What is Microsoft Azure and What is it used for?
Deepanshu Budhija
Helping Network Engineers Worldwide! Career Counselling, Placements, & Investing. 31k+ followers
Introduction
With evolving technologies, cloud computing platforms are rapidly growing across all industries, serving as the IT infrastructure that drives new digital businesses. Companies are rejecting bulky servers and expensive software licenses and adopting cloud platforms because they are more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective. When we talk about cloud computing platforms there are many options available such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP, and more. However, in this blog, we will talk about Microsoft Azure which is one of the leading names in cloud computing. It streamlines your organization’s operations, cuts costs, and promotes innovation, making it an ideal cloud solution for your organization.
As we prepare to explore the depths of Microsoft Azure, let’s acknowledge the importance of building a strong foundation. To empower you on this journey, we recommend our Microsoft Azure Combo training program.
In this blog, we will take an in-depth look at Microsoft Azure and clear up all the misconceptions you may have in your professional journey, but before going into more details, let’s take a look at what it actually is.
What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that was launched on February 1, 2010 and is available as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It is a collection of integrated services for building, deploying, and hosting applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres.
It has revolutionized the way businesses operate and made processes easier. It allows you to access and manage cloud services and resources provided by Microsoft. You can store and modify your data according to your requirements with these services and resources. It’s free to start and it follows a pay-per-use model, meaning you only pay for the services you choose.
After knowing what is it, now it is time to discuss what Azure is used for.
What is Azure used for?
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services. Businesses use it for many things from building and deploying web apps to storing data and running analytics. It offers scalability and flexibility, allowing you to adjust resources as per your needs, making it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. Here are some use cases:
Let’s now understand the certification path of Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Azure Certification Path
To utilize the resources of the Azure cloud, businesses look for certified professionals. In other words, employers look for people who have the skills to design, build, maintain, and troubleshoot their business infrastructure. With the increasing adoption of this cloud technology, the demand for certified professionals is also increasing. Therefore, to meet the expectations of these roles and remain competitive in this field, many cloud professionals go for Azure certifications.
Microsoft Azure offers various certifications that are categorized into four levels:
These certifications validate your expertise in the cloud. It is completely focused on developing knowledge and skills related to current market job roles.
If you are looking to pursue a career in the cloud industry, the Azure certification path we have discussed below helps you understand what you really need.
Fundamentals Certification
If you’re new to Azure or have no prior experience, start with Fundamentals certification based on your domain. This proves that you have basic knowledge of cloud services and the platform. With these certificates, non-technical individuals can also begin their cloud adventure.
Some fundamental certifications are –
Associate Certification
If you have basic knowledge of Azure, you are ready to earn the Associate certifications. It verifies your ability to deploy, manage, and monitor Azure solutions.
Some associate certifications are –
Expert Certification
If you have associate level knowledge, prior experience, and in-depth understanding of Azure, you can earn Expert certification. It proves that you have the skills to design and implement complex cloud solutions.
Some expert certifications are –
Specialty Certification
If you want to specialize in a specific area of Azure, these certifications are options for you. It is recommended to know the fundamentals of Azure to obtain these certifications.
Some specialty certifications are –
Note: The recommended certification path typically starts at the fundamental level, then moves to the associate level, and then to the expert or specialization level, depending on your career goals.
How to learn Azure?
Here are some sources with which you can start your learning path and become a Microsoft Azure Certified Professional:
Azure Architecture
Azure architecture is a new approach to developing cloud apps and services. It helps you design the right cloud solution for your business. It forces you to think about how your solution will work throughout its lifecycle and covers the concepts and components that create a scalable, reliable, and secure cloud application. The architecture follows a distributed model in which resources are deployed in different data centres and regions worldwide. Organizations use this architecture because it is cost-effective, quick, and flexible.
The above diagram shows two operating regions which are primary and secondary regions. Additionally, various components and services are deployed in these regions.
If we talk about primary region, it works for basic needs by operating applications. It includes the Web tier, SQL Server, Bastion, Business tier, and Active Directory. SQL forwards an asynchronous replication to the secondary region which is called virtual network peering. Whereas the secondary zone filters everything through the portal. Thus, Azure is said to be based on a cloud network.
After understanding the architecture now let’s look at monitoring tools.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Azure Monitoring Tools
If you want to understand how your Azure resources are behaving, Azure monitoring tools help you with this. In other words, these tools collect data on application performance, resource usage, and security, giving you a central location to understand how your Azure resources are behaving. These tools help you understand how your applications are performing and proactively identify issues affecting them and the resources they depend on.
In the cloud, monitoring involves capturing, analyzing, and interpreting metrics and logs generated by your Azure-based services, resources, and processes. The data can be processed to perform various tasks such as analysis, visualization, alerting, automation, and integration. With these tools, you will perform cloud cost monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, database monitoring, server monitoring, and more.
Some of the Azure monitoring tools are:
Azure Pipelines
Azure Pipelines is Microsoft’s cloud-based solution that automatically creates and tests code projects. It works with every major language and kind of project. You can develop, test, and send your code to any location using a combination of continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous testing. It also provides an efficient and secure way to automate builds and make them available to end users. Additionally, it is one of the key services that make up Azure DevOps.
Let’s now understand Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Continuous Testing.
Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration (CI) is a practice used by development teams to automate, merge, and test code. CI helps detect problems early in the development cycle, making them less expensive to fix. Automated tests are executed as part of the CI process to ensure quality. CI systems generate artifacts, which are included in the release protocol to facilitate continuous deployment.
Continuous Delivery
Continuous Delivery (CD) is the process of developing, testing, and releasing code to one or more test and production environments. Testing and deploying in several environments improves quality. Automated release processes consume these artifacts to release new versions and improve existing systems. Systems that monitor and send alerts run continuously to increase visibility into the entire CD process.
Continuous Testing
Whether your app is on-premises or in the cloud, you can automate the build-deploy-test workflow and select technologies and frameworks. After that, you can continuously test your changes in a fast, scalable, and efficient manner.
Azure Security Center
Security is especially important in the cloud, and it must provide accurate and timely information about potential security threats. Now, security and audit are integrated into Security Center. Security Center is a security management tool that allows you to gain insight into your security posture in hybrid cloud workloads, reduce the risk of attacks, and quickly respond to detected threats. It integrates with solutions like Azure Policy, Monitor Logs, and Cloud App Security for deeper security.
Furthermore, it is a platform for end-to-end security administration in hybrid cloud systems. Administrators use the Management Portal to gain access to Security Center. Numerous security tools are available to them in the Security Center with the goal of stopping, identifying, and handling possible security risks to their deployment. To access the Security Center, organizations need to have an Azure subscription. It can help in improving the security status of the environment, providing protection from contemporary threats and quickly strengthening the environment.
Azure Functions
Azure Functions is a serverless solution offered by Microsoft that allows developers to create and deploy event-driven, scalable applications without the need to manage infrastructure. It saves money, reduces infrastructure maintenance and requires less code writing. You focus on the code that matters most to you, in the language that is most productive for you, and Azure Functions handles the rest.
Reusability, sharing, decoupling, and high throughput can all be accomplished with Functions. Since it is more reliable, it can also be used in production settings. Additionally, Functions can be written in multiple languages such as C#, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python.
Azure Databricks
A single, open analytics platform called Azure Databricks allows users to create, implement, share, and manage enterprise-class data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications at large scale. It integrates with Storage and compute resources like Data Lake Store, Azure Blob Storage, SQL, HDInsights, and Data Warehouse. It enables faster collaboration between data scientists, data engineers and business analysts through the Databricks platform.
Furthermore, it supports Python, Scala, R, and SQL for building big data analytics and AI solutions and some libraries like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Scikit-Learn for deep learning.
Azure Active Directory (Microsoft Entra ID)
Azure Active Directory, currently known as Microsoft Entra ID. It is a Microsoft cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) service that helps your employees sign in and access resources:
External resources, such as Azure Portal, Microsoft Office 365, and thousands of other SaaS applications.
Internal resources, such as apps on your corporate network and intranet, as well as any cloud apps developed by your own organization.
AWS vs Azure
Now most people are confused about which is better between AWS and Azure. Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are the top two leading names in the cloud computing field.
If we talk about the difference between the two, then the main difference is that AWS is provided by Amazon. While Azure cloud services are provided by Microsoft.
The decision of which one is better is based on the needs of the organization. In other words, if a company needs a powerful Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider or Windows integration, Azure would be the best choice. Whereas if an enterprise is looking for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or a diverse set of tools, then AWS may be the best solution.
What are the Job roles in Microsoft Azure?
There are many different job roles after Microsoft Azure certification covering different areas of cloud computing expertise.
Here are some of the most common ones:
Azure Salary in India
Salaries for Azure-certified professionals in India may vary depending on the specific role, experience level, location, and company. Depending on these factors, the average salary can range from 3.5 LPA to 8 LPA. Salaries can increase further once you move up to more senior-level positions, specific roles, and experience.
Conclusion
In this blog, we discussed all about Microsoft Azure. It is one of the largest cloud service providers and is adopted by many companies around the world. This increase in the implementation of Azure by businesses is creating many opportunities for professionals versed in this technology. So, gaining skills in this cloud technology will definitely take you ahead in the field of cloud computing.
Wishing you all the best in your endeavors, and I hope this guide has been informative and helpful for you!
Ready to dive deeper into Azure? Enroll in our Azure Combo Training (Microsoft AZ 900 and AZ 104) starting on 20th July 2024 at 5 PM IST/7:30 AM EST.
✅ For more details, regarding the training batches, contact Mr. Nitish at +91-9821215002 or WhatsApp directly at https://wa.link/jidgsi.
Hurry Up, and book your seat now!
Technical Excellence Partner - Network Security
5moVidhi Chaudhary