Cloud platforms are available from various vendors, including Amazon, IBM, and Google. But Microsoft Azure might be the best choice...
1: Familiarity of Windows
Azure is based on Windows, so you can write applications in the same
programming languages you've used for Windows apps: Visual Basic, C++, C#, etc.
and their respected tools. This makes it easy for organizations to find
developers who already have the skills to create applications for the Azure
platform. And because the Azure environment is much like the standard Windows
environment.
2: 64-bit Windows VMs
Applications running on Azure run in virtual machines, with each
instance of the app running in its own VM on the 64-bit Windows Server 2008
operating system. The hypervisor on which they run is designed specifically for
the cloud. You don't have to supply your own VMs or deal with managing and
maintaining the OS because apps are developed using Web role instances or
worker role instances that run in their own VMs.
3: Azure SDK
Microsoft provides the Windows Azure software development kit (SDK),
which includes a version of the Azure environment you can run on your own
computer. It's called the Windows Azure Development Fabric, and it includes the
Azure agent and storage.
4: Scalability and flexibility
Using Azure, you can easily create applications that run reliably and
scale from 10 to 10 thousand or even 10 million users -- without any additional
coding. Azure Storage provides scalable, secure, performance-efficient storage
services in the cloud.
After you create a Web app, you can specify the number of processors for
the application to use. If the application needs to scale up to meet growing
demand, it's easy to change the settings to use more processors.
5: Cost benefits and pricing model
The cost of creating, testing, debugging, and distributing Web-based
applications goes down because you have to pay only for the computer processing
time and storage space you need at a given time.
Windows Azure pricing will be based on consumption, with a per-hour fee
that's dependent on the size of the instance for Azure computing services and
per-month or per-transaction fees for Azure storage services based on data
size.
6: Data center in the cloud
SQL Azure provides organizations with all the benefits of an
enterprise-class data center without the hassle, headaches, and cost of
maintaining such an entity. You get high availability and reliability with
redundant copies of your data and automatic failover. No more worries about
backing up data yourself.
It's a relational database model that stores data in the same manner as
SQL Server (tables, indexes, views) and thus will be familiar to Windows DBAs,
but your SQL Azure Server is spread across multiple physical computers for more
flexibility. For information about the differences between SQL Azure and SQL
Server, see Similarities and Differences - SQL Azure vs. SQL Server.
7: Support resources
Because Azure uses the same familiar tools and technologies as other
Windows platforms, you can take advantage of the well-established support
structure within Microsoft and company-provided resources, such as TechNet and
MSDN, along with the huge ecosystem of Windows developers outside the company.
There will always be someone to turn to when you have questions or problems.
8: Interoperability
With Azure, you can develop hybrid applications that allow your
on-premises applications to use cloud services, such as the cloud database and
storage services. Communications services work between on-premises applications
and the cloud, as well as mobile devices.
Azure supports open standards and Internet protocols, such as HTTP, XML,
SOAP, and REST. There are SDKs for Java, PHP, and Ruby, for applications
written in those languages, and Azure tools for Eclipse.
9: Security
Knowing that security is one of the biggest concerns for companies
considering a move to the cloud, Microsoft designed Azure with security in
mind. The .NET Access Control Service provides a way to integrate identities,
and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) tokens are used by applications
to determine whether a user is allowed access. Microsoft has designed its
compliance framework to meet regulatory requirements. For more details, see my
article Microsoft Azure: Security in the
Cloud.
10: Something for everyone
Windows Azure can benefit hosting providers, ISVs, systems integrators,
and custom software developers. Hosting providers can expand their services to
areas where they don't have existing infrastructure and add new services
without more infrastructure investment. ISVs can use Azure to create, deploy,
and manage Web apps and SaaS without large capital expenditures, and they can
scale those applications more quickly and cost effectively. Systems integrators
can take advantage of Azure's ability to work with existing on-premise
infrastructures. Custom software developers can create software solutions for
customers who can't afford the costs of in-house development, including
hardware costs, and they can deliver their applications to customers as
services without building and maintaining an expensive data center.
Reference taken from Deb Shinder's blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment