginning	Azure has not so good a relationship with the open-source community	GCP offers managed open-source services that are tightly integrated into Google Cloud
Large and complex scale offerings of services that can potentially be manipulated.	Low-Quality Support	Quite costly support fee of about $150/month for the silver class, which is the most basic of services

3. Availability Zones

AWS	Azure	GCP
105 availability zones across 33 regions in 245 countries	113 availability zones across 69 regions in 215 countries	109 availability zones across 69 regions in 215 countries

4. Pricing

There are some factors affecting the cost of the cloud platform They are:

• Customer specifications
• Usage
• The services utilized

Machine Type	AWS	Azure	GCP
Smallest Instance	AWS charges roughly US$69 per month for a primary instance with two virtual CPUs and eight gigabytes of RAM.	In Azure, an instance with 2 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM, will cost roughly US$70 per month.	GCP will supply you with the most basic instance, including two virtual CPUs and eight gigabytes of RAM, at a 25% lower cost. As a result, it will cost you around US$52 every month.
Largest Instance	The most expensive AWS instance, with 3.84 TB of RAM and 128 CPUs, will cost you roughly US$3.97/hour.	Azure's largest instance includes 3.89 TB of RAM and 128 CPUs. It costs about $6.79 per hour.	GCP's largest instance is 3.75 TB of RAM and 160 CPUs. It will cost you approximately US$5.32/hour.

5. Managing Packages

AWS	Azure	GCP
You need to integrate external software or third-party software like Artifactory	Azure has a package manager tool called Azure Artifacts to manage packages like Nuget, Maven, etc.	Artifact Registry is used to manage container images and language packages (such as Maven and npm)

6. Service Integration

AWS	Azure	GCP
Users can easily integrate services with Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Beanstalk, etc.	Users can easily integrate services with Azure VM, Azure App Service, SQL databases, etc	Users can easily integrate services Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, etc.

7. Hybrid and Multicloud Options

A hybrid cloud merges one or more public clouds with an organization's existing infrastructure and a private cloud, offering a versatile and integrated solution.

AWS	Azure	GCP
AWS Snowball AWS Snowcone AWS Outposts AWS Local Zones VMware Cloud on AWS AWS Wavelength Amazon ECS Anywhere Amazon EKS Anywhere	Azure Arc Azure Backup Azure Active Directory Azure Security Center Azure Blob Storage Azure Stack Azure Centinel	Anthos Traffic Director Looker Cloud Build Operations Cloud Run for Anthos

8. Pros and Cons

1. Pros

AWS	Azure	GCP
AWS is an established market leader.	Azure is Open to Hybrid Cloud systems.	GCP specializes in highly high-competitive offerings like Big data and machine Learning.
High Transfer Stability: Minimal data loss during server and storage transfer.	Easy integration with Microsoft tools and software.	Easy integration with other GCP Services like Compute Engine, Kubernetes Engine, or App Engine.
Easy Availability of Data: users can choose to store data close to their location	Azure has a more profound knowledge of enterprise needs.	Well-detailed documentation, including an API reference guide.
AWS has a vast global infrastructure with data centers located in multiple regions worldwide	Azure has a significant global footprint with data centers distributed across multiple regions worldwide.	It offers a vast global network of data centers, ensuring low latency and high-performance services across regions.

2. Cons

AWS	Azure	GCP
Incomplete and weak Hybrid Strategy	Integration with non-Microsoft is complex.	Google’s App Engine is limited to Java, Python, PHP, and Google Go.
Support for hybrid cloud outputs is still in its early stages, lacking demonstrated maturity.	Restrictive Platform, Less flexible with non-windows server platforms	The cost of downloading data from Google Cloud Storage is relatively high
Large and Complex scale offerings that can potentially be manipulated.	Low-Quality Support	Quite costly support fee of about $150 per month for the silver class, which is the most basic of services

Read More: Top 50 Azure Administrator Interview Questions and Answers

How to Decide Which Cloud Provider is Best?

We saw a detailed comparison of all three major cloud providers. Now which cloud provider best suits your needs? How to know which is the best for our business? To answer all these questions, we'll look at some major positive and negative points of these cloud providers. After that, you decide which of the three best suits your needs.

• Establishment: AWS has been providing its services for five years. So, in this category, AWS wins.
• Availability zones: AWS has the highest number of regions and availability zones. Here, again AWS is leading.
• Market shares: AWS spans one-third of the cloud market emerging as the winner in this parameter.
• Growth rate: AWS has a nearly 100 percent growth rate.
• Users: A large number of high-end customers are using all three cloud platforms. So here, there's a tie between them.
• Services: AWS offers the largest number of services i.e. at least 200. Hence, it leads from the front in terms of services. But here, in terms of integration with open-source and on-premise systems, such as MS tools, that are mostly used in almost all organizations, the winner is Azure.
• Pricing Models: In this criteria, Google Cloud fits the best as it offers various customer-friendly pricing models and discount models.

We can see that in this battle, AWS wins in almost all the parameters. But this doesn't make the other two irrelevant. Even though AWS is the current market leader in terms of capacity and service, Microsoft and Google are also rapidly growing to compete with AWS. Azure and GCP each have their own set of advantages.

Hence, we can conclude that you should not go for the best cloud service provider but select the best-suited provider according to the needs of your business or organization.

ScholarHat has come up with the following Certification Programs and Courses to help you upskill your cloud-computing skills.

• Microsoft Azure Cloud Architect
• Microsoft Azure Training
• Azure Developer Certification (Az-204) Training
• Azure DevOps Training
• Azure Solution Architect Certification Training
• AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification Course
• Azure Developer Certification Course (Az-204)
• Azure Fundamentals Course | AZ 900 Certification

Top 10 Most Used Microsoft Azure Services

 

Top 10 Most Used Microsoft Azure Services

Azure Services Overview

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Azure Services is an all-inclusive set of cloud services that developers and IT professionals use to build, deploy, and manage applications through the global network of data centers. Azure Services range from simple compute and storage services to more complex services such as Azure SQL Database and Azure Active Directory. Developers can use Azure Services to create web applications, mobile apps, and other solutions that run on Azure. IT professionals can use Azure Services to provision and manage resources in Azure. Azure is also integrated with Visual Studio, so developers can use Azure Services to develop and test their applications locally before deploying them to Azure. To get started with Azure, You need to sign up for a free account.

You’ll get access to a limited number of Azure Services and a $200 credit that you can use for 30 days. After that, you can continue using the free services or choose a pay-as-you-go plan. With pay-as-you-go, you only pay for the Azure Services that you use. There’s no upfront cost or commitment required. And if you decide later that you don’t need Azure, you can cancel your subscription at any time without penalty. To learn more about Microsoft Azure Training, visit the Azure website or watch one of the Azure gettings started videos. You can also get started with Azure right away by taking our fundamental courses to offer.

Read More - Advanced Azure Interview Questions and Answers

List of Azure Services

Azure Active Directory

• Azure AD is a cloud-based identity and access management service.

• Azure AD provides single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to help secure access to on-premises and cloud resources.

• Azure AD also includes an industry-leading identity governance solution. Azure AD connects employees, customers, and partners to the resources they need, while also protecting an organization's data and assets.

• Azure AD is a part of Azure Services, which also includes Azure Information Protection, Azure Rights Management, and Azure Security Centre.

• Together these services provide comprehensive protection for an organization's data and assets.

Azure CDN

• Azure CDN helps deliver content quickly and reliably—all around the world.

• Azure CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content.

• It integrates with Azure services, adding speed and reliability to your applications.

• Azure CDN also offers instant scaling and dynamic site acceleration capabilities to ensure your content is always available when your users need it.

• Plus, Azure CDN integrates with Azure Traffic Manager, so you can route traffic based on performance, geo-location, or user experience.

• Azure CDN is easy to set up and manage, and it's cost-effective—you only pay for the data you transfer.

• Therefore, if you're looking for a fast, reliable, and cost-effective way to deliver content around the world, Azure CDN is the perfect solution.

Azure Data Factory

• Azure Data Factory is a cloud-based data integration service.

• It allows you to create data-driven workflows for orchestrating and automating data movement and data transformation.

• Azure Data Factory integrates with Azure Services such as Azure Blob Storage, Azure SQL Database, and Azure HDInsight.

• Azure Data Factory also supports on-premises data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, and Teradata.

• You can use Azure Data Factory to build pipelines that copy data from one data store to another data store.

• Azure Data Factory also provides a set of built-in connectors and activities that are used for defining data transformation pipelines.

• Azure Data Factory enables you to process on-premises data sources, Azure cloud services, and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications.

Azure SQL

• Azure SQL is an Azure service for managing relational databases in the cloud.

• It offers a managed environment that is operated by Microsoft and is based on the Azure platform.

• Azure SQL supports a range of database engines, including Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and Maria DB.

• It also offers a variety of tools for managing and accessing data, including Azure Data Studio and Azure Portal.

• Azure SQL is a cost-effective way to manage relational databases in the cloud, and it provides a variety of benefits over on-premises solutions.

Azure Function

• Azure Functions is a serverless computing service.

• It enables you to run code on-demand without having to explicitly provision or manage infrastructure.

• Azure Functions provides a managed environment to build and run the code.

• Azure Functions executes your code in response to events triggered by Azure services or other resources.

• Azure Functions makes it easy to develop and deploy event-based applications without having to worry about provisioning or managing infrastructure.

• You can use Azure Functions to process data, generate thumbnails, validate content, build dynamic web pages, and much more.

• Azure Functions scales up or down automatically based on demand, so you only pay for the compute resources you consume.

• There's no need to worry about capacity planning, and you can scale your app as needed without incurring additional costs.

• Azure Functions offers a variety of built-in triggers and bindings that make it easy to connect to Azure services and other resources.

• You can also create custom bindings to connect to other services not natively supported by Azure Functions.

• And because Azure Functions runs in the cloud, you can write code that takes advantage of Azure's world-class infrastructure and benefits from the high availability and security that Azure provides.

CosmosDB

• Azure CosmosDB is Azure's globally-distributed, multi-model database service.

• Azure Cosmos DB automatically indexes all data without requiring you to deal with infrastructure management.

• Azure Cosmos DB is built for global deployments, offering you the freedom to deploy your data anywhere in the world with a few clicks.

• It replicates your data to any number of Azure regions of your choice with multiple well-defined and configurable consistency levels to choose from.

• Azure Cosmos DB is a game-changer in the world of NoSQL databases, offering turn-key global distribution, elastic scalability of throughput and storage, low latency reads & writes, and comprehensive SLAs covering Azure Cosmos DB service & MongoDB workloads running on Azure Cosmos DB.

• All these features make Azure Cosmos DB an attractive option for modern application development.

DevOps

• Azure DevOps is a cloud-based service that helps organizations to manage their software development lifecycle.

• It includes a set of Azure services that can be used to plan, collaborate on code development, build and test applications, and deploy them to Azure or other cloud providers.

• Azure DevOps provides a complete end-to-end solution for DevOps teams, from planning and collaboration to build and deployment.

• It also integrates with other Azure services, such as Azure Active Directory and Azure Monitor, to provide a comprehensive solution for DevOps teams.

• Azure DevOps is a powerful tool that can help organizations to streamline their software development process and improve their productivity.

Azure Backup

• Azure backup is the cloud backup solution from Microsoft Azure, a cloud computing platform.

• It offers a reliable and cost-effective way to back up and restore your data in the cloud.

• It uses Azure Storage to store your data in the cloud, so you can rest assured that your data is safe and secure.

• Azure backup also offers multiple recovery options, so you can choose the best option for your needs.

• Azure backup is a great choice for businesses of all sizes who want to take advantage of the benefits of cloud backup.

Logic Apps

• Azure Logic Apps is a cloud-based service.

• It helps you to schedule, automate, and orchestrate tasks, processes, and workflows.

• Azure Logic Apps connects to your Azure services and dozens of other third-party services, so you can create automated jobs or routines without writing code.

• You can create an Azure Logic App in minutes, using the Azure portal or Azure CLI.

• Azure Logic Apps is a managed service, so you don't have to worry about patching or upgrading the service.

• You only pay for the actions that you run. Azure Logic Apps is available in all Azure public regions.

• To get started with Azure Logic Apps, see Create your first logic app.

Virtual Machine

• Azure Virtual Machine is one of Azure's core services.

• Azure Virtual Machine lets you create a virtual machine in Azure and install any compatible operating system, such as Linux or Windows.

• You can also create Azure Virtual Machines from pre-configured images or templates.

• Azure Virtual Machine provides you with the flexibility to change the size, shape, and number of virtual CPUs and memory as your needs change.

• There is no upfront cost, and you pay only for the resources you use.

• Azure Virtual Machine provides you with the flexibility to change the size, shape, and number of virtual CPUs and memory as your needs change.

• Azure Virtual Machine is a cost-effective way to get started with Azure.

• You need to pay only for the resources you use, as there is no upfront cost.

Azure SaaS services list

Azure SaaS Services List Azure is a cloud computing service. It is created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Azure certification is globally recognized and increases your employability. Azure provides an Azure free account with 12 months of free services. After 12 months, you pay only for what you use. You can cancel at any time.

Azure services include - Azure Active Directory - Azure App Service environment - Azure Automation account - Azure Backup - Azure Batch account - Azure Blob Storage - Azure Cache for Redis - Azure Cognitive Search - Azure Cosmos DB account - Azure Container Instances - Azure Database for MySQL server - Azure Database for PostgreSQL server - Azure Databricks workspace and many more. For more information on each of these services, you can visit the Microsoft Azure website.

Azure Applications

• Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform.

• Azure Applications are a type of service that allows users to create and manage web-based applications.

• Azure offers a variety of services and features that make it an ideal platform for developing and deploying web-based applications.

• Azure App Services provides a managed platform that makes it easy to deploy and scale web-based applications.

• Azure offers different tools and services that can be used to develop, test, and deploy web-based applications.

• Azure offers a number of benefits that make it an attractive option for developers and organizations looking to create or deploy web-based applications.

• Azure also offers a number of tools and services that can be used to develop, test, and deploy web-based applications.

• Azure is a cost-effective platform that can be used to develop or deploy web-based applications.

Azure Web Services

Azure Web Services is a cloud computing platform from Microsoft. It offers various services, including Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Azure Media Services, and Azure Cosmos DB. Azure App Service is a platform-as-a-service that enables developers to build web and mobile apps. Azure Functions is a serverless compute service that lets developers run code on demand. Azure Media Services is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses deliver video and audio content. Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed database service that supports multiple data models. Azure Web Services is available in 14 regions around the world. Azure certification is an industry-recognized credential that demonstrates expertise in using Azure to build and manage cloud solutions. Candidates who earn Azure certification show employers they have the skills and knowledge to be successful in cloud computing roles. By becoming certified, candidates can advance their careers and take advantage of new opportunities in the growing field of cloud computing.

• Azure certification is a process that validates an individual's skills and knowledge in using Azure.

• There are three Azure certifications: Associate, Specialist, and Expert.

• The Azure certification process consists of passing an exam that tests an individual's ability to Azure.

• The Azure exams are administered by Microsoft and are available in a variety of languages.

• After passing the Azure exam, an individual will be awarded the Azure certificate.

• The Azure certificate is valid for two years and can be renewed by taking the Azure recertification exam.

Most Popular Microsoft Azure Services

 

Most Popular Microsoft Azure Services

Azure is a cloud computing platform which is created by Microsoft. It is designed for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Azure Services provides many benefits including the ability to scale elastically (up or down) according to demand, high availability, and Azure Active Directory integration. Azure services can be used to build highly available and scalable web applications, mobile apps, and line-of-business applications. The most popular Azure services are Azure Web Apps, Azure Functions, Azure SQL Database, Azure Active Directory, and Azure Cosmos DB. Azure also offers a wide variety of other services that can be used to build robust cloud-based applications. The benefits of these services might assist in identifying the exact reasons that influence the success of these services.

The success of Microsoft azure across the globe can be begrudging for other cloud service providers. However, the brand name has very little to do with this overwhelming popularity.

Read More - Azure Interview Questions and Answers

Paving the path for businesses to build, deploy, and manage cloud applications rapidly, Azure has redefined scalability and security with its deeply integrated service. What most experts love about Azure is its ability to support a wide array of operating systems, frameworks, languages, databases, and devices? With a high demand for azure experts as a consequence, you should definitely consider explore and pursue a career in azure.

Azure Cloud Services

Azure is a cloud computing service provided by Microsoft. It offers a wide range of services, including compute, storage, networking, and databases. Also, Azure provides a variety of tools that are used to develop and deploy applications. Azure services are available in two forms: Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). PaaS provides a complete platform for developing and deploying applications. IaaS provides users with access to virtual machines, storage, and networking resources.

Being the only constant hybrid cloud, Microsoft Azure is known for helping businesses overcome challenges related to cloud services. Since 2008, Microsoft Azure has gained widespread use by organizations across a diverse range of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and so on.

Despite intense competition, Microsoft Azure continues growing and evolving over the years, especially through the phase of remote working due to a pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Offering top Azure services, the platform has maintained its integrity and popularity.

Azure Services List

Azure Active Directory

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is a cloud-based identity and access management service. It helps businesses manage employee accounts and control access to company data.

Azure Storage

Azure Storage is a cloud-based storage service that helps businesses store and manage data. Azure Storage offers three types of storage i.e., blob storage, file storage, and queue storage.

Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database is a cloud-based relational database service that helps businesses to store and query data. Basic and Standard editions are offered by Azure SQL Database.

Azure App Service

Azure App Service is a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that helps businesses build and deploy web applications. Azure App Service offers three plans: Basic, Standard, and Premium.

Azure Virtual Network

Azure Virtual Network (Azure VNet) is a cloud-based networking service that helps businesses connect their resources to the internet. Azure VNet offers three types of networks: public, private, and hybrid.

Azure CDN

Azure Content Delivery Network (Azure CDN) is a global content delivery network that helps businesses improve the performance of their websites and applications by caching static content in Edge Locations around the world.

Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed database service that helps businesses store and query data at scale. The consistency levels that are offered by CosmosDB are: Strong, Bounded Staleness, Session, Consistent Prefix, and Eventual.

SQL Data Warehouse

SQL Data Warehouse is a cloud-based data warehousing service that helps businesses build scalable data warehouses for reporting and analytics. SQL Data Warehouse offers two tiers: Standard and Enterprise.

HDInsight

HDInsight is a cloud-based Hadoop service that helps businesses process large amounts of data using the MapReduce programming model. HDInsight supports both Microsoft distributions and Hortonworks distributions.

Machine Learning Studio

Machine Learning Studio is a cloud-based machine learning service that helps businesses build predictive models without coding. Machine Learning Studio offers two editions: Free and Standard. By becoming familiar with these common Azure services, you can tailor your use of Azure to best meet the needs of your business. In addition, you may want to consider pursuing an Azure certification to further demonstrate your expertise in using this popular cloud-computing platform.

With Azure’s design on a Security Development Lifecycle, security facilities related to core Azure services are obvious. Efficient operating and data protection on the Azure cloud is, therefore, a beneficial consideration for companies. Azure’s SQL and NoSQL application tools, along with in-built resources for deeper analysis of accessible data are admirable. Therefore, it is easier to discover insights into company operations and decision-making. Microsoft Azure does have a very simple learning curve, which enhances Azure’s demand for the services.

Finally, Azure’s pay-as-you-go platform guarantees cost-effectiveness by leveraging the resources it provides. In addition, cost savings in the form of savings in network management and IT administration propel the implementation of the Azure services.

Summary

If you are just getting started with Microsoft, even the top Azure services can sound overwhelming. There are services other than those listed above such as VNet, Front Door, Azure Backup, and StorSimple. These services are important for organizations to scale up their enterprise through virtual platforms.

Before you choose to go ahead with Microsoft Azure for your business, it is also important to assess your requirements before choosing a set of Azure services. Based on your needs, you can pick from the best-rated top Azure services or try out others from approximately 600 securely available Azure services.

 

What is a Virtual Machine in Azure? Explore Types & Uses of Virtual Machine

 

Azure Virtual Machine: An Overview

Azure Virtual Machines are on-demand computing resources or virtual machines offering of Microsoft Azure. With Azure Virtual Machines we get more control over the environment to customize the development environment or hosting. We'll explore more about What is a Virtual Machine?, Why use Virtual Machines?, What are the uses of Virtual Machines and many more in this Azure Tutorial. To make things easier for you, ScholarHat brings a comprehensive skill-oriented Azure Certification to the nitty-gritty of the Azure.

What is a Virtual Machine in Azure?

A Virtual machine is a ready-made computer system that has been made available by Visualization concept. That means, a VM is a copy of some part of shared resource in a data center to be optimized and used according to the need. We can install operating system of our choice, configure networks to connect and use shared storage. We can typically use a VM as a service when required and shut down the system when not in use. The Azure Virtual Machines are listed under Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) category in Azure. In fact, the concept behind the Azure Virtual Machine is the same that runs the entire cloud platform – Virtualization.

Virtualization - This is the same as it sounds- the process of sharing resources like compute, Storage, network and cloud service so that it is virtually available. We can create a virtual machine (VM) in our own system too by sharing the Hardware configurations. Similarly, in large data centres, Cloud service providers share some physical servers to be made available to many cloud service consumers by the process called virtualization. Azure VMs are part of hardware virtualization. An advanced topic will be discussed in a separate section for software virtualization called Containerization.

Why Azure Virtual Machine?

It is always a question in the mind of developer to choose between Azure PaaS Services and Azure IaaS Services to build and develop cloud-based solutions that allows to make use of best features in Azure. In such scenarios, it is important to understand the capabilities of Azure IaaS and Azure PaaS. Having learnt already about the Azure PaaS section in previous articles, let us try to understand some features and capabilities of Azure VMs

1. More Control – With Azure VMs, Developer have more control over the development environment which is very helpful in case of building a highly secured architecture for a complex solution. Developers can choose operating system, Networking, Storage connections etc. to build a sandbox solution.

2. Easy Diagnostics – Azure VMs provides the facility to troubleshoot issues with options like remote debugging, event logs, IIS logs, application logs etc.

3. Alerts – We can trigger actions and alerts based on metrics of computing resources consumed by VM.

4. Pricing – We can shut down and stop the VMs if not in use. A stopped VM will not incur any charge. Restarting the VM will maintains its state based on persistent disks.

5. Scaling – We can scale up/down and out/In the Virtual machines. Auto scale feature is also there to support based on some metrics. For example, scale out to 5 instances when CPU utilization is greater than 70% for more than 5 minutes.

6. Scale Sets – Virtual Machine Scale Sets are group of VMs with identical configuration and will be managed by a load balancer.

Virtual Machine Size

In Azure Portal, we can create a VM from the available list of the pre-loaded Operating system from the marketplace like Windows Virtual machine, Linux Virtual machine. Both Windows and Linux virtual machines have similar size and type of VMs available in the marketplace.

Types of Azure Virtual Machine

1. General purpose – Sizes: Av2, B, Dv2, Dv3, DSv2, Dsv3 These sizes of Azure VMs are generally used for small or medium traffic web servers and can be used as a development or test environment. It has a balanced CPU to memory ratio.

2. Compute optimized - Sizes: F, Fs, FSv2 This category is optimized for running heavy background work loads. This size group is suitable for medium traffic web server and has high CPU to memory ratio.

3. Memory Optimized – Sizes: Ev3, ESv3, G, M, GS These VMs have High memory to CPU ratio and recommended for relational databases and in memory analytics.

4. Storage Optimized – Size: Ls This VM category is suitable for large databases like No SQL and Big Data storage. It has high through put and IO operations.

5. GPU optimized -Sizes: NV, NC, NCv2, NCv3 GPU optimized VM sizes are specialized virtual machines available for high density graphical rendering work or video editing. These sizes are designed for compute-intensive, graphics-intensive, and visualization workloads.

6. High Performance – Size H This is the highest power category VM with highest throughput and network interfaces.

Virtual Machine Prices

Azure VM has two kind of pricing modals - Pay as you Go and Reserved Virtual machine Instance.

1. Pay as you Go – This modal charge only for the time compute resource like Azure VM is used. It does not have any long-term commitment or any fixed monthly charges. We can scale out or even stop the VM in order to utilize efficiently and reduce bills.This kind of plan works for short term projects with un-predictable business requirements. Developers try out the stability of application in this plan.

2. Reserved Instances – This plan brings an advanced purchase option for a reserved VM instance for a period of 1 or 3 years. With this, users get up to 72 % price savings than pay as you go plan. Reserved Virtual machines can easily be replaced with another one in case of any downgrade in performance. This plan suits with stable traffic on applications deployed on Azure VM. Software development with the fixed budget can prefer having a reserved Azure VM.

Important Information

Currently, Azure has put a default quota limit of 20 for the number of Azure VMs per subscription in a specific region. This should be kept in mind while architecting complex solutions. This can be further increased by raising a support ticket.

Virtual Machine Architecture

Azure VM is actually dependent on many other components. Lets deep dive into the Architecture.

Source: docs.microsoft.com

Resource Group – A resource group a logical container for all related resources based on the lifetime of resources. This also helps to provide access to users for a particular set of resources attached to same resource group.

Virtual machine - This can be created in Azure by portal, PowerShell or Azure CLI from the list of published images or by a custom image VHD file uploaded into Azure Blob.

Temporary disk -The VM also has a temporary disk stored on a physical drive on the host machine. It is not persisted during reboot events.

Virtual network – VMs can be deployed in a separate Virtual network (VNet) that can be divided into multiple subnets to support different layers of application architecture. Each Subnet should be associated with different Network Security Group (NSG) with defined inbound and outbound rules which takes care of allowing or denying web traffic.

Network Interface – The Network Interface (NIC) allows the VM to be configured for the Virtual Network.

Public IP – A public IP address is by default added with a VM. This is used to communicate with VM from outside like Remote Desktop.

VM Availability Sets

In order to ensure high availability of Azure VM Solutions, there is a unique feature called Availability Sets. This manages the VMs by deploying them in different cluster nodes in data centers. To understand Virtual Machine Availability Sets, we need to first understand these two terms

1. Fault Domain

   A set of racks in a data centre that has a common power source. This means that if the power supply goes off, the VMs deployed in those set of racks will shut down. Like how we organize bookshelves in a library, a particular shelveset for a particular section of books can be considered to a fault domain.

2. Update Domain

   One rack in a Fault domain is called update domain. This can be considered as one unit in a cabinet of hardware or one unit of the subsection in a book shelve. Multiple update domains are part of a fault domain. If the power goes off for the fault domain, the update domains automatically go down.

To meet the SLA of 99.95%, it is recommended to group one or more virtual machines in an Availability Set. This ensures that in case of planned or unplanned maintenance activities, at least one VM is up and running. By default, Azure deploys the virtual machines in an availability set in 3 Fault domains and 5 update domains. We can configure it to use up to 20 update domains. It is recommended to have different availability sets for web servers and API servers. We cannot assign existing VMs to an Availability Set. We should first create an availability set and then while creating VMs we should associate Availability Sets to VMs.

Scaling

We can perform scale up/down and Scale out/in operations on virtual machines.

Vertical Scaling

In vertical scaling, the size of the VM is changed. Scale up for VMs is to upgrade the size of VM to a higher level. This will require reboot of the system and that will have an outage. Similarly, scale down of VM instance is to downgrade the size of VM.

Horizontal Scaling

Horizontal scaling means increasing or decreasing the number of VM instances. For Scale-out operation of VM, we can add another similar configuration VM instance and add a load balancer to distribute the incoming HTTP requests. This kind of scaling is well supported with Virtual machine Scale Sets. For Scale-In, VM instances are removed. It is easy to manage VMs with Scale sets as VMs can be created on demand or scheduled time from a central configuration. A load balancer will automatically be created and integrated. This also takes care of deploying multiple VMs across Availability sets.

5 Uses of Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines can be useful in many ways such as the following cases:

1. Development and Testing- Virtual Machines help the developers in building, testing and debugging software applications by providing them with a sandboxed environment. And it even ensures that it doesn't affect their local machines.
2. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)- VMs also favors businesses in scaling their infrastructure quickly and a reduced hardware costs as it gives them ground for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions.
3. Disaster Recovery- It provides easy disaster recovery options that help a lot by providing replication and failover of critical workloads.
4. Scalability- VMs provide rapid scalability to users so whenever more capacity and capabilities are required, they don't have to go and buy additional hardware.
5. Testing Environment- With the help of VMs, organizations can easily test their software updates for software quality assurance through the isolated testing environments.